Composting

When I think of people who use a rake or a leaf blower to bag up all of their leaves in the fall, and those whose lawnmowers automatically bag up their grass cuttings, to be hauled away, that seems like such a waste. I rake my leaves up against the fences on both sides of the yard, and in the back of the yard, to either compost in place or to be used to layer my compost piles. It's a lot less work, and it gets to be fun after awhile. Welcome to the forum, by the way.

 

It doesn't look like we're going to get the snowstorm today that they said we were going to get. It's been above freezing and dry. Spring can't come quick enough though, since this compost pile is getting pretty high. Once I am pretty sure that we won't get any more extended freezes, I will be buying a couple of thousand worms, maybe more, including one variety that mostly works in the first few inches, and another that likes to burrow. Between the worms and the smaller critters that will get to work once the temperatures come up, this pile will be reduced before too long, although it will be a couple of years before it turns into usable compost.

Also in the spring, I'll be laying another concrete slab and building another compost pile, this time with higher and stronger posts, and a thicker grade of fencing, although this one should work well. You can't see it here because it's covered by boxes, but there are a few layers of leaves that I put in before the snow covered the ground, as well as a couple of layers of shredded paper and cardboard, as well as some paper towels and un-shredded pages from magazines and newspapers. Even a few books, mostly because I wanted to see how quickly they'd compost whole. Plus, each box is filled with a variety of compostable materials, so that the stuff inside the boxes should begin composting before the boxes themselves compost. The added air spaces within the pile makes for a more rapid compost once the temperatures are suitable.

 

I think I'll take a chance and get some worms soon. It's been fairly warm and I don't think we'll have any more cold freezes.

 

Okay, I've ordered a few thousand worms, of a couple of varieties. They will ship Monday, and will probably arrive Wednesday or Thursday, which is unfortunate because I will be going in for surgery on Wednesday morning, and they'll be keeping me overnight. The likelihood of getting my wife to prepare the worms to be added to my compost pile is small, so I am hoping they will do okay in the packing container for a day or so. I would have waited, but wasn't aware that they only ship on Mondays. I think the weather will be okay for them. I'll just add some peat moss to the top of the pile and add the largest part of the worms, 2,000 red worms, to the center of the pile, and the 500 European red worms to another part of the pile. I might just add them to the same place because I don't think they fight. The regular red worms work near the top of the pile, while the European worms burrow more deeply.

 

Hopefully, we won't have any more hard freezes because I've added the worms to two boxes filled with peat moss, shredded paper, leaves, and some leaf vegetables. I've cut the bottom out of each of the boxes so they can move on from the original box whenever they're ready. I've also packed leaves into all of the crevices of the compost pile.​

 

A few times during the summer, I'll soak the compost down and cover it with a tarp for a few days. That warms it up and seems to speed the compost process up. When I uncover it, there will be mushrooms all over the top of it, but they go away quickly after being exposed to the sunlight and air, and the pile flattens out more quickly.

 

I was planning on leaving the tarp on my compost pile for a few days longer, to let things warm up and get the worms more active, but I decided to take a peek, and then I thought I'd add a layer of leaves to it before covering it up again. Rather than bagging up my leaves in the fall, I add what I can to my compost piles, then rake the others up against the fence or along the back part of the yard, to be used as needed. One thing I have noticed is that it takes a long time for paper towels and tissue to compost unless it is mixed well with leaves. There's probably not much there that the worms take a liking to otherwise, being bleached paper and all.

I dug into the compost pile that I started a couple of years ago and was happy to find it full of worms. I already had worms, but I had added some more to it last spring so it looks like they survived the winter and are hard at work. In fact, that being an established compost pile, they were probably at work in the center all winter, and now they're coming up to the top. Nice, big, healthy looking worms too, although the ones I buy are very small at the time they're added.

 

It's getting a little high. I added a bunch more leaves to it, and have been adding a box or a bag (or more) every other day.




This is my first compost pile. It's actually the second time I've used it, but this one is in its third year. Thinking that it was going to be a one-time use, I simply pounded some wood slats into the ground and connected them with compostable string. That lasted long enough for that first pile but when I decided to use it another time, the string began composting, so I tied the slats together with the plastic bags that I was using to carry the compost in. As you can see, that looks pretty ugly, so it's time for a clean up.

Plus, the compostable kitty-litter bags do okay in my woods, where they can sit for the four years or so that it takes to fully compost them, but not so good for back-yard composting, so I won't be using them anymore.


This is my second compost pile, also in its second run. As you can see, it is composting itself. When this one is ready, probably next year, I will be replacing it with one that has a concrete floor. It's coming along pretty good, though. Other than the leaves that have fallen into it, I haven't added anything to it since last fall. There are some pieces of un-composted cardboard, but mostly where it was covered by plastic tape. Whenever I turn anything over in this pile, it is teeming with earthworms so it's still working.

 

It was time for a clean up. I dismantled the slats from my oldest compost pile, and used them to extend the height of my newest one. Eventually, they will compost themselves.


I moved the supposedly compostable kitty litter bags from the oldest compost pile to the second one, which I won't be adding new stuff to, so that it will get plenty of sun and eventually compost.


After picking out the plastic and non-compostable stuff, my oldest pile is ready to be used. Unfortunately, it's so full of roots that it's not going to be good for much other that to spread out and add to the thickness of the soil in this area, which doesn't hurt anything. With the concrete floor on the new pile, I think I'll be able to use that compost for more, however.




This is a three-year pile and, other than the roots and a few small pieces of not-fully composted cardboard, it's ready for use.

 

I know that it doesn't look much different from one photo to another, but that's the point. I am adding new stuff to it all the time yet the level is still below the top of the wire. If you look at some of the earlier pictures, you can see where I added the orange kitty litter box near the left side. Once on the top of the pile, it's now almost disintegrated and nearly at the bottom. A couple of months ago, the pile was way high, yet now it's down below the top of the wire siding, and nothing has been removed from the pile. The worms are busy.

 

No matter how much stuff I add, the worms keep the pile about the same height.


These are compostable cat litter bags. They work okay when I am composting something up north because they can take as long as they want to compost, but I won't be using them here at the house any longer. These are more than two years old now and they are just starting to come apart. The use cat litter within has composted to the point where it doesn't smell like cat litter anymore, but this is not the sort of compost that I would use in food gardening, since there are potential problems with composting cat litter. Still, after planting my beans I still had several left over so I planted them in my two-year and three-year compost piles, figuring that any resulting plants would simply add compost material. The bean that is doing the best is sprouting directly from one of the kitty litter bags.

 

Since one of my straw bales broke, I am using it to line the compost, as I am running low on leaves.

This is the compost pile that has been sitting for three years now. Since I had beans left over after planting the garden, I planted some of them in the compost just to see how well they'd do. Any beans produced in this compost pile would probably be safe to eat since it's been composting for three years but I don't use my compost piles for food crops since I compost cat litter in it. These beans will simply be added to the compost.


This pile has been composting for two years. Except for a few pieces of cardboard that had plastic tape on it, and the supposedly compostable litter bags, it's pretty well composted but, as I said above, I don't use my compost for food crops. A few bean plants are growing directly from the kitty litter bags.