Composting for dummies

[billm75]

Hey all,

I'm a beginner in all this stuff, but have planted a garden and tended it for the past two years. The first year was actually a better experience than this past season, but we let the weeds get out of hand early and fought it all season long trying to keep it up. Add to that, our soil isn't the absolute best it can be yet.

I've been wanting to get into composting, but haven't been able to find any good tutorials or information on exactly HOW to compost. I see plenty of sites on how to build composting bins, buckets, etc, but very little in the way of starting your compost heap and getting it doing the right things.

Anyone have any good advice or links to some "for dummies" style info?

[610Alpha]

I don't have any personal experience on composting. I recently bought a e-class on raised beds from http://gardeningrevolution.com/index.html. He uses a compost made up of cotton burr compost, peat moss, and rice hulls. He shows in the video and in the pdf how to build raised beds so that you have virtually no weeds, and the soil is loose enough that you can fish out potatoes with your hand without killing the plant. He shows you how to prune a tomato plant to get the most out of it, that was worth the price I paid for the video/pdf. You can figure out most of what he does by reading his site, looking at his distributors sites. I posted a lot of this info on a thread about "don't move to the country there ain't no jobs"

**Note I have not tried this, I do not sell his stuff, and I am not compensated by Gardening revolution**

[billm75]

Thanks for that link, I have looked into his video a few times in the past. I like what he's got to offer on the surface and may splurge on the info.

I'm really just puzzled over composting. The raised beds make sense and I have a source for some really fertile growing medium at a local nursery supply. But I'd like to be able to feed them without the use of gallons of Miracle Gro, ya know?

I have learned this much so far. You need a good mix of "brown" and "green" starters for your compost pile. Some dead leaves and some fresh cut grass for example. You have to have some manure or composted manure to help get things started a bit quicker and you have to turn the piles often to encourage faster composting action. But, with that said, I don't feel I really know MUCH to get started. Maybe I'm overthinking things here.

[610Alpha]

Find the local gardening club in your area and talk to them. One thing I did learn from Len Pense in regards to composting is DO NOT put your tomato plants (night shade family) into the compost pile, DO put in leaves & grass clippings, DO NOT use Horse Manure. You should also rotate where you plant your tomatoes every year, they should not be planted in the same spot for at least another 3 years.

I am pretty sure that you can also put vegetable food scraps in your compost pile avoid putting tomatoes in your compost pile. I would also avoid putting in red meat into your pile. Fish is probably ok, not sure about chicken.

[billm75]

Thanks again for the info. I spent the better part of last night digging through the web, trying different keywords for searches and finally I searched the subject line of this thread "Composting for Dummies" and look what I found: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/conten...ic-garden.html and http://www.dummies.com/how-to/conten...eat-sheet.html

Go figure. Hopefully this can help some other folks too.

[610Alpha]

Thanks for sharing the results of your hard work!!

[1Admin]

You can simplify the procedure by just making a pile in a fenced corner that small animals (chickens mainly) can't get into. Pile up your weeds, manure, vegetable and fruit leavings, coffee grounds, egg shells etc. Keep adding to it, turn it once every couple months.

A year or so later the pile will be roughly 1/5 of it's greatest size but you will have a small amount of nice dark compost. Turn it into your garden.

Or you can do the lazy thing like we do. When you have a bunch of veg and fruit leavings, etc. just dig a little hole right in a currently unused part of the garden, put them in and cover it over. Again assuming chickens and other animals can't get in.

If you have a big bunch at a time, consider dropping some earthworms in the hole with the "food."

We dig plenty of little "feeder holes" as we call them like that all over sections of the garden area. You could put dead animals in there also. You won't be able to immediately start using that area (with the dead animal) but eventually you will be.

I find the direct burial compost method easier. The chickens or armadillos or something always gets into the according to Hoyle official "compost pile" when we have made them.

[biathlon]

The first book you should get is Mel Bartholomews "Square foot Gardener". If you elevate your pile to get some air it will be aerobic. If you do not it will become anaerobic and stink to high heaven. Get some red earthworms to put in it but avoid the nightcrawlers sold as bait as they will become nearly 20 inches long, big around as your finger and eat the roots of your seedlings. Wormasaurus rex! Your first season or 2 plant things like giant sunflowers to lock up as much carbon as possible to put in your pile. Dry out all the plant matter before you put it in and chop it up as fine as possible. Turn it every week or so and watch it become a nice black food for your plants. The concept with this is not to replace the nutrients your plants need but rather to provide a sutible growth medium for the microorganisms that will do it for you. I'll try to post photos of ours.

[billm75]

wow guys, thanks for all the info. I was thinking of making a 3 compartment bin for composting, using chicken wire or hardware cloth to enclose it on the sides. The idea is to dump the fall leaves into the bin with some composted manure from the nursery to get things going. I intend to turn the pile every week.

I don't think I'll be putting any meat in the pile, but the kitchen scraps (veggies) and the leftovers from this year's garden along with the leaves from the yard will definitely go towards the effort.

When I finally get the time to build this thing, I'll definitely come back and post some photos of the finished project. I have to wait til after Thanksgiving to get started. (I'm a BBQ fanatic and I have a family of 10 depending on me for some hickory smoked turkey). But after that i will be working in the garden.

Thanks again everyone!

[610Alpha]

My dad has a leaf vacuum/blower, when it is set to vacuum it chops up the leaves real nice. Might want rake up all your leaves and run over them several times with a mower to help the process.

[SamT]

I've been conposting most of my life. The absolute basics needed are green, brown, soil, air, water, and a notebook.

Green is any plant material that still shows green, the fresher the better. Brown is those plant parts that have sat around long enough to have lost their greenness.

Start by getting a pile of brown together, Leaves, Sawdust, paper, cardboard, hair, old dry manure, even horse, spoiled food [What are you doing letting food spoil anyway?] if it's vegetative or fecal, and not green, it's brown (see below.) Do not use carnivore or omnivore mammalian fecal matter, it can carry disease.

The next time you harvest any green, mown grass, pulled weeds, leaves fallen off a downed tree limb, old lettuce, chicken feathers, etc, start or add to your compost pile. First a layer of brown, then a layer of green, about 3" to 6" worth each, but keep the volumes the same, then just enough fresh soil to lightly cover the top. Now add enough water to reach and dampen the bottom of the brown layer. It can take 15 to 20 6" layers to fill your 30" deep "barrel."

I lke to use about 12' of 3' wide rabbit wire. I'll pre attatch 3 strands of baling wire to one end, so that when I make a "barrel" with it, I can hook them into the other end. I'll set the barrel on a pallet covered with some burlap or other fabric. Set up another pallet next to it for later. I don't bother turning the pile until the barrel is at least half full, and will usually wait until it is completely full. When turning the pile, I just unhook the baling wires and take the rabbit screen off and set it up on the other cloth covered pallet. Then I'll start taking the sides and top of the pile and put in the moved barrel. Break up the large masses and spread them around. Add water as needed to any parts that aren't moist. A full 3'Tx4'D "Barrel" will hold 120+ gallons of water! When done, the inner bottom winds up on top. Take a rod and poke 6 evenly spaced holes from top to bottom of the pile for aeration. If you turn the pile every two days, your pile will be composted in two weeks in the summer. You will have to turn the pile about 7 times for it to completely compost.

Green and Brown: Brown is carbon, green is carbon and too much nitrogen.

Moisture: The material should definately not be dry, but you should not be able to squeeze even one drop of water out of a double handfull.

Oxygen: Gotta have it, thats why the pile is atop a pallet or a 6" tall loose mat of sticks and twigs, and the holes are poked in it after turning.

Biological Activity: Beside minerals, the added soil is a biological culture, which is why it should come from your most productive patch. A little Rid X sprinkled on top of each soil layer will improve the biological effects of poor soil.

Additives: Your pile and your garden will really like it if you dissolve two adult multivitamins in the water you put on each layer of soil. A level teaspoon of sea salt added to that water will help also. Real sea salt, do NOT use ordinary table salt. Keep track of the amount of sea salt you use on each pile. Do not exceed 24 level teaspoons per 3' tall by 4' diameter pile. Keep track of where you use your sea salted manure. Do not use more than a total of a 1" layer per location in any 5 year period. After it starts to break down, you can stuff a glass or jar 1/4 full, add water to fill and let set for an hour, stirring or shaking occasionally. Test it for PH and add Lime or sulfer to each layer the next time you turn the pile to approach a neutral PH. With practice, you'll learn how much to apply for each point you want to move the PH. Start with 1 cup per point per 3'x4' pile. Throw cooked bones right in, when the pile is fully "cooked" screen them out and cycle them into the next pile. Crushed eggshells are good.

Green Manure: a term of art for living crops tilled directly into the soil. Usually nitrogen fixers like clover and legumes, they can also be soil structure modifiers like Rye and other deep rooted crops. Sometimes Green Manures like wheat and corn stalks are simply used to add carbon to the soil. Green Manures other than post harvest stalks are almost always tilled in before any seed matures.

Manures: Rabbit, goat, alpaca, and similar pellets can be added as a 3rd vegetative layer with the green and brown. They have about the right balance of carbon and nitrogen. Horse has too much salt, it needs to be weathered by rain, then it can be used as brown. Chicken and other fowl is very high in nitrogen, a 1" layer can be subsituted for a 6" green layer. Dry organic cow manure is about like 1 or 2 part green with 3 parts brown, add some green or just a bit of chicken to balance it. Never dryed wet cow is rich, add 2" brown per 1" fresh cow to balance it.

Goat bedding: Goats won't eat feed that has fallen on the ground because they have defecated and urinated on it. Goat bedding is well balanced and needs no added green or brown. You can till it directly in your garden and plant in two weeks if you've mixed it well with the soil and kept it moist. You will have to weed the area afterwards ;)

Exotics: I went to the circus and packed all their animal manures for a day home to my garden. Lion, Tiger, Elephant, Ostrich, Chipanzee, donkee, Lipanzers and Clydesdales, birds, birds, birds. Filled one 3'x4' "Barrel." After 6 months unturned I had some decent smelling compost, except the Elephant dungs were still leathery plate sized masses. I had to chop 'em and soak 'em to get them to break down. Nothing really liked to grow with that. I think it was too hot.

Diseased Plants: Burn them! Do not add them to your compost, nor till them into the soil.

Human, Carnivore, and Omnivore feces: These manures must be heated to 157* F throughout for at least 4 hours before they can be used as fertilizers! NEVER use anything from a sick being! NEVER use anything from a diseased animal! NEVER use anything from an ill creature!

[Klayton]

Thanks SamT!

Copy and pasted into a word do***ent, printed it out and placed it in my gardening binder. :)

[billm75]

Wow, thanks for all the good info SamT...that's a huge huge help!

I'm going to be building my compost bins soon, hopefully, and will try to keep you all updated on the progress.