Compost !

[PeterSibley]

It's the end of summer here and I'm busy in the garden .Winter is our best growing time so I'm happily improving my garden beds .Compost is the key .It's such lovely stuff and a joy to make .I have about 2 cubic metres ,one finished , one still hot and steaming .More would be good , maybe twice as much but this lot will do...:)

happy days .:)

[Milo Christensen]

I like to work with a good compost. My neighbors will be raking up the winter-wind blown leaves soon and putting them on the curb in big huge compostable paper bags. I'll be putting everything that I rake up into the compost bin hidden as best I can in the woods out back.

How do you get your's hot and steaming? Oh, wait, it's Australia, right.

[Tom Hoffman]

I am glad you brought the topic up. Last early summer, SWAMBO and I wanted to put in some flower beds, we had no compost, as we had no organic matter to make it with. Black dirt was too expensive, and out heavy clay soil (what was left after digging out a basement for a new home) barely could grow grass with out heavy applications of fertilizer.

What too do?

You know when your sub consious mind has a day or too to work on a problem, you sometimes come up with a brilliant decision. In my case, it was just a brain flatulance, but it still worked. Somewhere, I remembered that many communities now compost garden and lawn waste, after several phone calls, I finally found the local cities number for their program.

I was told that I could have all I could haul, just bring a truck and a shovel or fork.

After the first 10 tons or so, I finally hit a friday afternoon, and low and behold, they had a BIG front end loader loading trucks for free as fast as they could pull under the bucket.

My next 30 truck loads or so were loaded for me, I just had to off load them at home.

Boy did our flowers and shrubs take off after we planted them in that stuff.

Have a good one.....

[Leon m]

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How do you get your's hot and steaming? Oh, wait, it's Australia, right.

Keep it wet and turn it over when it stops steaming.

[Leon m]

, I remembered that many communities now compost garden and lawn waste,

Boy did our flowers and shrubs take off after we planted them in that stuff.

.

I wouldn't use it on your vegetable garden though. That stuff can be loaded with all kinds of chemicals.

[Milo Christensen]

Keep it wet and turn it over when it stops steaming.

That's the basic rule, I was wondering if there were any tricks to get it steaming? I know that mulched leaf piles are harder to compost, but that's what I've got. Cubic yard after cubic yard of slowly decomposing oak leaves.

[Leon m]

I was wondering if there were any tricks to get it steaming? .

If you can get a bit of hot horse manure that will get it kicking. Other wise most garden stores sell a compost starter.

[rufustr]

Compost Instructions.

http://ourhouse.ninemsn.com.au/ourhouse/factsheets/db/tips/02/210.asp

[Donn]

I make and use about 10 cubic yards a year. I have a 12' x 4' x 4' two-compartment bin, a much smaller household waste bin, and several hundred feet of woodchip paths throughout the garden.

Half of the large bin is nothing but shredded leaves, grass clippings, wood shavings from Holzbt's shop and shredded Eelgrass from the canal. It cooks so quickly I get several batches of finished compost each year.

The other half is miscellaneous prunings from the garden and whatever else I get my hands on, including squirrels and racoons, fish bits, dredgings from the canal bottom, and so forth.

The paths get worked every year, with the decomposed bottom layer raked into the adjacent beds, and a fresh layer put down on top.

The kitchen waste bin contributes to compost tea (sometimes with fermented Eelgrass) and the veggie bed.

Rotten stuff is God!

[Milo Christensen]

There's a horse stable that specializes in giving rides to handicapped kids a half mile away, I've been meaning to stop by there with a couple of five gallon buckets. SWMBO, however, does not see eye-to-eye with me on the value of manure.

[seedtick]

Stay away from horse manure. Twenty years ago i got a couple of pickup loads straight from the stall, piled it up and let it steam and smoke for a year. Put it in the garden and spent the next three years trying to get unrecognizable weeds out.

Just one point on my curve of knowledge, but it was enough.

[PeterSibley]

That's the basic rule, I was wondering if there were any tricks to get it steaming? I know that mulched leaf piles are harder to compost, but that's what I've got. Cubic yard after cubic yard of slowly decomposing oak leaves.

Leaves are difficult .2 things , one break up the pile with other materials ,essentially to get air flow into the heap. The organisms you want are aerobic, the more air ,the better and faster the decomposition.

Two...you need to feed those organisms .In gardeners palance leaves are high carbon ...they don't contain much food for the faster acting organism.Fungi will break them down, but much more slowly .If you can add anything green ,grass mowings ,fresh weeds or if you really can't find anything else ...urea in a bag. The result will be some really delightful humus .

Edited to add .A well made heap will get too hot to put your hand in within 2 or 3 days .You can turn it as often as your back allows ,the more you turn it the faster it will break down ....but you don't have to .If you're patient you will get good compost anyway .It will just take a lot longer .

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Good on ya' mate!
I have a couple of cubic meters of composted leaves but they are under a couple of cubic meters of snow at the moment. Are you familiar with snow? Well, it tends to chill all those little microbes that heat up a compost pile.
I have never been able to get my heaps to cook well enough to steam. And I have a group of deer that kick the piles all over creation looking for acorns ( they get mighty hungry in winter).
Thanks for bringing this up. I'll try to get out in the snow and rebuild the piles.

[Leon m]

Stay away from horse manure. Twenty years ago i got a couple of pickup loads straight from the stall, piled it up and let it steam and smoke for a year. Put it in the garden and spent the next three years trying to get unrecognizable weeds out.

Just one point on my curve of knowledge, but it was enough.

Weed seeds can be blown into a garden or carried in from wandering animals, or even more likely from mulching materials.Chances of them coming from well cooked and composted horse manure are slim. I wouldn't "throw out the baby with the the bath water", horse manure makes a very fine compost.