We have made the decision to start composting. No more synthetic chemicals. Allso anticipating a reduction in organic compost deliveries, currently costing $43.00 a yard plus 3 yard minimum, plus delivery charge of $40.00. Got a “passive” compost bin for the outside which ran $62.00 and free delivery from RecycleSmart and also bought a kitchen compost bin for daily stuff. Went to a class last weekend to learn differences between brown (carbon) vesus green (nitrogen) organic matter.
I usually bury my kitchen waste in areas where I plan to expand the garden. But I also have a tumbling composter DH gave me as a gift. I find for the tumbling unit I have to put in a lot of brown (low nitrogen materials) or it gets stinky.
My favorite soil conditioner is leaf mould. I collect dozens of bagged leaves in the fall and let thrm decompose in a large wire bin for two years. It all breaks down and then can be used as mulch or to lighten up the soil.
I have a very informal compost system. We rake the leaves into the back yard. We add the kitchen waste. In the spring, I remove the top of the pile and pull out all the nice compost underneath. No bins, no turning, no sifting, no worrying about what’s green and what’s brown. A bunch of my friends have gotten mulching mowers. They leave most of the leaves on the lawn (they really disappear) and the excess goes on the pile. They are very happy with the results and the ground up leaves decompose much more quickly. In my system it takes at least a year, but I don’t really care.
MidwestSalmon, Your husband gave you a composter as a GIFT? Does that mean YOU do the tumbling? Do you still get a smell with an approximate 50/50 mix of brown to green? Mathmom, out here in the S.F. Bay Area where lots are smaller, I don’t have any larger open areas to do any “compost staging”.
No-fuss composting here. Have a bowl in the kitchen where we collect scraps then add them to the homemade bin constructed of old pallets in the back yard.
Lol! Yes, I do the tumbling. Sometimes my boys do too.
I probably do about 2/3rds leaves and the rest kitchen scraps. Then I let it sit all winter long. No CA winters for us. Just about time to look at it for the first time in several months.
Over the winter I pile up scraps in wired up bin.
I have two tumbling composts bins. I roate them filling one for a year and leaving it to compost while I fill the other one. For leaves, I collect them in the corner in the fall and top it with grass clippings in the spring and summer. It makes the best soil.
I’ve had a few compost failures involving invasive tree roots or bamboo getting into my compost pile. I had thought about getting a tumbler but instead I tried to make one myself by drilling many holes into a plastic trash can. The kind with a locking lid and wheels. You can find a youtube tutorial on how to make these.
The idea is that once it is filled you can roll it around to tumble it and then roll it to wherever you want on its wheels to dump out the compost. My plans were foiled by a yard guy that filled it with twigs. I had to pull them out and start over but it ended up OK. If you make one, put holes in the top and bottom too and water it occasionally.
Now, I’ve moved and I have a community garden plot where we are making raised beds and filling them with compost. I fill a 5 gallon bucket about once a week with kitchen scraps and I also pick up food scraps from a ice cream maker and coffee grounds from a coffee shop. One of the guys there occasionally brings me rabbit poop. It all goes into the plot (one is a square made of 10 concrete blocks, the other is a rectangle made of 16 concrete blocks. They are each three blocks high).
I dump all the stuff in once a week and cover it with mulch or soil conditioner so it doesn’t become a fly factory. It’s taken several months to fill them and I just planted tomatoes right on top. My compost thermometer is registering about 105 degrees about 2 feet down. So far, so good. Now, I need more plots to fill!
My lot isn’t very big, but it’s long there’s a good 30’ behind our detached garage. Our lot is pie shaped - only a tiny bit wider than the house plus a driveway in the front and it shrinks to 14 feet at the rear where I put the compost. However there’s a weird no man’s land back behind my garage that is very untamed. My back neighbors who I never see actually thought it was city land. When I had a smaller more compact yard I did use a compost bin. My system wasn’t much more complicated then either.
When I lived in Germany we had an apartment with about 30 linear feet of window boxes. The previous renter told me she composted coffee grounds and eggshells. Her garden was gorgeous so I kept up her system.
Iglooo, Do you only use leaves and grass clippings?
greenwitch, What’s the ideal temperature range you want winter and summer?
mathmom, Do you need to smash up the eggshells really small, since they are slow to decompost?
@jshain - I’m by no means a compost expert but someone gave me a compost thermometer and this is what it says on the package:
There are three temperature zones: Steady (80 - 100 degrees F), Active (100 - 130 degrees F), and Hot (130 - 160 degrees F).
Steady Zone 80 - 100 degrees F
The collaboration of bugs, worms, and microorganisms are slowly breaking down the rich organic material in the pile. Small compost piles will remain in the Steady Zone until it runs out of fuel or comes too dry. If the inner pile temperature falls to within a few degrees of the ambit air temperature, you may need to add fuel, water, or turn the pile. If the material is dark brown and smells earthy, then the compost is finished.
Active Zone 100 - 130 degrees F
For most backyard piles, this should be the zone you try to keep your pile in for the quickest composting. In this temperature range, mostly all of the composting occurs at the microorganism level. Most insects and worms cannot withstand the heat of the pile and the organic material breaks down by the method of small organisms.
If your pile peaks into the Active Zone, then falls back into the Steady Zone, it is time to turn your pile. Move the material from the outside of the pile to the inside to induce further decomposition. The inside of the pile should be moderately damp. Keep in mind, the hotter your pile is, the more moisture it will lose; if you find dry spots while turning, add water.
Hot Zone 130 - 160 degrees F
Congratulations, you are the envy of backyard com posters everywhere! Only large piles (4’x4’ and larger) can obtain such high temperatures with nitrogen-rich materials such as grass clipping. In this zone, the organic material is breaking down at a rapid rate as tiny microorganisms consume them. Be careful about temperatures exceeding that hot zone. If the temperature climbs above 160 degrees, split the pile in half and water it down. Temperatures above this zone can kill the microorganisms and there is the rare chance of the pile catching on fire.
Also, of course things do break down more quickly if they are smaller. A friend of mine used to save up her eggshells, crush them in the blender, and spread them directly in her garden like DIY bone meal.
From the label again:
Compost needs roughly equal parts of green (nitrogen rich) and brown (carbon rich) material.
Greens = grass clippings, fruit scraps, veggie scraps, egg shells, pine needles, green garden waste, coffee grounds
Browns = brown yard waste, straw, wood chips, sawdust and ash, bread
We just throw stuff in a big compost bin we bought from our town. I guess at some point we should do something with it! It’s funny - we’ve been using it for years and it’s nowhere near full.
I used to smash the eggshells up fairly small with my hands and kind of sprinkled them around the plants. I didn’t really have a pile.
I do agree that it can help to chop up some things in smaller pieces to get them to compost better. The main thing I cut up before it goes out is corn on the cob husks. I cut them in pieces with kitchen shears after having too many hanging around the pile in the spring. (Don’t compost the cobs.)
My pile is probably most a steady pile, you just have to wait longer to harvest, but it’s a lot less work!
Any advice for those of us composting in a 4-season climate? I started in September, so my pile has been at least partly frozen over the winter. When should I “turn”? In your experience, when will I have usable compost?
Turn when it gets warm enough to turn. I know we’ve had enough warm days I could probably stir mine up now if I wanted to. I started in a new location last year because we tore up the whole yard to put an addition on the house. I’m actually a little worried about turning it because I put it on top of some kind of animal hole and they keep digging themselves out! It’s probably a racoon, but it might also be a skunk.
You might have usable compost now. Just pull of the top of the pile and take a look. If it smells good and is dark and healthy looking - it’s ready. If not you probably will in a couple of months especially if you babying it.
In the past I have used a large plastic bin to collect green kitchen waste. I added yard leaves and coffee grounds gladly given away by the Starbucks Cafe near me. And then I would toss red worms into the bin and turn the contents about once a week or so. I had great and fast results by chopping both the leaves and the kitchen scraps into small pieces. And red worms do a fantastic job of devouring decaying vegetation. Plus, the worm poop itself is a great fertilizer.