Still wondering: Where It All Goes!

[canesisters]

I got several storage totes of rabbit/donkey/chicken. I suppose any fresh manure will work. I wish I had gotten busy and done that again this year. I've got 2 piles that haven't changed very much over this winter.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Any kind of manure works, but they say don’t use cat or dog.


I notice a correlation in how fast my pile drops and how much water I put in (within limits). That’s during the warm months, not now. Now nothing seems to help. You don’t want it wet, you want it damp. If it is wet oxygen can’t get to it and it goes anaerobic. That’s when it gets slimy and stinky. If it gets too dry it doesn't break down.

 

[digitS']

Cane' is getting it down to a science! You see on this thing, I just bury about what I think should be good and go back to get it later and find it has dwindled to nothing!

I don't know if I have said it but I put nothing cooked and no meat from the kitchen, cooked or not, in the compost. THAT has to do with critters getting in the compost - especially dogs. Dogs have no interest in my compost pits. And, they are pits because of the dry conditions here, primarily

Now, if I was to put meat in there . . . some "powdered chicken" in with some old hay or something. Powdered chicken??! Anybody could come up with some old hay or straw or pine needles or whatever they would be willing to put in their vehicle and haul off to the garden. But, powdered chicken!?

Sure. That is exactly what is in some bagged organic fertilizers. Feather meal, blood meal, chicken byproducts . . . what do you suppose that is? It is all High Nitrogen material.

So is chicken "manure" - well, it is fairly high nitrogen, cow manure is less so, I'm not sure if I should call it "high" and horse manure can be downright "low nitrogen." That would especially be true if the stables were cleaned too often and that "lower nitrogen" horse manure was coming with a boatload of wood shavings! Might take forever to compost.

Balance, AMKuska. They say that a good balance is 30 parts Carbon to 1 part Nitrogen. So, all things being kept simple: how about 30 pounds of old hay and 1 pound of ground chicken? Get it wet, keep it a little aerated and it should all rot down to compost in a couple months.

Don't want to use ground chicken? How about 2 pounds of chicken manure? How about 4 pounds of cow manure or 8 pounds of horse manure? Can't be wet, soggy pounds - about as dry as the hay. Just damp after you wet it down.

Wet - you may not have much trouble with over there on the "wet-side." As RidgeRunner says .

Oh, it can't start off frozen! That is the situation for me here at home. I now have 3, 5-gallon buckets of "kitchen trimmings" hidden behind the chicken coop! Everything is frozen solid. I checked under the board deck outside the coop and under the greenhouse deck yesterday - those are the places I have for my stealth compost pits here at home. I don't know if I could break thru the soil covering that compost with a pick!

I've got those 3 buckets of compostables AND I'd like to clean that little coop. The shavings in there are good and "dirty." Those kitchen trimmings are fairly high nitrogen -- all that should make quick compost if it would warm up enough to allow the soil critters to start working on it. A new composting season awaits!

Steve

 

[AMKuska]

Well I have at least a pound of feathers from trimming chicken wings...would that work?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yep, just bury them so they don't blow away.

 

[buckabucka]

I do get compost eventually, but have such a hard time with it!

There are three bins. My intention is to fill one bin, and then turn it into an empty bin to aerate it. Every day I dump a bucket of chicken manure with wood shavings into the bin, plus kitchen scraps, etc., but it is piled very high right now, frozen solid and mixed with snow.

In the spring, I will have tons of weeds I've pulled, and raspberry canes which make it impossible to turn the pile (I've started throwing them into the woods now). At some point, the weeds in the pile take off, and at least one of the bins turns to lawn.

I seem to have all nitrogen and no carbon. Last year it was an anaerobic mess. I do have one pile that was looking pretty good by the end of fall, so I'll add that pile to the garden this spring.

We also have a periodic problem with rats in our compost. Compost is my most challenging garden task.

 

[digitS']

Remember, I had it piled high above the soil surface in the fall of 2012.

I took nothing out of that 8" deep pit (4' by 10') and "filled" it again and again in 2013. By "filled" I mean that I dug it out and piled in fresh compostables and covered it again - so high, the compost was nearly falling off the fresh compostables! Repeatedly, I did this. Nothing has come out. Here it is today:



From volunteer bluegrass to the hawkweed on the other side, my spading fork is level with the soil surface. I'm worried that I will have another year without sufficient compost to hill my 100 square foot potato patch! I guess I could haul stuff from home out of my "stealth compost pits." May have no choice . . .

Steve