View Full Version : Have you had success composting?
I've done some informal composing, mostly just piling some stick free organics from yard clean up in corner. It seems like it takes forever to decompose, though I've not made a science of it. I'd like to start putting some kitchen scraps, coffee grounds and the like into the pile, but don't want a smelly decomposing mass that lingers on and that might attract vermin. Here in Colorado we have cold winters and dry summers with cool evenings. The few friends I've talked with have had little success with the active composing that actually heats up and decomposes fast. Any tips for me?
I'm probably not into buying some fancy bin, but willing to cobble something together if it would help.
I love composting, but now that our city (Seattle) picks up compost, I've handed it over to them so my yard can have more garden.
Yours sounds anaerobic, which you can remedy with a bin and some protection, as well as properly layering your kitchen scraps with leaves. There are several good books on how to compost, and I'd recommend you contact your local extension agent for area specific information.
We have voles in our garden and in our compost but over a season, all the weeds break down and make lovely compost with lots of red worms at the base doing the work. They work quite fast but I don't think that we get the high temps needed for weed seed control. I am happy with the red worm efforts but they may not tolerate your growing conditions.
It rarely smells unless it lacks air for oxygen. We poke a special rotator into it and stir it up or simply take a fork and flip some of it and it is fine again.
This winter, we have a possum living nearby that just loves the compost judging by the tracks back and forth.
Critters are part of gardens, it seems.
Compost piles do need moisture and variations of green and brown material to speed breakdown.
Generally, compost wants to be, and piling organic matter in a corner will get there sooner or later. It will go faster if:
* the pile is about 3ft wide x 3ft high x any length - this is where a bin helps to hold the pile together and keep the heat
* the pile is consistently damp (this may be your problem - if it dries out, nothing happens) but not soggy
* it has a good ratio of "browns" (high carbon: dry leaves, paper, straw, sawdust etc) to "greens" (high nitrogen: kitchen scraps, grass clippings, manure, urine, fresh weeds and leaves). You need more browns than greens.
Yours may dry out in the summer and freeze during the winter, only working during spring and fall.
An easy bin is made from 4 pallets, wired together at the corners. Open one side for easy access.
We have big compost piles, it's more DH's schtick than mine.
While I love compost, I turn my plant materials into the city's lawn waste dumpsters and let the city cook it down to beeeeeyoutiful rich black compost, then I pick it up in my truck when it's done cooking. I find their compost better quality, fully broken down, when compared to DH's homemade operation. Sometimes he's got plant material that is downright slimy and icky. Compost should be gorgeously rich and crumbly and earthy smelling and attractive. Besides, DH will not share with me so it's just as well I don't like his product.:)
What really has helped my compost pile is all the chicken manure and bedding. We also have tons of leaf piles that are in big wire bins around the property. They eventually turn into wonderful compost, but it does take years.
We've had a haphazard composting pile for years. Piedmont Maryland, high humidity, cold- well cool winters and hot summers. We put in leaves, kitchen scraps ( stopped with meat and dairy dumping mainly for fear of skunks and bears) - It takes a while, but the compost is nice. We moved the pile and used the old pile area for tomatoes the last two years. ( The volunteer tomatoes were doing better than the planted plants.) It never smells and most things break down eventually. Stir it around and in Colorado you might need to add water- maybe gray water from the kitchen sink. I just keep a dishpan for extra water.
treehugger
2-22-11, 1:08pm
I do the lazy person's kind of composting, with the end goal mostly being to keep as much out of the landfill as possible. And in that, I'm successful since I compost all my kitchen scraps (including egg shells and egg cartons, coffee and coffee filters, tea bags, all the usual things).
I don't really garden (except a small vegetable plot in summer), so I don't have a lot of clippings to add to the pile, and therefore, I also don't really pay attention to what is the end product of my composting efforts. But, like Alan said, "Generally, compost wants to be, and piling organic matter in a corner will get there sooner or later."
In Colorado, it's likely that you'll need to water the compost in the summer. That was the secret to composting in Arizona - otherwise, you just had a pile of dried kitchen and yard waste.
We live in the Great White North, so I know all about the acute variations in temperatures, however composting has been a wonderful thing for us. It is slow, but knowing we always have a place where we can freely dump vegetable and fruit peelings and kitchen scraps is a bonus.
My husband made our compost bin out of large planks. He dug down (into the ground) and secured four heavy wooden corner posts/braces, then framed up the sides with planks. It's sturdy and built to last. The front is slightly lower in height to allow for easy access (dumping, turning), and although we don't have problems with critters a plywood lid could easily be added.
We turn ours once or twice each month and monitor how dry/wet it is. Once you get into the swing of it and work out all the wrinkles and crinkles, it's all good! If you have any other question please feel free asking, I'll do my best to pass along any information or helpful advice I have to make composting more rewarding for you.
I once composted in a 5 gallon pickle barrel in the side yard by my tiny condo. If I had rememebered to stir it often enough it would still be going.
Rogar. One other thing I'd like to mention Re: composting, is that sometimes (springtime) even if compost scraps and things haven't yet been transformed into actual compost, we'll still use the bins richness (goodness) to kick start our gardens growing season. A win- win situation it is. No compost, no goodness...
even if compost scraps and things haven't yet been transformed into actual compost, we'll still use the bins richness (goodness) to kick start our gardens growing season.
Me too. In fall I layer the compost barrel contents over the garden (less any real big unbroken down pieces which I throw back in the barrel), then turn over the sod in the spring. It's not the nice stuff Iris Lily writes about, but I think it does help the garden.
The compost should be damp like a wrung out sponge - I have heard urine has some good qualities in it to kickstart the composting process if you are in for more adventure than water supplies!
I live in Colorado (about 7500 ft) also and compost like crazy. Of course, in the winter not much happens, but with a little reading up on what makes the pile cook well, I've managed to get some really amazing compost out of kitchen scraps, garden waste, straw, my neighbor's chicken manure, spent grains/hops from my husband's brewery, etc. The garden just thrives because of it. I'd advise checking out the book "Let It Rot" from the library for a quick thumb-through. It can give you some tips on simple things to do to make it work better for you.
Originally posted by Yppej.
I have heard urine has some good qualities in it to kickstart the composting process if you are in for more adventure than water supplies!Wow, this is a new one on me. Never heard of it before. Thanks for mentioning it.
I am a very lazy composter, but it works here in Illinois.
~I have a 5 gallon plastic container in the fridge where we put kitchen scraps. (Having it handy keeps the kids on board and keeps the smell down)
~once a week one of the kids dumps the refrigerator container into the outdoor compost bin. (have had chicken wire/ black plastic manufacturered-no preference)
~add yard weeds when I have time to weed
~no other interference, about 1-2 years later: presto the lovely black moist stuff IL mentions.
I put it in parts of the yard that have developed depressions/ need nutrient help. I don't buy fertilizer....'course my yard looks like crap.....but it's organic!!!!
Appreciate all of the information! I think some of the mystery of composing in my climate has been identified. I will check out the book, Let It Rot. You know, the other issue I've had that I think I've corrected is the seeds from weeds. Anymore I never put weeds in my informal compost. I've applied compost soil to my garden and spent half the summer weeding out the start ups from my compost weeds.
Hi Rogar. That's the thing about composting, it's all open, open to how one wants to involve themselves with it. For example, it can be lovingly embraced as the plain simple composting process we all know it as being, or you can turn it into a hobby of sorts, tweaking and fiddling and meddling with the composition and fine workings of the process to get it to a point of where you want it- exactly. It's all in the approach. :)
We have neighbours who basically do nothing with their compost year round, other than add stuff to it, yet each year around gardening season we'll see them drawing out the end result and putting it to good use. So really, in the big scheme of things, composting is one of those activities where no matter what and how one does things, it all turns out the same (for the most part) in the end. If anything at all it provides a homeowner with self-satisfaction as to affording themselves yet one more alternative and option in the way of transforming old into new again! :)
I know in speaking for myself I'd feel lost without our compost bin. It's become such a permanent fixture of our residence, it's now something I simply cannot do/live without.
I've got a worm bin in the basement for kitchen scraps and a trashcan drilled of holes in the backyard holding most of last fall's leaves. Both work well.
Back to one thing in the original post - I've read coffee grounds don't need to be composted prior to using (mine go to the worms). Is this correct?
I'm extremely lazy in my composting. I have 5 pallets in an E shape. I just toss everything green and brown in to whatever side I'm building up. The chickens help mix things for me and it must be healthy compost. It's always full of big red worms when I pull stuff out of the side that is done. Chickens love it when I go to move our compost from the bin area to the gardens since every shovel full I toss a few worms their way.
Hi Creaker. It's my understanding that coffee grounds can be used immediately in their raw form (composted or not).
We generate so many coffee grounds in our house that we'd have the most wired worms on earth if we direct-feeded :)
It creates such a wonderful texture in the compost -- couldn't quit coffee if I wanted to (though I'm on decaf now)
There's a great thread on the "take back urban homesteading" Facebook page about "you know you're an urban homesteader if...." For me, composting has become such an ingrained (and valuable) habit that I find myself looking at other people who throw food waste in the trash and thinking, "I should just offer to take that home." I'm pretty far gone ;)
I've done a lot of composting over the years. My favorite set-up is U-shaped ring of stronger wire fencing about 3 feet high. These are kept in place by a few metal fence posts stuck into the ground, and concrete blocks to initially help hold the shape of the wire.
Since I live in a dry environment, water is generally the limiting factor so I line the inside of the wire with plastic that can be reused. I'll then just toss finely cut plant matter into it, wetting it as I go. Almost anything works, including ground free mulch from the landfill. Manure if you have it. (Human urine is a good nitrogen source, but I prefer to not use it.) And just about anything else. The finer the better. Keep branches out - that just makes the whole process more difficult.
The contents of the pile need to be moist, not wet. Anaerobic means smelly. A good mixture of greens and browns is best. A good minimum size is about 3'X3'X3'. If you set it up right and it's large enough, the inside of the pile will begin to heat up. This is desirable. It's not unusual to see steam coming from a good pile on cooler days. Only the inside will get hot, and the temps can rise to about 150*F. You can stick a metal rod into it and feel how hot it is. A long-shafted thermometer works best.
This heat is what kills off weed seeds (if you have put things with seeds in your pile). But... the outside foot or so doesn't get hot enough for this to happen.
For things to be composted faster, it's good to turn the pile after it's gotten hot. That will allow oxygen into the center to hasten decomposition. But tha'ts work, and the pile will not reheat to the same high temps after turning, so any weed seeds from the outside don't die. Decomposition will occur without turning, it just takes much longer.
Eventually the earthworks will colonize. Also a good things. If you build it, they will come.
What I now do however is take the easy way... I'll send out my 'green waste' in the trash pick up. The community dump grinds this yard waste up, and we consumers can buy it back in the form of mulch ($40 for a delivered dump truck load - 7 or 8 cubic yards). Or we can pick it up totally free ourselves in our own cars. And coming soon, lovely screened compost, cost currently unknown. I'm really looking forward to that, since this compost will be weed-free - city piles are much larger and hotter than I can get at home.
IMO, getting nicely ground mulch, and soon compost, back from the dump is absolutely wonderful and well worth the cost!!!! Making compost is a great thing, and well worth the effort. I sort of miss doing it, but these days I'd rather spend my time and energy on the plants.
Good morning Puglogic and Gina. Yes indeed, coffee grounds definitely provide for a wonderful added texture to the compost. Great post Gina! Lots of info. The screened compost sounds marvelous!
flowerseverywhere
2-26-11, 8:36am
I live where it gets really cold in the winter. I have a covered old garbage can right outside the back door that we put all non animal kitchen scraps in. Banana peels, coffee grounds, veggie peelings etc. I have another garbage can of leaves from last fall that I layer with the kitchen scraps. When spring comes I take the compost out of the square black bin and put it on my veggie plots. I take the garbage can contents and put it in the black bin. All summer I pay attention to the bin, turning it, making sure it is moist etc. It gets really hot in the summer and is full of worms. I stop adding stuff to the black bin in about September and start up the garbage can again. The garbage can I started last fall is just about full so I'll start on the can that has the rest of the leaves in it. These are old garbage cans that have some holes on the bottom so they are perfect for drainage if a lot of moisture builds up. I think they are pretty well frozen solid right now- I can't usually get the compost out of everything until about mid may.
I use the compost from my community on my flowers but not my veggies. I have no control over the chemicals that go into it, as people love to dump all kinds of crap on their lawns. But I also don't believe many people rake glass clippings so most of the stuff is more like leaves in the community compost.
Neat"o" system Flowerseverywhere. I never tire of hearing about/reading about people's different ways and methods. Always something new and or something new to learn.
Thanks, flowerseverywhere. I think I will try your method next year for sure. We haven't many leaves (we live in a pine/spruce forest) but I can layer straw and even a few pine needles. I'm envisioning what it will look like outside our back door: Single-stream recycling can (huge), trash can (tiny), mouse-proof compost container, and a covered container with dry goods in it, to keep them from getting snowed on and then frozen solid! :)
I too have a "black bin" and this would allow me to move it up by the garden plot, farther from the house, if I didn't have to walk to it every morning.
Wheels spinning.
Oh, come on spring!
P.S. we got a load of spent grain from the brewery and heaped it near the community garden last weekend. I thought it might be frozen (it's been cold here) and so I went down to look at it today. Stuck my hand into the middle of the pile and it was just like a nice hot bathtub. Nature's amazing!
Wherever we have lived I have maintained a compost heap. I have two of the plastic 'Gedye' type bins which I fill up both over a year or so. I've had them for years and years and it's always of great importance to make sure the bins get moved with us, when we move house, which has been at least five times over the last 35 years.
We put vegetable peelings, yoghurt which has gone off, same with milk, general food scraps (without meat), kitty litter, made from recycled paper (without the poo) lawn mowings (lots and lots) coffee grounds, tea bags, plenty of egg shells. I'm always amazed at how many egg shells there are when I harvest the compost to spread around my fruit trees and I just crush them.
I also put in there - shredded paper, all my old phone bills, etc - snails love that and I get all sorts of wildlife in the bin, slaters, spiders, worms and other crawling insects.
When it is very rainy, which it has been lately, the worms come up to the top of the heap and there are handfuls of the delicate creatures and they love whole newspapers which I leave out in the rain and I put on top of the heap every so often. About 20 years ago my husband bought 1000 compost worms and I wonder if some of those have migrated with us as eggs within the compost bins.
The thing I've learnt about compost making is to try to maintain a balance so that the heap is neither too wet or too dry.
I must say that when originally making my garden I used about 20 bales of lucerne hay which disintegrated into the soil within about 6 months.
I love making compost - it feels like I'm helping to maintain and create a bit of Mother Earth.
Another lazy composter here. I use 2 methods: 1) for yard waste, I have a couple of pieces of wire fencing that I made a 2.5-3' diameter circle from and just throw stuff in there, occasionally throwing a scoop or two of dirt on top. Twice a year (spring and fall), I move the circle to a different area of the garden and spread what has decomposed (usually about 1/2 the contents). 2) for kitchen waste, I do have one of those black bin composters. I just throw the stuff in there and let it rot. When the pile inside gets about a foot high or so, I'll move the composter to another area of the vegetable garden, and then just dig a trench and bury the uncomposted stuff. Eventually it decomposes. Sometimes in the fall, when there is blank space in the veggie garden, I'll just dig a hole and put the week's compost directly into the hole.
Once upon a time, I kept all the composting way out in the back of the property. I had the best fed weeds around. Now I compost directly into the garden, so all that goodness doesn't go to waste.
kevinw1 -
I too add straw as a brown ingredient, but I notice that it seems almost unchanged when I use the compost, several months later. Do you know if it still adds carbon, even though it appears not to decompose?
Simplicity
4-18-11, 8:14pm
I just have to share this link with you. It's called Extreme Composting and oh boy is it ever extreme! This guy hauls in yard waste by the truckload; composts cow, horse and other carcasses - it's truly amazing!
http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=342651
Very interesting Simplicity. The heat generated is incredible. Thanks for this.
I use a cheap old garbage can left behind by the previous owner of my house. It has wheels and also had some cracks in it, so I didn't need to do much by way of drilling holes, which is a challenge with hard plastic.
Scraps get tossed into an empty Maxwell House coffee "can" (the blue plastic kind with a handle) and dumped into the compost can when the coffee container runneth over. The compost is doing very nicely this year without even turning it, what with all the organic matter. The first year I tried it, I used *way* too much shredded paper, and it just sat there in a big, ugly lump.
kenh, I don't know why the straw wouldn't decompose if everything else in the pile is doing so. If it doesn't decompose, then at least some of its carbon is not being added to the compost. However, it will decompose eventually, either back in the compost bin if you throw it back in, or in the soil if you put it there.
Does your pile get hot? If not, and you have unrotted "browns", you may not have enough nitrogen in proportion to carbon. You can fix that by adding less browns, or by adding more greens or other nitrogen source such as diluted urine.
Using urine in the compost is a multiple win - you add N to the garden, reduce water use (less flushing), reduce paper use (less wiping), and reduce the stress on sewage treatment facilities.
I just started a worm compost a couple weeks ago. We built a wooden box from scrap wood we purchased from Habitat for Humanity's ReStore here in town. Spent less that $20 on wood, screws, hinges, and handles. And spent $30 on red worms from a local nursery. The worms are supposed to compost the food scraps in 2-3 months. The expense was worth it to me. We keep the box right outside our patio door that is in the kitchen, so I just open the door and lift up the lid and dump my food scraps in as I'm cooking. I enjoy checking out the worms, but I don't think they really like being bothered so much.
Ok this probably doesn't seem to "simple" but I purchased a compost tumbler at costco. Can I say "love it". it's on a stand, it locks, you toss your stuff in and every so often you tumble it. When the compost is done, you tip it, and out tumbles compost!! WALA. I live in the PNW so wet is never a problem, I have found that I can add my shredded office paper and this helps cut down on the moisture. I have a container under the sink to collect all the coffee grounds, and tea bags and wilted lettuce. When it fills up, out it goes. Since I live on a VERY small city lot this has been very helpful!
My next purchase is going to be a rain barrell.
Mrs.B
loosechickens
6-3-11, 12:11am
Bugeah.......the wormies like it best if you put a damp layer of shredded newspaper on top, and just gently lift that layer up a bit to slip the veggies in.......they seem to not like it if you just open the lid and expose them, I've found with ours......the shredded paper seems to give them a little privacy, so they aren't startled when new food offerings come in......and if food is scarce, they will eat that shredded newspaper, too......
We've had a worm bin in the basement storage compartment of the motorhome for years, and the busy wormies turn all our vegetarian kitchen scraps into useful compost.....it really cuts down on the amount of garbage going into the landfill, AND not only that, literally creates a valuable product from that garbage. Hard not to like that!
After further research, we realized that a worm bin will work just fine for us. The only waste we really have is food packaging (plastics) and then chicken bones (we roast the whole chicken, then boil off the bones, skin, etc for bone broth). So, I assume that I could let that go to waste (i don't know of any places where they take compost here). If i can cut packaging down, I will be thrilled. Then we would have *so much less* trash!
We're finally using the compost we made from the waste from my husband's brewery, and I couldn't be more delighted. Earlier this year, we had them dump about 1.5 tons of the stuff in a heap down at our community garden -- big pile, 4 ft tall. We turned it once in March and once in April, incorporating a little bit of straw, needles, leaves, etc. as we did. The pile was incredibly hot (the snow melted off it). Now it's cooled off, and we're using the stuff in our community garden beds: Rich, black, beautiful texture....and free! We're ready for them to bring us another load to be ready in time for Fall. I love this stuff.
Ok this probably doesn't seem to "simple" but I purchased a compost tumbler at costco. Can I say "love it". it's on a stand, it locks, you toss your stuff in and every so often you tumble it. When the compost is done, you tip it, and out tumbles compost!! WALA. I live in the PNW so wet is never a problem, I have found that I can add my shredded office paper and this helps cut down on the moisture. I have a container under the sink to collect all the coffee grounds, and tea bags and wilted lettuce. When it fills up, out it goes. Since I live on a VERY small city lot this has been very helpful!
My next purchase is going to be a rain barrell.
Mrs.B
I have the very same tumbler type bin...I got it for free from someone wanting to get rid of it. So far, it does a good job. Pac NW here too.
rodeosweetheart
6-14-11, 9:54pm
Down here in SC composting goes very quickly. My husband made a pile behind the pumphouse and we throw all kitchen scraps, papers, leaves, etc in there. He threw some dirt on top and in the 9 months we've been here, he's thrown a pack of black beans in twice from the grocery and had lovely bean plants grow up, and he turns them under-- we have mega worms, beautiful crumbly compost, and we started a whole rose garden with it.
We had great compost in Illinois and NY too, so just give it a whirl--the best piles have horse manure, but we don't have access here, and we're still fine.
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