Tell your Method

[Jessica Jones]

I am trying to see the different ways people compost, any methods, any secrets to get nice rich compost? Please share, the more people hear about other people composting, how easy and fun it is, the more people are willing to try it!

Lets compost, stop overfilling our landfills, replenish the soil, and improve our health by composting!

Check out my new website, i just created it!

http://www.freewebs.com/compostlady/

Fondly
Jessica

[Dana]

I am very interested in this... I just started a compost about a month ago, and although I know it can take a while, mine just looks like dried out scraps... I added water a few days ago to see if that made a difference. Should I be doing something different at this point??

I have a plastic box with a lid-- about 2ft x 2 ft and about 4 ft tall. with air vents along the sides.... Live in colorado. dry, hot,full sun, etc....

[Jessica Jones]

Dear Dana,

Are you adding enough nitrogen to your compost, such as greens, foods scraps, grass clippings etc? Nitrogen will not only heat up your compost pile but it will also add enoguh moisture for the perfect balace.

Also, whenever you compost in a box, it takes longer than just having a pile built directly on the earth, since touching the earth, microbes, worms and bacteria can come more easily and help with the decompostion process. Right now with the conditions you told me, your composting will probably be finished within 4-5 months, which is not a long time with composting, believe me, some piles, if anaerboic, cold, take a year!

good luck
Jessica Jones

[Dana]

Thanks Jessica!

I think I am adding enough 'green' material, but probaly not as much 'brown' material to make 50/50. The composter is open on the bottom so it is touching the earth on the bottom. I also have some composter starter (microbes) but am not sure if I should keep adding it on a regular basis or just the one time at the beginning of the pile.

Thanks for the tips! Also, do you know if weed seeds are destroyed during the composting process? I would like to add some dried pulled weeds to the pile as brown material, but am nervous about the seeds sprouting later.

Thanks,

Dana

[Jessica Jones]

Hi Dana,
A balance of carbon and nitrogen is the key to good composting, among other things! A compost starter is usually used, depending on what kind you have, a table spoon every 2 months in less otherwise noted. Weed seeds can be destroyed in a compost pile that gets hot, aerobic, the heat will susposedly kill off the seeds, heat being 140-degrees. I reccomend later on in the run of composting to get a compost thermometer, to check the heat of your pile.

[Julie]

thanks for asking about our composts. typically, i give my composts lots of care--paying attention to the ratio of browns and greens, watering, turning, preparing for winter, etc... but, for nearly two years, i've been busy being pregnant (twice) and raising babies.

so, i've been experimenting with having a low-maintenance compost and am getting great results. i've got an exposed, but fenced-off with chicken wire, 3 foot square compost pile. i simply add raw food scraps, weeds and compostable paper products, and every now and then some browns (leaves, weeds, etc), turn occasionally, very rarely add water and cover for winter with some browns and dirt. to my surprise (and with gratitude) i've had amazing success. my soil is dark and beautiful! we live up above 7,500 ft in the mountains outside of santa fe. it's usually dry and hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, but dry air and snowy.

i'm sure my master gardener friends wouldn't suggest me recommending my recent methods--but since you asked, i thought i'd share my most recent experience... if you would have asked this question a few years ago, i would have gone into a long and detailed routine. and i like this hands-off composting process. thankfully, nature will take care of the details for me.

best of luck with your compost!

[Ben]

I learned composting as a child growing up on a farm. A large garden + Animal wastes really help to bulk up the pile quickly and keep it varied. It can be looked at as complex, but the idea is very simple and primal. The idea is to put a variety of organic materials. Chicken shit adds the Nitrogen which is very important for a quick breakdown! Also look into getting worms. I lived in an apartment for awhile and got 2 quarts of 'red wigglers' from the state extension office. Those little guys ate all of our kitchen wastes FAST. About 1lb a week would be turned to wonderful worm castings. I would then put that into an outdoor compost pile. (There's a way to seperate most of the worms so you can keep them in the container and repeat). You can keep this in the house, doesn't smell. Another great addition to a pile is mushroom mycelium. Garden giants and oysters will speed up the process and you'll also get fresh mushrooms to eat. Check out www.fungiperfecti.com. These species and others work great in companion with vegetables in the garden too. Nature's decomposers. For more inspiring mushroom talk, listen to Paul Stamets on "6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World": http://youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY

Good luck with the decomposition!
Benjamin
[e-mail]

[LaMar]

I designed and built a compost tumbler out of a barrel and some 2x4s. Tumbling gets oxygen into compost so organisms can breath and mixes the compost more thouroughly so everything breaks down more evenly.

Plans are in my ebook.
http://www.freewebs.com/simplesolarhomesteading

LaMar

[John S]

I once moved into a new house on a piece of land that had been farmed to death--no topsoil, just clay. So, I simply roped off a garden space and carted in loads of abandoned rotting hay bales I found on adjacent land. NO one thought I could possibly grow anything on it, especially in the first year. I literally planted seeds right into the hay mulch. I added nothing else. I had the best garden in the neighborhood that year (and succeeding years also). Since then, I've been sold on hay! I mix it directly into the ground and toss in table scraps. Worms, as has been noted, do the rest. Straw and grass clippings work well, too, but not as well as hay, which has lots of nitrogen from the alfalfa. You can usually find local farmers who will sell you as many bales as you want, cheap. Nothing fancy, but be warned that such an open heap can attract vermin such as rats. Fortunately, my cats took care of that problem.

[Jessica Jones]

Dear John,
Have you ever read Ruth Stout's book "No Work Garden", its about this elderly woman finding that mulching with straw is the easiest way to grow a bountiful garden! Another secret go to the feed stores during the wetter months and the managers will usually give you the damp bales for free that they can't sell for feed!
Good work in healing the earth
-A fellow steward of the land
Jessica

[Deb Beisel]

Hi Jessica, I compost in two ways. I have a hot pile that has leaves, layers of vegetable scraps, and some soil that I keep moist, covered, and turned. It turns into compost in about 1 garden season here in PA (3 - 4 month). I also have a slow pile because I have a very big garden and goats. This pile is the goat manure mixed with vegetable waste from the garden like weeds that haven't gone to seed and trimmings, etc. This sits for a year and I just keep piling the stuff on. Once the year is done, I flip the pile and the stuff on the bottom is composted and the un-composted old stuff starts the new pile. Not very glamorous but it works for me. Good luck with your pile and your site:)

[Susan Horn]

http://www.waltonoutdoors.com/sustainable-garden-spirals-to-life/

Here's one of the ways we compost. We also have two worm bins, one in an old bathtub and one of the commercially made ones with stacking trays. Also sheet composting, or "lasagna gardening". Live on a barrier island made of quartz sand, so we are always making dirt every way we can!

[Edmund Williams]

I have actually posted a number of blog entries on composting and don't want to go into that much detail here, but how about using compost to make food? Several kinds of mushrooms really like to grow in compost, helping it break down faster and producing food at the same time. http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-have-been-growing-mushroom...