smgardener

I'm about to put up The Definitive One Page Guide to Composting. Add your thoughts and tips to this thread. What did I miss? What other advice do you have for composters out there? Thanks for your contributions!

Saturn

Composting is a great way to reduce waste. I want to set something up but with being in town and a hard winter it could be a lot to store...

lspichkin

Since winter is a slow time for composting anyway, you might want to wait until the spring to begin your project seriously. That way once you've got some great compost going, you could use it to winterize your plants for the next winter season. Putting down a layer of compost on your soil before that first snow can be great for protecting the soil and encouraging better growing in the spring. You can find out more about how to do this here in this short video.

Saturn

That makes sense. Thank you so much for the info.

paul b long

On the UK "Gardener's Question Time" this week someone asked "what materials make for the best compost?" Our leading organic guru, appropriately named Bob Flowerdew, said that stinging nettles help to give compost a rich peaty texture so it's good to have a patch of them growing somewhere in your garden. Human urine is also excellent (but be careful applying this at the same time as nettles!). Comfrey is also excellent.

weedme

Very true about humane urine! In victorian times it was the head gardeners job to go to the masters house in the early hours and collect the pots under the beds and dispose of it in the garden, and it was called "Night soil" I have also heard that nettles, rhubarb leaves and nettles are good. You can also make up a liquid feed solution from the same leaves. I used it last year on my runner beans and the result was amazing, no black fly in sight, (It does pong mind!! so you would have to make sure you next door neighbours dont mind or are out!) and the bean plants produced more than ever!

ConsiderThis

I was trying to save my struggling avocado... which I had thought was having an adverse reaction to the cadmium glazed pot I'd put it in (not realizing what I was doing) when I read a great article on composting that said composting would remove pesticides and even bind toxins...

Okay, so I started burying my fish and meat scraps in the earth in the pot... and yes, I was really worried it would SMELL. And I buried orange peels, apple scraps, lots of leaves from my front walk... and it composted really well, with no odor other than the smell of the orange peels.

So, I think a big pot with soil that you can just "stir" scraps into is a really easy way to go about it...

(But then, I lined my living room walls with tin foil, about half way up, for my avocado... to increase the light. While the avocado didn't seem to be able to withstand the freezing temperatures when my rooms dipped to actual freezing, my figs appear to be thriving with the additional light from the tin foil... which, as an aside, augmented the light at night enough so that a little night light in a wall socket was not needed to be able to see.)

(Maybe I should change my screen name to Eccentric.)

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Durgan

Get real! That nonsense about composting in that pretty little container is a joke. Unless the quantity is reasonable, composting should be accomplished in a central location. This nonsense has been circulating around too long, and the people are buying into it without thinking.

Here is composting around home in realistic terms.
24 August 2006 Composting
24 August 2006
The pictures have some explanation on lower left of the larger photograph.
Since composting is an integral part of gardening, my expriences are presented. I turned over the pile today, and will not disturb this until it is removed for putting on the garden beds, probably in the spring 2007.

All vegetable matter from the gardens is put through a yard machine to chop into small pieces. My neighbor adds grass cuttings from two large properties. I only get about three yards of compost from all this vegetation. It takes a great amount of garden waste to make any reasonable amount of compost.

The city allows about half a yard of compost per vehicle per day free of charge during May of each year. The city compost is all vegetative and is screened. It is much better quality than what I produce.

I am of the opinion that all those small composters in many peoples back yards should be abolished, and the city use large facilities for central composting. Instead of attracting insects snd rodents each household could have a sealed container for pick-up each week by the municipal waste disposal services. I suggest this would be more efficient in composting and is much more sanitary. The end result would be achieved in an efficient manner. This would be primarily for kitchen wastes, and some small garden stuff.

24 July 2006 Yard Machine Composting

24 July 2006. This ten horespower machine is used to chop up all waste foliage. I make a pile of foliage, and when there is enough I wheel the machine out, and chop up the waste. It only takes a few minutes. I use to do this with a machette on a wooden block. It disposes of the branches and waste plants in a clean and quick manner. Unfortunately one has to justify the cost, and it probably wouldn't be economical with a small yard.
Anyway it is probably easier than taking garden waste products to the dump.

The amount of composted material is very minimal. All I get is about a cubic yard of garden ready material, which I spread on the garden in the spring. I even get my neighbors grass clippings from two properties. I leave my grass clipping where they fall.

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Durgan Zone 5B
http://durgan.org/2011/ Garden Journal

ConsiderThis

Don't be silly, Durgan.

I didn't see a pretty little container, but I don't see how that would be much different from my large cadmium glazed pot that is composting quite nicely.

__________________
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Your fingernails reflect your health --
Learn some warning signs --
Karen Kline

ConsiderThis

I added a picture to my gardening page of where I sit to shake my compost tea... there's a huge difference in the grass there as compared to everywhere else. I think the difference must be made by the few drops that sprinkle out while I'm shaking the compost tea.




I've got to try to find the thread I started about my avocado, because while the avocado couldn't take the cold in my living room the fig is delighted with the tin foil.... But... it may take me a bit to find it. I'm extremely tired from my solar system waking me up with a switching noise... that I'm unsure of the meaning of...

__________________
http://www.health-boundaries-bite.com
Your fingernails reflect your health --
Learn some warning signs --
Karen Kline