Free compost for your gardens

CowboyTed said:

I think most of us have similar experiences when we start composting. I had my share of failures too.

I found that the biggest contributor to the success of a compost pile isn't so much what you put in it, but its size.

Bigger piles compost more quickly, with fewer odors. The interior stays hot longer, because the sheer bulk of the pile creates a heat sink, and the dry outer layer works like insulation.

With a big pile, you can sometimes build the pile, turn it once, and when you go back to turn it a second time, you'll find it is already beautiful, finished compost, sometimes in as little as a month.

What doesn't work well is exactly what most people try: a small area like eight or ten square feet, and they start piling up starting with a layer this week, then another layer next week.

IN order for a compost pile to act as a functional receptical for your weekly kitchen trimmings, it needs to be functioning internally already when you add the scraps. It needs to be hot inside.

I finally succeeded at composting when I dragged in leaves and grass clippings I gathered around town, and built a compost pile that was roughly a cubic yard. That's a big enough pile to start itself decomposing as you pile it up, and then you can start adding kitchen and yard waste, and it will magically disappear.

But most homes don't generate that much waste, so their piles never get big enough to work properly.

The best solution would be to maintain a communal pile, where an entire block could bury their kitchen waste, and the neighbors and kids could turn out each week to turn/divide/harvest the piles.

Nah. That would be Communism!

We can BUY our damn fertilizer!

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Monty Zoomer said:

I've seen what appear to be some larger-scale homeowner/farmer operations that produce a nice product. If you can produce a clean weed-free product, props to ya!

#1 problem with non-commercial scale composting of equine manure in this area is weed seeds. I could never sustain high enough temperatures for long enough to kill them off. Any hay raised in this area that's not certified weed-free is going to carry a decent load of all kinds of noxious weeds. That's why the forest service mandates certified hay in backcountry areas.

That and managing moisture content in a high-desert environment. Trying to hydrate bone-dry manure is a project. It actually tends to repel water.

My finished product was always a good soil amendment, and the worms loved it. But dealing with the accompanying weeds was a real problem.

Lol, no communal spirit here. We have an odd mix of old-time cowboy hillbilly types alongside of ex-urbanites with no practical rural living skills. We all hate each other equally!

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CowboyTed said:

Wow. Your community sounds a lot like mine!


I've finally managed to create a composting routine that kills weed seeds reliably. It's just something I learned over time, after years of using a compost thermometer that helped me understand what happens internally in a pile at various moisture levels. That's also how I learned that piles need to be large to get hot enough for long enough to kill seeds.


Thankfully, I have a skidloader, so breaking up horse turds is simple for me: Spread the manure out in a twelve to twenty inch thick layer. Add whatever else needs composting. Spend about ten minutes spinning around with the skid loader until most of the turds have been ground up by your knobby tires.


Everything is easier with the right tools!


But, oh, how well I remember trying to get horse turds to break down in a compost pile. I didn't always have a skidloader, but I've had horses since I was about five years old. As my name implies, I've had a lifetime of experience with horse turds!



I was surprised how few weeds sprouted in my cannabis pots this summer. We've had very few weeds sprouting in a grassy area where I've been spreading the compost for the past five years. I seem to have the process perfected, at least with the mixture of inputs that we generate around here.

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