Composting

[bull]

Who's doing it,what are you composting and how much are you making a year????????


I have started two new piles in recent weeks, #1 is cow manure and wood waste " Chips and sawdust " #2 is leaves, horse manure, and garden cleanup waste. each pile is about 40 + yards have been turning twice a week to get it hotter !!!

Feild composting as well. Finished spreading 85 yards of compost last week and 50 yards of leaves yesterday, on 2 acre vegetable plot, all has been incorperated with a chisel and with any luck I will get it plowed under today, to late for a cover crop !!!

[EditorBob]

We do just household composting, so small potatoes to what you're doing for sure. I bet your vegetables are going to happy next year with all that organic matter goodness!

[bull]

I hoping to make a big difference. The soil is presently heavy clay based and hold to much water, I cleared most of this land over the past 4 years from 30 years of wood growth mostly black oak and swamp maple. The land was used as a vegetable feild after being cleared in the mid 1700's thru the early 1900's
from 1930's to 1968 it was used as a cow pasture for a neighboring dairy farm. in 68 my grandfather purchased this parcel and an additional 75 acres and did nothing with it. I became the owner of 4.5 acres of this parcel and began working the land in 1992. In 1998 when I started my mill I was using the area as a slab / waste yard and began a small composting operation and little by little have opened the area to a little over 3 acres of cleared usable land................. In doing this I continue to push the compost further to the north and have been making some fine soils. I have about 1/2 an acre of ground that has 14 + inches of the most beautiful soil and it appears that within the next year another 1/2 a acre will look the same...... So that is why I have made a bigger push on the next two acres...... I am also building a 30" single shank subsoiler to bust up the hardpan under this area to hopefully help with the water problems........
No wetlands involved, the area is an upland valley @ 815' in elevation. To the west within 300' the elevation is 845'and to the east south east within 300'
the elevation is 831' the land slopes to the northeast, but is relatively level.

Sorry that was wordy and a little off topic but may say alot for composting !!!

[LeslieH]

WOW - what a great job making all of that compost!

I compost for personal use only, but am in a simimlar situation as you. I need to get the soil more workable as rapidly as possible.

I'm doing a couple of things - I'm getting a lot of material from 1 lawn service - hope to expand to a second service this coming spring - and eithe rmaking piles, or letting it compost on site. I just put the grass and leaves where I want to use, and within a year, it's pretty good. It's also a lot less work.

I also use leaf mulch the town gives away/dumps wherever possible. I'm also considering going to a local funeral home for the flowers. Macabre, I know, but they have to go somewhere.

I've found I don't have to plow or till. I just put my materials right where I want them, and plant directly in it. The worms that build up in very short time get the clay in great shape within a season. I still have to deal with weeds, but even that is reducing rapidly. If I don't stir the soil, the seeds don't meet the sun!

I just cleared an area of 3 dozen pines and am in the process of shredding and dumping leaves at about a 6" layer over the grove floor. If history repeats itself, it'll be extremely workable in the spring, and you won't even know there was a 6" layer of anything there. The worms will have dealt with it.

Our soil is so clay, you can grow 6" when it's the right moisture content. It just clings to your boots.

Leslie

[bull]

worms are awesome little creature one can never have enough of them !!!

[Dicehyden]

Obviously no one would like to eat worms ya. loll We do just household composting, so small potatoes to what you're doing for sure. I bet your vegetables are going to happy next year with all that organic matter goodness!

[LeslieH]

I did a very small scale expirement with a portion of my yard - that's glorified hay field.
I burned drywall, and sieved it to a fine powder. I tried to sieve it without - can't do it. I also tried water logging it and then sieving it - didn't work. Burning it is the best way to make it be a consistent powder. It's better for the environment to peel the paper off first, and since it IS fire resistant, it tends to be a pain to burn anyway.
Once it was a fine powder, I cast it on a section of the lawn/hay field. The results were quite interesting! With absolutely no other fertilization - to a very deficient area - the grass and clover were greener, thicker, resisted drought better and grew taller.
My main concern is how acid our rain still is. Acid leaches minerals such as calcium out to neutralize the acidic conditions. This, in turn, leaves soil deficient and the insects/animals are in a constant state of malnutrition/existence.
This needn't be added directly to the soil, but could be put in the compost easily.
I'm not nearly to the point of being able to do a quantity larger than my little expirement yet, but once I am, I know of several contractors who would love to reduce their dumping fees by giving me their drywall scraps to use.
I'm also trying to come up with a manual grinder to break the drywall up into small pieces for the drying/burning process, which will make sieving it far easier. I just haven't had time to really think about it.

[mommagoose]

I sure hope your dry wall didn't come from China. I also hope the Lawn services do not use too many harmful chemicals that will hurt your worms and beneficial insects. You must not be organic.
Linda

[LeslieH]

Originally Posted by mommagoose

I sure hope your dry wall didn't come from China. I also hope the Lawn services do not use too many harmful chemicals that will hurt your worms and beneficial insects. You must not be organic.
Linda

I'm more concerned with overall balance than being able to stick a shingle out there saying "organic". So much yard waste is dumped illegally or sent to the landfill that it's a hazard rather than prime materials it should be.

The chemicals - I did a bunch of research.
#1 - the lawn service that brings me the stuff has only about 10% of his clients using chemicals. So the volume is low.
#2 - in high heat conditions, even for very short times - a week or less - the chemicals decompose rapidly. I achieve that even with composting in place. But much of it gets hot composted for the summer and cold composted until I use it the following year.
#3 - while studies are showing chemicals are showing up in residual levels in horse feed, that's from industrial farming, where there is historically excessive use of chemicals. This is more of a Monsanto issue.
#4 - anecdotally, my worm population is exploding. LOL The little buggers are shooting out of the ground when I get stirring their dirt up.

So, no - I'm not organic and doubt I will ever try to achieve offical organic status. However, I use no chemicals on the property and increase our native bird population that feed/nest on our property by an average of 3 new species a year for the last 4 years.

As for the drywall, nope - made in the US. I checked as soon as the word came down about the crap from China.

L

[bull]

grass clippings are great, I take in an average of 20 yards a week for mulching (open composting) and for green matter in my (composts heaps) I'm not concerned if a lawn service has applied chemicals. They are applied to the soil and the plant material has processed them thru root uptake and they are in a natural state...... As for "organic" the definition of organic : Organic is matter that was once living and is now dead..... I don't know how to garden in Dead !!! Soil health is key, " Worms and Good Bugs" are the indicator as well as the absense of "Bad Bugs"..... Organic matter is the key to soil life .... and chemicals are found in every form of life, proper use is the issue, soil testing is a must if you use checmicals.
My chemical input is at a minimum ( IPM ) is the best practice.
" Lime is a chemical " do you use it ?" I hope so.......
Wood ash "carbon" = chemical, manure is made up of chemicals, Nitrogen, phosporus,potasium, methane etc.

I am pro (Organic Farming / Gardening) but lets define it properly and not denounce any other agricultural pratice as " better, worse, or hazardous "..... We are all in this together if we are farmers / gardeners !!!!!!!!