Talk to me about composting systems

[TheAttachedMama]

Hi There,

 

I am thinking of getting a compost bin for our family.  Can anyone talk me through the process?  Why would I want a bin system over a worm based system?  What are the benefits? 

 

Also, how does one get enough 'brown' material?  We don't have a lot of trees to generate leaves, so I am wondering how I would get enough brown material to compost the green stuff we have. 

 

Thanks!

[JumpyTheFrog]

I'm a composting newbie, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

From what I've read, families that eat lots of produce or have a garden might make more scraps than the worms can eat.

[TheAttachedMama]

OK, we eat a lot of produce and have a garden...so maybe a worm composter might not be a good fit.  (I was thinking the kids might think the worms were neat.)  We do live in the city, so we need something small-ish and something that won't smell. 

[bibliophile]

Cardboard boxes are compostable and count toward brown material. Composting is a good way to hide the evidence of all those amazon purchases. :)

[Belacqua]

Ok, I really need better reading glasses. I read the thread title as "talk to me about composting victims" and could only wonder what the heck AttachedMama is getting up to!

 

And I know zero about composting, so I can contribute nothing of value here to offset my dopey observation. Carry on with the people who actually know what they're talking about. :)

[Melissa in Australia]

We are huge on composting.

 we have huge composting bins, plus a worm farm plus chooks :hurray:

 

The massive compost ins are DHs pet project. he makes what looks like potting mix form them with a secrete recipe that has lots of hardwood sawdust, grass clippings from a local campground, trace elements and other secret ingredients. cardboard and wood ash goes in these ones

 We have another compost bin for garden wastes. the chooks get lots of the green leafy matter from the garden, and the worm farm gets kitchen scraps. A regular worm farm kit thingy that you buy from a hardware shop cannot handle garden wastes.

 

The good thing about having multiple composting systems is that the end products are different and can be used differently.

[MotherGoose]

I used to have an elaborate system for composting, but don't have the time anymore. What I do is pile it all in a corner of the garden, and let it rot. It does eventually turn into compost, and the worms find it and expedite the process. I have a large garden and lots of raw materials, although now that I have chickens they get most of the vegetable/food scraps. I've also begun just tossing the dead plants and stuff outside the garden bed or I stick it under the mulch to decompose naturally because I don't have time to move it around.

[KrissiK]

We have a big, black composter we got a Costco several years ago.  Generally, we put all fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, coffee filters and grounds, lawn clippings and some leaf rakings (we do not compost scientifically at all we just throw stuff in) and the worms just come. There are a ton of worms at the bottom, so if you're going to compost, you will probably automatically get worms unless the composter is up off the ground. We generally "harvest" it once a year. We put a sprinkler head in it, because what makes good compost is making sure it get enough water and it's hot inside to cook everything.

[KrissiK]

OK, we eat a lot of produce and have a garden...so maybe a worm composter might not be a good fit.  (I was thinking the kids might think the worms were neat.)  We do live in the city, so we need something small-ish and something that won't smell. 

if you're composting the right stuff (i.e. not meat or dairy or cooked things) your compost will not smell at all. Or if it does, it will have a good earthy smell.

[Rosie_0801]

The trick with worm farms is to puree the scraps.

[Melissa in Australia]

I have never pureed scraps for the worms. they might break it down faster if pureed, but they manage fine with bigger bits.

[MSNative]

We have a worm composter and love it for the fun of it. We mainly use it to grow the worms and put them in out garden beds. However, I agree with pp that one bin will probably not handle all your scraps. I haven't tried pureeing the scraps though. We generally give our scraps to the chickens or rabbits so we only have a small amount going to the worms. The worms end up composting a lot of newspaper for us.

We also use the compost pile in the corner of the yard method. We throw chicken coop used bedding, rabbit poo and everything else there. A couple of handfuls of worms thrown in really decreased the composting time. A huge pile of compost shrinks down to half it's size in a couple of weeks-no turning required. While this is great for me being a lazy gardener, I find it hard to actually harvest the compost. Anyone else use the pile method have a decent way to harvest?

[livetoread]

After some trial and error, I ended up with two bins. I add to one and let the other finish.Then I use the finished one and start adding to that now empty one while the other finishes. One bin drove me nuts because I kept adding to it and it couldn't finish.

 

I've never tried worms.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

We just have a big mesh, like chicken wire, square bin we toss all plant based kitchen scraps in as well. Turn it sometimes (rarely). We can pop open one side and dig out the good stuff from the bottom.

[Pam in CT]

You ladies are inspiring me.

 

I currently do a form of lazy gardener's composting -- just plonk the soft stuff (grass, leaves, garden clippings) in a couple of shady hidden sections, water and turn the piles on occasion.  Regular garden worms find it, and in a couple of years it turns to compost.  (Compost - ish, I suppose -- I'm sure there are loads more weed seeds than if it got properly hot.)  I'd like to step it up, but...

 

We are huge on composting.

 we have huge composting bins, plus a worm farm plus chooks :hurray:

 

The massive compost ins are DHs pet project. he makes what looks like potting mix form them with a secrete recipe that has lots of hardwood sawdust, grass clippings from a local campground, trace elements and other secret ingredients. cardboard and wood ash goes in these ones

 We have another compost bin for garden wastes. the chooks get lots of the green leafy matter from the garden, and the worm farm gets kitchen scraps. A regular worm farm kit thingy that you buy from a hardware shop cannot handle garden wastes.

 

The good thing about having multiple composting systems is that the end products are different and can be used differently.

 

Those of you with the red worms -- do they survive the winter, or do you get new ones each spring?  We spike down to 5F / ~-15C several times a winter, though it's generally much warmer than that.

 

We have a big, black composter we got a Costco several years ago.  Generally, we put all fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, coffee filters and grounds, lawn clippings and some leaf rakings (we do not compost scientifically at all we just throw stuff in) and the worms just come. There are a ton of worms at the bottom, so if you're going to compost, you will probably automatically get worms unless the composter is up off the ground. We generally "harvest" it once a year. We put a sprinkler head in it, because what makes good compost is making sure it get enough water and it's hot inside to cook everything.

 

And those of you who compost food -- what's your critter situation?  And where do you keep the compost bin?  This is my biggest concern about stepping it up past garden greens -- we commonly have raccoons, skunks, the occasional coyote, and I'm sure there are all kinds of (shudder) rodents out there as well.  Theoretically there are black bears too, though I've never seen one around our neighborhood.  I really really really don't want to lure these guys closer to my house... but on the other hand I know we won't be disciplined about putting stuff out if it's too far from the house.

 

 

The trick with worm farms is to puree the scraps.

 

Do you do this every time you generate kitchen scraps, or save them up in the kitchen and do it once a week or something?  Do they smell?

 

We have a worm composter and love it for the fun of it. We mainly use it to grow the worms and put them in out garden beds. However, I agree with pp that one bin will probably not handle all your scraps. I haven't tried pureeing the scraps though. We generally give our scraps to the chickens or rabbits so we only have a small amount going to the worms. The worms end up composting a lot of newspaper for us.
We also use the compost pile in the corner of the yard method. We throw chicken coop used bedding, rabbit poo and everything else there. A couple of handfuls of worms thrown in really decreased the composting time. A huge pile of compost shrinks down to half it's size in a couple of weeks-no turning required. While this is great for me being a lazy gardener, I find it hard to actually harvest the compost. Anyone else use the pile method have a decent way to harvest?

 

I just do small batches -- I go out to my lazy pile with a 4-gallon bucket and a shovel, fill the bucket, and then lug it over to whatever hole I'm digging or container I'm filling.  I'm usually just amending a small patch of my lousy Connecticut Rocks infertile soil, though, not trying to cover a large area.  Sounds like you have an actual farm, which I do not!

 

[MSNative]

Lol. No real farm. I must just post big. I have 3 chickens and well, 11 rabbits now cause one of my does just had babies but really only a breeding trio.

 

Red worms- ours overwinter very well. We bring the worm bin into the garage in the winter but the ones in the ground and the compost pile do fine. They are really resilient. Plus, even if the adults froze, they usually have so many baby pods (as my boys call them) that you will have tons of worms in the spring.

 

Critters- we have raccoons, groundhogs, possums, coyotes, owls, etc. you name it, we've got it. Ugh. They don't seem interested in the compost pile, though. They are much more interested in my garden and the animals. Currently they are enjoying eating every darn strawberry.

 

Thanks for sharing your lazy gardener pile harvesting method. I'll be out with my pail and shovel later this morning. ;)

[KungFuPanda]

Has anyone tried a worm tube? I saw it on Pinterest and was thinking of giving it a go in my tiny square foot garden.

[LostSurprise]

In my experience things do smell...but only if you don't have a brown/green mix. The green/brown mix (2:1 green/brown, I think) is what speeds composition and eliminates the smell of slow decomposition. (After leaving kitchen leftovers in a can over the frozen, snowy winter...look out Spring!

 

You can check out the Compost forum at GardenWeb. Those people have a lot of knowledge about what makes good brown matter. You could use hay, sawdust, newspaper. 

 

We also have a lazy pile. Fill pile with leaves in the Fall. Bury kitchen scraps throughout the year in it, until it's broken down. 

[MSNative]

We've tried worm tubes and built worm cafés. Meh. I was all excited but have to say that they didn't really work for us. The worms don't stay put and the food attracts all sorts of other bugs. Much better, IMO, to take the food you were going to put in your worm tube and just put in in the garden and cover with dirt. The worms will find it.

[bettyandbob]

So, I have a bigger yard that my neighbor. She plants a garden in my yard, takes card of it and gives me vegetables. She put two large composters under my deck. All I do is throw my scraps in one or the other. She stirs it or whatever.

 

Win for me. I compost, but really I no idea how it's really set up. I get vegetables. My yard is cared for. Not a lot of work going on for my part in the back yard.

 

I know that's not what you wanted, but I wanted to brag about my easy compost system.

[livetoread]

I put my chicken wire bins inside my garden fence. I ended up sacrificing a raised bed and turned it into two bins next to each other. This was to keep my dog from eating it and then barfing it up on my carpet.

 

I do think it has attracted our skunk. We quit putting anything out over the winter in hopes it would move on, but it doesn't look like that happened. The skunk manages to get into our fence somehow. Oh well.

[Laura Corin]

I have three big wooden bins.  I fill one up with stuff (scraps, grass clippings, cardboard) then move onto the next.  I turn them a few times a year.  It's not a quick process and it doesn't heat up enough to kill weed seeds: I use the resultant compost at the base of new plants and new beds, so I bury it to stop weed germination.  It's very little effort and doesn't smell.

 

L

[kubiac]

Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web is my absolute favorite composting book. You'll be so so inspired by what goes on in there.

 

On a related note, our compost varmint is a small lizard who uses it as a source of insect snacks.