How to get enough compost

What is the most practical way to get enough compost? The compost piles never produce enough and buying Coast of Maine at $6 a cubic foot is more than I can afford. I'm concerned about chemicals at the landfill. Does anyone have a good tip?
If buying by the truckload is the answer, what do you look for the compost to be from?

I'm a suburban gardener with an ever-increasing number of perennial beds and one veggie garden.
Thanks.
Dave

This is a great time of year to collect leaves from all your silly neighbors
who are putting them out for collection. They make terrific material for
compost.

Tam

Your question reminded me of what I did the first year I found out about freecycle groups. I have a large yard with several trees and have an area that isn't accessible with a mulcher. I raked and used the blower and got seven large trash bags filled with dry leaves. I didn't have a compost pile, yeah dumb. Couldn't stand to throw them in the trash, so I put them on freecycle as "compost material". Wasn't long until I got a taker! So you could put a "wanted" out there...?

My main compost ingredients:

- Free horse manure that I can wheelbarrow from a place up my road.
- Wood chips by the truckload from a tree service.

Thank you all for your responses! My town doesn't have leaf pick-up but I can try freecycle. How do I find them? My lack of a pick up truck is becoming a real obstacle too.
Any suggestions for the best (& cheapest) compost to buy?
Gratefully,
Dave

Lowes and Kmart have steer manure for $1/bag I would not use to much of just that though....Starbucks has coffee grounds for gardners that and your neighbors bagged leafs is still the best way to go for making your own compost pile or do the sheet compost method also known as the lasagna method with these items I also suggest vermicomposting your kitchen scraps.......I personally do not really do the traditional method of composting prefering the sheet and vermicompost and maybe the leaf mold method where you can leave the leafs in bags sprinkling a little bone meal on top, and tying it back up and putting the bag upside down (to stop rain, snow etc from getting in and making soup) leaving it like that for 6monthes to a year then using the leaf mold. I also will dig somethings straight into the ground like eggs shells, coffee grounds and banana peels (roses love banana peels) bananas have a high potassium levels.

I grind up leaves w/my lawn mower (put a bag on the mulching mower)
and dump it on all my beds including a really thick layer on the veggie
garden each fall. Really good stuff!. It breaks down pretty much by
spring and keeps the weeds from growing 'til I'm ready to go in the spring.

I've also bagged up any extra in plastic bags and its ready for use the next year.

Tam

Thank you MQN and Tammy. I guess I need to do some leg work & talk to some coffee shops and get to Lowe's.
My soil is very clay and I keep making new gardens so I never seem to have enough.

The fastest way I have found to get compost is the sheet/lasagna method.

I layer greens and browns directly on my beds. This time of year is the best before it starts snowing.

The ratio is 30:1. This means 30 parts of carbons (browns) to 1 part of nitrogen (greens).

Carbons: Leaves - chopped fine, the finer the quicker break down
Straw
Newspaper

Nitrogen: Grass clippings
Manure
Coffee grounds

The closer you keep to this ratio the quicker it will break down by spring. The layers will warm up and hold heat to break down.

I'm sure you know that you can dig in peat moss & gypsum to help
loosen up the clay soil. This doesn't help the fertility much but it
does help with the structure. And peat moss does not break down as
fast as compost so it'll work longer. (I used to have a patch of pure
clay at the back of my little city lot. I dug in a huge amount of compost
and a few years later, it was back to pure clay. I think raised beds
is a good idea!)
Tam

Thank you Tammy & LB!
Peat moss & gypsum are great but I would need yards and yards of it and my children would have to learn to like it for dinner because there would be no money left for food!
I have done some layering, Perhaps I should buy something to shred the leaves finer to expedite the process.
Thanks for all you input. I still have 1 question. If you were buying bulk compost, what would be the ideal ingredients/best buy?
Dave

If I had to chose just one kind of compost, I'd choose strawy horse manure for its slow-release nitrogen. Any stables in your area?

My ideal is any that is low-cost or free and contains no questionable material. I wouldn't touch composted sewage or industrial wastes for example, despite the claims. Otherwise all organic matter is welcome.

You're right, buying bagged materials at stores for a large garden is way too expensive. And you're also right, you could shred your leaves to help speed the rotting process. If you have a lawn mower and a leaf rake, that is all the equipment you need.

Here's a link to a site that lists leaf composting places in your state: http://dep.state.ct.us/wst/compost/listcsites.htm

Wayne

Put it on your Christmas list? ;o)

Al

I've been spoiled. When I lived in the city, I could pick up free compost from
the city. They collected green materials & leaves and then composted it. If you
showed your city-ID card, you could pick up as much as you wanted free.
Now I live on a "farm" and I make compost from the chicken "litter". (And I
have always used the leaves-shredded-by-lawn-mower on my beds in the fall).

Good luck!
Tam

I've got my chickens sorting through the compost these days. We also threw a couple of feet of unshredded leaves into the veggie garden (sleeping for the winter) and put the birds in there. They do a great job of breaking things down, aerating, and of course adding that nitrogen.

They do go through the compost pile! I had a flock of bantums only until
this year. I got five full-size hens & they just go digging & rooting around
like there's no tomorrow. My little bantums never did that!
Tam

Thanks all! No chickens here but you have given me some good ideas. Wayne, Very nice of you to find the link to my state's leaf compost sites!
I was always concerned about chemicals from public composting sites. Is this less of a concern with leaves than with grass?
Dave

Could one add alfalfa pellets or after soaked in water added to the leaves to help with nitrogen if you don't have chickens? I got a 50 lb bag here for around 7.00.

Blessings,
Sandy ^8^

Thank God I came to this site today. I will bag my leaves as of tomorrow. I'm so glad I missed the town pickup this morning.

In addition to the bone meal, can I throw some blood meal in there. Will it hurt it?

Can you please tell me if I can use fish waste to my pile. I have a fish market nearby I was about to ask them for their scraps. After reading this thread I guess it's not a good idea to put fish guts in my compost. or is it?
Thanks for the help.

I've never put meat or fish in my compost 'cause I've read it attracks
rodents. But I don't think there's any harm w/bone or blood meal. I
use both in my garden - the blood meal would add nitrogen which
would help the leaves break down faster.
Tam

If I were using fish bits, I'd bury them in the garden. If they go in the compost, they may never reach your garden at all, as many things will go for them.

I have better luck burying food into the compost. At worst, critters will make a mess of my compost, not my raised beds as they did in the spring as I buried food scraps in the soil.

Wayne

Opposite for me, but then, my garden's rabbit-fenced, so I guess that's why.

If you could stand putting the fish stuff in a blender to pure' Can't spell
but liquify that would work better. Indians use to bury fish around each of their corn plants for fertilizer. If liquified if may attract but
they could not drag the stuu out and around.

Thanks. I will get the fish scraps now puree it - mix it with soil - spread it around special places and mulch before the snow starts and I will do the same thing in the Spring. Thanks for the help.

Welcome :o)

Thanks a bunch.

That's what I do when I go fishing... Usually I catch the tiny little guys, so I take them home and bury them in my flowerbeds. I never see them or smell them again, and my plants love it!!

Am I the only one who has 'lust in my heart' for my neighbor's yard waste? If I could sell DH on the idea, we could get all the leaves, dead Christmas trees, etc. , we ever wanted!

xxxx, Carrie

I go out and steal leaves at night if no one answers my requests.

(Discaimers on that take take the fun out of it.)
Tonight; It's the Siepp, Whalen and Hayes homes... Call it a random act of kindness. Or perfectly crackers.

With huge piles of High-carbon leaf, I later have an excuse to go for a trip to my favorite vacationland- Horse Stables!

I know someone who puts everything (everything) immediately through a "Cuisinart" before it goes to a compost barrel. Fine & Fast, I fancy.

And- Compost your eggshells first. Direct-soil addition attracts skunks.

Welcome Rose Mallow, I hope you've found your ilk as I have.

Thank you. I already raked my neighbor's yard, bagged all the leaves and saved them with bone and blood meal. If only I could find some chicken manure I would be set. In the spring I'll just throw in some fish emulsion, lime, my saved leaves and get ready for Summer. Thanks

Rose_mallow - if you want to visit me here in NE Pa, you can help clean
the barn and take home some chicken manure. :-)

I let me chickens roam during the day so I save a lot on fertilizer for
the lawn. But I do need to clean out the barn a few times a year (they
spend nights & winter days while i'm at work in the barn). I compost it
and use it in my garden. But there's plenty for those that want to help
with the cleaning part :-)

Tam

If you we're too far I would come help clean up & get my reward (LOL) but you're tooo far from me, darn. Thanks for the offer.

I'm so tempted to start knocking on doors in the chicken farm district... Chickens have a very hot (Nitro) manure, since it is not seperated from the urine. I have the n-p-k somewhere... Perfect for leaf composts.

Gads, I wish I hadn't voluteered to work at two places this week-end. I needed the garden time badly. "Woe is me!"

K.James

K. James - is it warm enough??? Its been going below freezing at night here
so our ground is frozen. I need to finish grinding up the leaves & put up some
deer fencing but certainly no real "gardening" :-(

Tammy, it's never too late to do 'Real Gardening.' Pansies still bloom under the snow.

I did all kinds of serious garden work last winter.

This year, I've just yet to do the fall work of cleaning up the forest of frozen castor beans, turn & move great piles of compost and so on. There is also an ivy garden going in. One can use a very sharp shovel to cut through frozen ground. Our intense sun keeps the freeze from going very far. (but doesn't stop it from getting in to the teens at night right now)

Who else in here gardens/composts/plants/soil amends "rain or shine" (or snow or freeze) ?
Come out of your snowy closets!

I've dug out lots of nasty multiflora roses & brambles out on a warm winter day..
I never thought of it as gardening. Just clearing space for a future garden.

I've "planted" bulbs in Dec (which is what I'll be doing when the 40% off
bulbs arrive next week). Somehow this doesn't seem like gardening either.

Tam

None of that is really gardening. Just Life?

Isn't that what everyone does? Just life LOL

If you add about a cup of !0-10-10 for each couple of bushels to your compost pile, it is supposed to build up the heat and decompose faster. Just be sure to turn it or stir it every few weeks too. Remember the good stuff forms on the bottom, so you need to turn the new stuff down to the bottom. It will also work faster in a sunny spot.