The Glade 4.0

Anyone else here who makes their own compost?

It's a low-cost (even free) way to enrich your soil, dispose of some unwanted stuff, reduce landfill footprint, and lessen your needs for synthetic fertilizers. It's a win-win-win-win situation if you have a home garden. I started one up about a month ago in a plastic container with a semi-locking lid (to keep the racoons out).

For us, it's really easy to keep it full. We generate a lot of yard trash (grass clippings, vines, roots, palm fronds), a lot of vegetable waste (since we always cook with onions and leeks and garlic and carrots and celery), egg shells, coffee grounds, and cardboard/paper. We have a garbage can that we keep under the sink and just bring the stuff out to the yard every morning.

If anyone else has more experience... how do you keep it turned and chopped up? I use a hoe to turn it once a week, but it's kind of annoying because of the big stuff in there. What do you do to reduce the size of stuff? The only thing I can think of is put stuff on the ground and bag it with the lawn mower. Should I just not be using big things (sable palm fronds / vines / roots) at all?

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I've always had an issue with the big things. And you sound much better about turning it and keeping it aerated than I was. I eventually burned out on it and would just go out every six months when I remembered. I think anything green and leafy will break down pretty fast, but sticks, roots, palm fronds, etc., will take quite a while longer. So, yeah, I think the best idea is not to put those in.

Would like to invest in one of the expensive roller-barrel types, but just haven't pulled the trigger yet.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

We have a pretty small backyard, but we mostly just compost all of our kitchen stuff- and then bury it every few weeks (as it builds up) in our backyard.

We got a nice little 1 gallon container for the kitchen, with carbon filters in the lid to contain the smell- works great for us.

When we lived in the country, we'd just throw it in our flower beds/under trees... The chickens would pick through it, and the rest would make nice soil for us.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Not to derail but along similar lines. I don't think I could float a compost processor in my neighborhood but I am really intrigued by the idea of biochar especially since the soil around here is clay. It is really hard to keep the grass growing in there because in the summer it bakes and in the spring/fall it floods. Anyone played with it?

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http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html

I've been meaning of making a compost pile, but have yet to get around to it.

I had a cousin who was mentally challenged, who kept one for years by simply digging a hole (about 5' x 5' x 5') and filling it up. Take a shovel or pitch fork and turn it as the top dries out. This really only works if you have a big yard and can keep it away from your smeller.

Sometimes he would have a rat snake, and often he would have oodles of worms that he would sift thru to fish with (night crawlers, etc)

It takes work, but is worth it if you grow things.

We used to, made great soil and fertilizer. She was the gardener, no point to it for me now.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

My yard is too small but would love to start a compost pile but i need to know how to do it for little yards

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"None is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people safe as they are the
ultimate guardians of their own liberty."- Thomas Jefferson

"Yeah, I'm rehearsing my poker face. I don't handle stupid well. *sigh*" - Farsky

I have a friend that had success buying a composting barrel:

http://www.homedepot.com/undefined-Comp ... ogId=10053

It keeps the smell down fairly well, has a handle for easy rotation and is not likely to spontaneously catch on fire.

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I have one of those containers on the list, the cheapest one there. Pretty much it's a square garbage can with no bottom, and a little door on the side to get the compost out. Works well enough but you still have to turn it manually. As long as you layer the stuff in there the right way (like, if you have any stuff that's going to stink, cover it up with a couple inches of leaves) then there's no reason it could offend your neighbors.

Managed to solve my earlier problem, I pulled all the stuff out, and ran over it with the mower. Worked like a charm.

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