I cleaned up the old compost site a little bit and planted some wildflowers there, although some were from seeds that are probably a couple of years old.
We use a bin and a tumbler which was 'expensive' but easier to use. I was turning out compost for years. Last 3 years not so much. I need to turn it now but its just too hot ans humid with ll the rain storms. Not to speak pf mosquitos are bad from rains.
Ken, did you see @Marie Mallery 's Huglekultur mound? I had never heard of these... https://www.seniorsonly.club/threads/anyone-do-any-home-canning.19097/page-4#post-529628
No, I hadn't. I read something about them once, probably in Backwoods Home magazine, but I had forgotten about it. It's an interesting idea. I don't know that I have room for it in my yard but I might do something like that on our land up north.
My daughter did her first version of that for potatoes, dumping soiled rabbit hay, manure and dirt on a line of wire fence on the ground. She pulled the sides together and fastened them and stood them up on end. Then put the cut potatoes with eyes into the sides of the tube. the tube was only 3 feet across. You could probably put any number of veggies into it....Tomato seedlings tied to the sides, beets, carrots....Just be sure to water well. Five foot tall by three foot garden
It looks about the same, except that the stuff at the bottom is starting to look more like compost and less like boxes and household garbage. In the summer, the rate of composting pretty much keeps up with the volume of stuff that I am adding to it.
Looks good ,we are empting a coffee can full today. But the rain has been almost nonstop this whole summer,but can't complain after thinking about those poor people in all those fires, makes the cloudy days seem ok.
Never give up! Never surrender! We had been piling leaves and lawn clippings on a pile that I described to someone that I was thinking to hire to haul it away. He gave an estimate of around $250 to take it away. He wanted to know what the size of the pile was to give the estimate and I told him it was the size of a bull African elephant that had fallen over. This was before I understood what use compost was. I did not pay. Welllll the years went by, the pile grew until my daughter needed potting soil and 'compost'. We forked off the top of the pile to find the most glorious potting soil you could imagine, complete with worms! People pay money for this stuff and we had elephant loads to build gardens!
The cardboard on the outsides of the pile composts slowly, which is why I have it there, as it holds the other stuff in place. However, when I remove the cardboard from the bottom of the pile, I have completed compost there that I will probably harvest in the spring to use in the lupine garden space behind my shed. Cardboard that is removed from the outsides of the pile is placed on the top of the pile, where it quickly composts. With these big compost piles, I can start digging it out from the bottom of the pile and the other levels will sink down toward the bottom as they become fully composted, so it works pretty well.
Our compost bin and leaf pen was ful of big red carpenter ants! I poured amonia on them,seems they are gone. Hope I didn't ruin my leaves with too much amonia. I haven't been able to turn it in a couple weeks. Guess I'll see.
I haven't posted anything new here in a couple of years, but I have continued my compost pile. I have reduced the stuff that I have been putting on the compost pile to that which will compost quickly because I want to be able to clean it out in the spring. Then, I'll rebuild the sides and continue as I have been. If I can get to it before the snow comes, I might start harvesting some of it from the bottom this fall, but I'll probably wait until spring. Otherwise, I haven't changed how I compost since what I have been doing seems to be working fine. Maybe tomorrow, I'll rake up some leaves and post another picture. It will look pretty much like the one above, however.