Compost

Originally Posted by tsmith53149

Hey gang,

Was just wondering if you guys compost or not? I do, and was thinking if i produce a surplus of it, to sell it on craigslist for fertilizer. Just dont know if this would make alot of extra money, but just a thought

Why not, sounds like a decent idea. You'd need lots though to make any decent cash. I know big bags up here go for 10 bucks and under.

I make a lot of compost!

never tried to sell it but I do sell the wiggly things that live inside it.

Depending on your location and the quality you can sell it between 5-50$ a yard. 10-15$ a yard is what I bought it for when I ran an organic yard care company. The majority of your issues would actually come from the city and state and how they would make you do things.

Originally Posted by hobo finds

163 Things You Can Compost

I agree with most of that list but if you add a lot of wood chips to your compost it will deplete the nitrogen levels trying to break it down make sure to add extra grass clippings and cover it to counter this effect. The cheese fish and shells I would only add if you want to pick up the compost from all over your yard after the critters got through with it. Most newspaper dyes are vegetable based but not magazines they are toxic.
veggies perennials shrubs trees and fruit heck i sell acorns and crab apples and compost is the most important step

It's good to see we have knowledgeable good stewards of this land "we call home". I have composted both as a home owner and on a large scale business (3 to 5 tons per day). As a business we started going green to cut overhead cost, for several years dump cost were our second highest expenditure. Labor was and always will be the biggest expense, you don't want your labor spending time and resources needlessly! In 1997 we stopped dumping tons of grass and leaves (green waste) into a landfill. Not only did I want to cut my waste cost, The state law mandated a 25% reduction in 1995 and 50% by 2000. You see where this is going? Really one of the few times I agreed that a law was needed to make it better for all of us. At first we sent about 20 tons a week to a biomass generator (grass to electricity). The rest went to a "bag compost" company, taking treated human sewer "sludge" and our "brown/leaves" mixing/composting/bagging (about 30 days) and onto a Big Box retailer. We actually got paid to dump! In 2001 we started our own composting/dirt yard, selling by the one yard minimum load. Over the next six years, we learned to stop bagging the grass when mowing. With the right equipped mowers, educated workers and property owners, started mulching the grass clippings right back into the lawn as we mowed. Properly done it cuts labor, mowing time, equipment maintenance cost, less fertilizer, saves water and grows better looking lawn. Grass grows in cycles, in it's max growth cycle (2 to 3 weeks) you will need to bag the grass. That state law? also made each property owner responsible for their waste. Residential or commercial has to recycle/reduce their waste. Actually against the law for us to take regular green waste to a landfill. In California 80 to 90% of all green waste is composted now! That is what should be happening everywhere, it is just plain stupid not too! It's not easy, nor is it cheap but in the long run more efficient use of a resource that should never be combined with trash. There's an "ART" in making good compost, right combination of green's and browns, mix in a little bit of dirt. Turn the pile over, we call that process "TOSSING". Monitoring the piles internal temperature determines when to toss the pile. Between 100 and 140 degrees you toss your pile. Monitoring temperatures is very important on a large scale. This cooks the pile, accelerating decomposition and eliminates possible harmful pathogens/bacteria. Done right there should be very little, if any stinky compost piles. We have one overall guiding rule, people will be eating the fruits and vegetables that grow in the compost we make. Put good stuff into your pile and good stuff comes out. No chemicals, non organic compounds, grease, fat or meat. Some operations add both animal and human waste, we choose not to do that. Make compost, add it to the soil (clay especially) and grow tomatoes (what ever you want to), that are far better than you can get at the store! Compost if you can and quit bagging your grass clippings (work smarter/not harder).

for small amounts of compost you can always trading it on craigslist. Compost for jam, beer, pie. Compost for pie sounds good!!!

I made 5 stackable compost bins 4'x4'. All together they're around 4' tall, and move them kind of leapfrog style to four side by side spots beside the garden, usually having 2 spots active and two spots empty. In the empty spots, after I've put that pile into the garden, I plant things that I want to be "supercharged" like special peppers or tomatoes. In our back pasture there's a sandy type of soil that's very rich, near the house here it's all black dirt. I put sand into the chicken house and when I clean it out it goes into the compost bins and gets covered up with grass clippings from the yard, and after a year or two gets mixed into the garden.
In the hot, dry summer months you can put grass clippings from the yard right into the garden as a mulch. I let it lay in the sun a day or two to dry, and then put it around all the things in the garden it will cover. It works great around plants to help keep moisture in and the ground around the plants cooler.
I heat with wood and during the winter months the ashes from the stove also goes into the compost mix
Tea bags and coffee grounds are good too, and any fruit and veggie peels

Originally Posted by Bear

I put sand into the chicken house and when I clean it out it goes into the compost bins and gets covered up with grass clippings from the yard, and after a year or two gets mixed into the garden.

Just a tip for grass clippings they are a super high source of nitrogen. nitrogen released as gas from your grass clippings is lighter than the air and will deplete upward into the air. If you either turn "toss" your compost or cover it after you add your clippings much more nitrogen will be trapped and a lot more heat generated creating a better compost.
I would like to see your bins as i am about to rebuild mine and am looking at all sorts of ideas there's a million and one out there.

I have worked here and been to many of the seminars put on by them. IMHO one of the leaders in organic and self sustainability farming using alternative non waste methods..
http://www.dacres.org/