So hows your compost this spring?

No, this is not the wrong forum, I am just into composting, and wanted to talk composting with my PNW buddies.

I have a pile going, I get really gung ho in the summer when the grass needs to constantly be cut, but in the winter and early spring, its pretty mellow. I have this very ugly compost bin made of pallets wired together. It works pretty well, but I really almost prefer the old plastic fence circles I first had.

I have 2 rolls of this green plastic fencing we used to keep the dogs out from under the deck. I have recycled it by using zip-ties to hold 8-10 foot circles together, which I then fill with compostables. Time to flip means I take the fence off by pulling it up, and then shovel it back in to the circle in a new location. The only problem is the fence does not hold up that well.

The pallets got started as a way to use a bin system, but after one ugly bin I have not gotten excited about a second or third. I think I just need to make one.

My neighbor has the drum with a crank handle to turn it. Works nice, works fast, but they seem expensive.

I see where they will have $40 bins at the Spring Garden Fair in Redmond, but I can't attend. I am also thinking about getting a Naturemill Composter that is dog waste compatible http://naturemill.com/petFriendly.html , but that is richer than we are right now.

What do you all do? I really am curious, has anybody bought a composter or Green Cone how did it work here. Have you made something that works better or makes it easier?

Rob

What do you all do with your clippings?

For what it's worth:

I have a 3 bin system in the vegetable garden (wooden - built into the fence design, at 7' x 3.5' x 4' tall).
2 very large bins in the orchard (made from our old dog kennel; each one is 6'x6'x6').

I have used wire fencing attached to metal fence stakes - the beauty of which is that you can set it up in whatever configuration you like, it's cheap, and mobile. Well the stakes can be a pain....
I have had 2 different "spin" systems, both of which I gave to friends. I compost on a large scale - the spin composters are not big enough to handle the volume here.
I mostly sheet compost - not enough time do devote to all the turning & whatnot: I work M-F full time, so i let the worms do it for me.
I have also done the layered bed (Lasagna bed) situation. They all work - but the difference lies in how much material you have to deal with, and time.

During the winter, I use alfalfa pellets to keep the compost working. I do save my grass clippings, leaves, plant residue to layer with, but again - I have the room to do so without my neighbours' being inconvenienced (view, aroma...). Actually 2 of my neighbours compost too, so they would never be upset!

How much space do you have?
If you are in a neighbourhood setting, what is visible to them?
My understanding is that some bins work better than others.
There was great admiration for a particular composter (stationery bin) on the Soil & Composting Forum - don't recall the name right now. But they are a bit pricey...
Hope this helps.

I have 2 Rubbermaid compost bins. The first I got at Builders Supply at a greatly reduced price and then awhile later a friend bought a new house that had the same bin left there by the previous owner. She doesn't compost, so she gave it to me. Yes!!! _^_ Now I can let one sit there and use out of it while the other one is percolating along. The thing I love about these rubbermaids is that they are square. In other words, they aren't so tall that you can't move stuff around. They are wide enough to pitch fork everything to one side in a heap. Then, a few days or a week later, you can pitch fork everything to the other side and so on, over and over until it is compost. The lids keep it nice and warm----and rotting down fast----and there are So-o-o many worms in there. I have them near my chicken house so it's easy to clean and dump. Ha Ha (I only have 6 hens so how hard is that?) I live on the air-conditioned coast, so even with the lids and the warmth, the piles do not get hot enough to kill weed seeds. Alas. The compost is very very rich, but I just wish it didn't have so many weed seeds. When I use it in the veggie raised beds, thick grass clippings need to go down on top right away. I love to use it in the greenhouse but I weed the pots continuously. Oh, well---it's still great stuff.

I have a three bin system that I built a few years ago, but I'm finding I'm not good at remembering, or wanting, to turn the piles, so I use a 'cool' system for the most part. I have also been known to use alfalfa pellets to get the thing going. This seaon I 'harvested' the prettiest compost I've ever seen. I was so proud. I also have a pile going on the other side of the yard, out of view. I have 3/4 acre and what I really want is a nice chipper shredder. With the number of trees I have, I always have to put great compost material in the recycle bin because it's too big for the pile and I could fill all three bins in one day with ease. If I had a chipper I would just set it up out of the way somewhere and keep a really big pile.

I must be in the stone age, kinda but this works for me, I have two fence stalls in the garden area everything goes into to one for a time then flipped to the other, that is just the garden waste, the grass and leaves is a different story, I have a mulcher on my mower, I use it right away or I lay it on black plastic and turn it until I can use it. All my plants have done well with this, It is part of the Lasagna gardening teknik.(sp) Which I have been doing for a long time, just don't have much time anymore to devote to it. So Sad.

Composting is basically stone age stuff, Tills. Nothing rocket science about it, to be sure. My dh does the same thing with the leaves from our bigleaf maple in the fall. I love those leaves and convinced him that the tree still needed them, so he mulches them with the 'lawn vacuum' (yeah, go figure.) and it works like a charm.

If it works, its all good. LOL

Lawn vacuum-hey, where'd you hear that? I've used that term for the mower for years...

I've got a pallet compost bin, tucked in behind the garage. Not pretty, not fancy, great price, works. I had two bins previously-that was nicer, but the one down side to the pallet bins is that they themselves gradually become compost as well. So, both bins had to be dismantled and replaced. So, this year I've got one again. I used the spot where the second one had been to put in my little veggie bed for this year-should make it easy to add another pile come fall. I don't even attempt to compost my weeds-the city gets those, my bins do not get consistently hot enough for long enough. I do veggie trimmings, coffee grounds, grass clippings, doug fir cones (oh so slow!). This year we're adding shredded paper, and of course other yard bits and also grass sod from my re-contouring. It's fairly slow, but I've gotten really nice compost eventually out of all my bins. I grew about 15 volunteer tomato plants in the last bits of compost from my bins last year, and the lasagna bed I made with the majority of it is looking pretty good, too.

I use a four bin system in the lower area, and a whacking great pile up top - gardening on a slope like ours we want to make sure that there is plenty at both ends. Like Tils, I do flip mine into the next bin half way through its cooking, and the last two bins are for leaf. My lower ones look like horse stalls in need of rebuilding - on the list for next year (aren't you glad there is always a next year). We do make some pretty big piles, and they do get steamy, but I always have to supplement this with a double load of farm manure and last year a double load of composted bark.

This year we are doing a lot of work down in the woodlands clearing a lot of the scrubby growth, so I am getting a big commercial chipper in at the end and putting all the top growth through that. I'm planning on leaving the pile of chip down there until next year to get it started composting - fingers crossed.

MMMM. commercial chipper/shredders! My dream!

Hate to admit it but the lawn vacuum is, well, actually... a lawn vacuum. My dh bought it when we moved in here to try to pick up fir cones, leaves, etc, because it grinds them up and I can compost them better. Silly man. should have bought me a chipper/shredder!

uh-oh, a real one! I better not let DH know-I'm sure he will want one....

I love the image of husbands galore out doing the lawn hoovering in their nice little pinnies (that's aprons to you across the pond, but they must have those little floral print, contrast binding around the edges, and pockets (cut on the bias) to keep a clean hankerchief and a few clothes pegs). Nice husbands, good husbands.

To funny

I love the visual Laurie!

I want one, too! Now the truth comes out, it seems the pallet bin is winning out all over. Maybe I just need to get pallets of the same size?!

I did have a 3-bin pallet system set up for about 6 years. It worked well until the bins began to rot out at the bottom and nettles and horsetail grew up between the pallet boards where they are hard to pull out. They held quite a bit of material (vegetable garden remains, kitchen scraps, and barnyard manure of various kinds)- a pretty ideal size for a compost heap. I took them apart, dug out the nettles, and plan on putting a berry patch in where the compost bin used to be. The main reason I am trying something different is that my dog kept digging in it. We thought about adding a fourth side to the active bin, but I didn't want something hard to get into. So we are experimenting with a round black plastic bin about 30 inches in diameter and as high. The dog can't get into it, and it is relatively easy to remove to get at the compost and can be situated anywhere I want in the garden. I like the idea of a movable compost bin that I can set up wherever I want to improve the soil. A potential drawback is that I don't think the interior volume is big enough to heat up.

I use a 3 bin system and it is getting over used and I need a bigger one. I have over 3 yards in each bin. I use chipper shredder, leaf vacuum, lawn broom behind my garden tractor, and my pride and joy is the debris loader. I chip everything at least twice during the composting process. Especially the pine needles which are about 1/2 of the volume of the compost material. With the debris loader I suck up the needles, cones and blow them into my trailer. Then I vacuum out the trailer for a second time into the compost bin. It will be layered in the summer with grass clippings and the fall and spring with cow manure or Milorganite. I let it cook for at least 3 months in the summer and 6 or more months in the winter and spring. This is where my slave (DW) piles up the clean up and I chip and shred.

This message was edited Apr 15, 2008 9:23 PM

Hey Steve, where have you been? Keeping busy.
Started a new tread, lets see what you might come up with. in my truck getto LOL

This message was edited Apr 15, 2008 9:01 PM

I have been hand shoveling 10 yrds of manure, and working on 4 yrds of dirt daily for the last 3 days. I am making my new beds in the woodland garden. Kind of fun busting butt to shovel all of the wonderful opportunities in our world of Montana. I'll look for the getto in PNW.

LOL You Rock