Compost loser

I can't make compost to save my life! I'm using fruit and veggie kitchen scraps, grass clippings, leaves, newspaper...all the things they say you should put in a compost pile. I make sure the piles are damp. I try to mix them up/layer them, but I get not one hint of warmth, let alone steam! I even put compost starter on them and nothing! I have a decent amount of worms in there. The only thing I can think is that some of the stuff (extras from the veggie garden and the like) aren't really chopped up. But I use a mulching lawn mower instead of raking, so the leaves and grass are chopped up together, so it's not all big pieces in my piles. We don't have the money to buy a real compost bin, so I even bought black Tupperware storage container (the kind they are selling now to store your Halloween decorations) to see if the black plastic would make it heat up. Alas, it did not. What am I doing WRONG? Tamara (clearly desperate for compost!)

For what it's worth - I don't know how "you're suppose" to compost, but for years I've just been throwing everything in a big black container like you get at the coop to fed or water horses/cows. Egg shells, veggie scraps, grass clippings, some not a lot of leaves, etc, and add in layers of cheap $1-2 a bag potting soil (I don't use newspaper.) I stir it a couple of times, every 2 month or so, and let it winter over. It makes great soil for my plants. In my opinion, newspaper takes a long to decompose. I burn it and use some of the ash in the compost pile, the remainder I spread a little around here and there etc. . I use the leaves as mulch.



This message was edited Oct 2, 2004 8:15 PM

zone5girl, for what it's worth, my compost turns is "cold" compost... that is, it never makes enough heat to be composted in a few weeks. However, addition of kitchen scraps, lawn and garden waste eventually compost. and every spring I have good rich black stuff at the bottom for my garden beds.

There is always some non-decomposed stuff on top, and that just goes in the new compost pile.

I don't think we get enough warm heat from the sun here to get a really heated compost pile going. My compost pile is almost always cold, but sometimes on a really hot day I can turn it and find steam in the middle. I've come to believe that in the northern part of the country, our compost piles just take longer to compost. They always do, but not so as that you'd notice any activity.

I compost in piles in corners of the veggie garden. No bins or such, just piles on the ground. They always eventually become compost, but not in record time.

I use compost lots faster than I can make it. I have two 4 ft x 8ft piles, more or less on the ground, they have large limbs at the bottom so air can cirulate. I have two 36" x 36" x 36" wire cages the when are filled can be pulled up away from what is in them and moved to a different location an filled again. Have one tumble composter, which makes compost faster. In it I put shredded material, soft green material, composted manure, and table scraps (that is veggie and fruit, no meat etc.) and can get compost in a month if I remember to turn the thing. Donna

WOW I'm impressed!!!

I've seen those tumbler ones and wondered how well they work. I could probably fill one in no time at all, but didn't know anyone who had used one so have been hesitating. (read "procrastinating") Hmmm. Back to the garden center......? As if they haven't had all my discretionary income all year..............they must have some kind of bar or mixer thingy inside to toss the stuff around. We have a small handcrank cement mixer, wonder if we could modify it? wouldn't hold as much but it's FREE............lol

Don't get one of those end over end ones! I have one and it is disappointing, seems to roll things into big balls that just get bigger and bigger and don't break down. This one looks like a black plastic barrel, with a screw on lid, has a vent at the bottom, a pipe up the middle with holes for ventelation and some crossbars to break up the material, but as far as I can tell, after two batches of material, it needs more than end over end turning to get results. The sideways rolling ones might work better.

zone5girl, it sounds like you have a good "recipe". These things will eventually compost. I think the black plastic, sun and moisture speed things up, but your items will compost regardless. You will find that once your worms start to populate, they will really get things moving. I "vermicompost" all my kitchen scaps (no meat/fats) with the worms and have two composters in the yard. The worms by far do a quicker job. I usually toss a small shovelful of worm castings and worms into the compost bins to give them a jumpstart.

Remember to stir things up at least once a week (often is better) because oxygen is needed to get things cooking.

Oxygen is the most important thing in composting besides nitrogen. Make sure you've got good air circulation, and enough moisture. Those have always been my problems... Mere

Someone gave me a rubbermaid compost bin when they moved. [ no paperwork ] Ihave never seen one like it before. Its just hollow inside,with no trays etc. I don't plan it as my main compost resource, but figure I can use it someway. Has anyone ever had one of these, or have any suggestions as to how to best utilize it? Any input would be greatly appreciated. I've never composted before, but I want to really get into it.
Thanks-Lynda

oops! my son took that picture. I'll send the next one, maybe its better.

Hmmm. From the looks of things, you're going to have a hard time composting with that unless you start with a saucer of cool milk to distract the guard cat long enough to fill the bin.

I had to buy a compost bin so I could set it up on bricks and douse the ground underneath with lots of fireant poison. I used to compost on the ground up in Arkansas years ago but down here in Mississippi the fireants will form huge colonies in my compost piles. The bin works good making compost and the black color helps keep it a little hotter so it works pretty fast. The first time I needed to empty it, I discovered that a pitch fork works much better than a shovel to get the compost out.

Zone5girl, you know for most of us composting is really just a way to keep leaves, grass clippings etc out of the landfill. Keeping anything out of the landfill is a great thing. If you have a normal size lawn and a few trees, you might get a wheelbarrow load of compost per year. So, to really use compost you need to purchase compost from a commercial composter. Here is a receipt for compost
1- bag of grass clippings - that is your nitrogen (plus this is where the smell comes from)
2-3 bags of dry leaves, straw, or wood chips - this is your carbon (carbon will neutralize your nitrogen and stop the smelling)
Water... this is the part most people leave out. Honestly, it takes a lot of water to keep your compost pile 'hot'. Your compost pile should be as wet as a rung out mop. What happens is the water is on the top and does not really get down into the pile.
Don't sweat your pile. Just keep putting your waste on it and let nature take it course. Rot Happens!

Another reason for a compost to not get to the heat stage is size. It needs to be at least 3 cubic feet to reach a good temp.

If you use grass clippings -- which are great source of nitrogen -- make sure they do not form mats in there, as that will keep the oxygen out of the area beneath. Grass clippings need to be well mixed in with coarser material. Although, eventually even an anaerobic pile (without oxygen) will make good compost, it just smells much worse and takes a heck of a lot longer.

Here is a super excellent recipe for compost that covers most bases:

Start on bare ground (to take advantage of the local soil microorganisms) with a two to three inch layer of twigs and sticks (for aeration.)

Layer on this your kitchen scraps and wet garden waste such as grass clippings. Alternate this wet "green" material with occasional layers of more dry twiggy stuff. Every few layers also put down a layer of alfalfa, around two or three inches.

The alfalfa adds minerals and nitrogen and also keeps the odor down (which you will have if you do not have a perfect mix of carbonaceous and nitrogenous material) and helps keep flies away etc. Keep a layer of alfalfa on top at all times.

Once you have this layered up to three feet high, and yes, keep it moist as a wrung out sponge, cover it lightly with an old tarp to keep it from either too much rain or too much drying. Let it sit a few weeks, and then turn it if you are in a hurry for results. If you are not in a hurry it can sit all winter and into the spring and once you go in there the bottom half will be fabulous rich dark lovely compost full of worms. You may have to sift out a few sticks but they will be mostly broken down. I do not recommend putting in anything with thorns, as those will take forever to decompose and you will keep getting stuck by them!

I disagree that to really use compost you have to buy it, by the way. I once lived where there were some old fuschias that had that awful blight they got that turned out to be some Brazilian tiny spider mite, and everyone was trying to spray them with poisons and it never really worked, and I had my compost pile close by to underneath those, and after a year the mite/blight started to clear up and THOSE particular fuschias became healthy again.

A full spectrum compost apparently generates all manner of anti-pathogenic substances during its process and eventually this pile "found" the right mix to heal those fuschias. ;-)

The way to get close to full spectrum is to add lots of different stuff.

I do not think there is a way, really, to fail with compost, and every mistake you make can be corrected. It is also true that a slower compost process produces more complex humus, whereas a real fast one is full of sugar, at least, according to the Hort. department head at Cabrillo Community College, who made that statement to a group of us who were learning from his many composting projects there (years ago -- can't recall his name and doubt if he is still there).

I myself am careful about buying commercial compost though I do use it -- some municipalities put sewage sludge in their compost, and while that is a good idea in principle, in practice, when you think of all the toxic substances so many people thoughtlessly flush or toss away, I do not trust it to put on my gardens. So I make very sure of the ingredients when I buy.

Well, insomnia led to this rather lengthy post, hope I did not bore anyone! LOL!

Our local 'Compost Queen' would tell Lynda there are not enough air holes in that composter. Basically she says none of the comercial ones do and advises buying a 1 inch drill bit and drilling lots of holes all over them. Well I have two composters, a round one and a square one and bought the bit but never drilled the holes., I dump lots of sort of chopped up yard waste and grass cuttings and dried leaves and all the compostable kitchen waste in them and there they sit! I do not turn them or give them any particular attention. They sit in a fairly sunny spot. I empty them about every 3-4 years! This was the year and I have beautiful compost - enough for my veggie garden beds.
For the rest of the beds I buy a good quality commercial product produced locally. But only every 3-4 years. Havent got the strength to spread it every year!

I think the easiest way to get compost is to bury kitchen scraps, etc. right in the garden. In my vegetable garden, I keep a portion of a "compost-trench" open all year round (at least until the snow or freezing temps end it temporarily). I just start on one end and work my way down the length of the garden. Only about a foot of the compost-trench is open at any one time, dug to a depth of 6"-8". When my kitchen scrap bucket is full, I walk out to the garden and dump the contents in the open part of the trench. Then I extend or continue the trench by digging out the next foot or so, using the topsoil I dig to bury the kitchen scraps. I then have a new hole ready to go. In the summer, the worms do their job and I have compost in just a few weeks, or at least the scraps are "gone" and part of the garden. In the winter, I can either freeze the kitchen scraps, and/or when we have a mild spell (like this week), I can continue burying them. They don't do much breaking down in the winter, but I just plant a row of crops next to the compost-trench. By last summer, I can plant late crops of broccoli or lettuce on the compost-trench. My late aunt did this and always had the most amazing vegetable and flower gardens. In flower gardens, just dig a hole in any area between perennials and bury the kitchen scraps. You'll never smell anything of course, if you keep meat and bones out of your scraps.

That is a wonderful idea HG and not so backbreaking as turning compost in a hole. I have a hole in the ground compost but fortunately for me my DH turns it for me. It makes beautiful compost in a year.

HoosierGreen - I do something very similar to you. In the spring and summer when I have my vegetable garden in, I do have a compost pile in a bin. I add and turn that very sporadically, so I only get maybe 2-3 composted heaps to use before the fall. It is not big enough, and I don't tend to it well enough for it to get hot, but I never put plants with seeds in there so I don't need that heat to sterilize and kill any weed seeds. It does, however, supply me with enough compost that I always add to the soil whenever I put in new plants (mostly cut flower plants!). When I pull out my vegetables, that is when I do your "compost-trench" technique. I would dig the first hole, add compost and then cover with soil from the adjacent space, thus forming a new hole. I am lucky in that I live in a zone where the ground does not freeze, so that I can add to the compost holes throughout the winter. My vegetable garden area is small enough that I manage to add some compost to most of the area in 4 months. By spring, there is no visible pieces of plant material left as the weather was warm enough for decomposition to take place even in the winter months. This way, I never really have to fertilize my vegetables, and I use the compost from the bins for my flower garden.

I think any way to get compost material into the ground and contact with worms will work, as we have all done in various ways. My hope is that more people won't be "afraid" to compost because they think they need a bin or expensive setup, with the resultant "work" which can be difficult for some people, for sure. Our family has sure reduced the amount of trash we put out for the landfill this way, and we have a much richer garden.