23 Feb ’12
I had a few of these big posts and those pre-fab sections of fence lying around so I made it all into a compost pile. Hopefully by next spring I can turn all of the crazy overgrowth around my new homestead into compost for the garden. Is there anything I need to do to get it composting? Right now its a lot of vines and liter I removed from around the house, some woody material, the leftovers of some old neglected compost piles I found, and some garden bed dirt I removed. I put some chicken shit on there to get it going, but I was wondering if it needs manure or something else to get it composting.
3 Nov ’12
Great pile CC!
Depends on how fast you want it to compost. Here's a breakdown of the 18 day Berkeley method.
Components:
1/3 Manure
1/3 Shredded high carbon source. (these are your browns-> sawdust, cardboard, newspaper, coffee grinds, etc)
1/3 Fresh greens
An activator (dead animal or fish, comfrey, yarrow, old good compost)-no more than 5% of size of the pile
Tools:
3 or 4 pronged long handled pitchfork
Tarp
The pile has to be big. 1.5m high, so basically shoulder height. You want to mix everything together with your activator in the middle of the pile. Soak it until it leaks from the bottom. Cover the pile with a few branches and then the tarp. This is for air flow and evaporation prevention. You want to maintain the dampness of a wet sponge throughout the whole process. Let it sit for 4 days. Use the pitchfork to completely turn the pile inside out every other day starting on day 4. On day 6 or 8 if you stick your arm into the middle of the pile it should be too hot to keep it there. By day 18 you should have a warm, dark brown, fine material with a few chips and chunks.
Troubleshooting
If by day 6 or 8 not hot enough:
Check height, moisture. Has to be big and damp.
Carbon has to be shredded. Big pieces don't have enough surface area.
If the size is right, the pile is wet and the carbon is shredded then add nitrogen. Use manure, blood powder or bone powder. (kvr says pee on it since urine has a 1-1 carbon to nitrogen ratio.)
If it is too wet then add a chimney in middle of pile to allow it to steam off some of the moisture
If too much nitrogen (pile shrinks too fast, smells bad):
add carbon. (Sawdust is best)
If there is a white moldy powder the pile has become anaerobic.
Check temp and moisture, cool or dry the pile.
Once you get good, you can completely turn a pile in about 20 minutes.
If you want, you can create a potting mix by adding sharp river sand to compost in equal parts.
10 of these heaps will completely cover an acre, 20 heaps will cover a hectare
23 Feb ’12
That is great advice. I had no idea you could get compost going so quickly. Right now, my timeline is much longer than that. I'm in Texas and its august, so basically nothing grows right now. I'm looking at a fall garden but I won't get that going until maybe late september when the heat breaks. I wasn't really expecting this compost pile to be ready until the spring planting season. I was thinking I'd do some beds around the house this fall and maybe do a wood-core bed in my vegetable garden, then cover crop it all winter and plant it in the spring. I'll probably just buy compost for the beds around the house though.
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