Coffee grounds

Bee,
You're the GREATEST! You just explained a whole lot in a few words and pics!

►You're right about the "greens" in the closed can rotting rather than composting.
►The leaves in the cans with the holes look like those in your pot
►after I dump the pine bark fines (PBFs) into the bed mix, I'll have four 25-gallon tubs available for leaf collection in the side yard!
►Great tip on the MOO NURE! Will set them out directly!
►The manure and coffee grinds will be good for the cabbages and mustard and collard greens, to encourage leafy growth!

So, regarding the rotting greens and the leaves. You think I can safely mix them together in the aerated cans and proceed from there? Or, just go with the leaves mixed into everything else?

Thanks, Again!

Linda

>> So, regarding the rotting greens and the leaves. You think I can safely mix them together in the aerated cans and proceed from there? Or, just go with the leaves mixed into everything else?

As long as you get the greens and browns togther, perferably in one place, they will cook well.

>> ►The manure and coffee grinds will be good for the cabbages and mustard and collard greens, to encourage leafy growth!

My theiry is that those greens are even more precious to the compost heap than the plants! Since the C-N ratio can be as low as 20:1, using some of the greens to speed up the composting will gain you large benefits in organic matter. A tiny amount of Miracle Gro would be appreicated almost as muc h by the plants, and then several months from now you will have much more finishjed compost, which they will REALLY love.

Or if yhou wnat to stgay more organic and feed the soil and plants only with organic nitruigen, you could give them the coffee grounds and manure.

(But then consider a handfull or two of cheap chemical lawn fertilzer into your composter! The chyemical stuff has vastgly more N than manure of green leaves, and the microbes can for sure handle it. They will digest it, incorporate into living tissue and make it organic enough to spread directly on the soil.)

But nitrogen is usually the limitng factor for compost as well as for tired soil. The slimy greens will help the browns to cook, but so would manure, coffee grounds, molasses or chemical nitrogen.

----
I typed before reading your whole post:

Coffee grounds (and manure) are great, N-rich "greens". I would cook those with the shredder paper and brown leaves for a few months before burying the paper. Isn't paper like wood or sawdust: likely to cause a temporary nitrogen deficit?

Aslo, kitchen scraps are often my only 'green' when I don't get coffee grounds. I think of them as the catalyst that makes to pile cook. Sometimes I buy apples more because the cores go into the heap to burn the browns, than becuase I like apples!

Three cans must mean that each load is pretty small. Can you throw them all together in one heap to get more size? Maybe hide it with a tarp if neighbors are a problem? Certainly try to save some greens out of the "in-hole" composting, to speed up the brown breakdown. Dig a hole into your browns and bury them there. I would not spread greens on top, they dry olut to fast. Bury them where bacteria, bugs and worms are comfy.

>> Should I put this can of greens with the cans of leaves, and throw in the coffee grinds, maybe?

Oh, I see you thoguht of that. YES! And I always bury my kitchen scraps in my compost heap. (It is one medium-size pile on the ground, where worms can find it. Worms are attracted to coffee grounds!)

No reason to compost PBF. Instead, save their structure for the soil. And they might slow down your pile (unless they add aeration, which you can always do with a pitchfork or shovel).

My composting method is very simple and not as complicated as others.I have a 2 gallon canister for the my kitchen scraps.My kitchen scraps which include food leftovers goes to my home made composter. I have 3 big trash barrels and are kept all the way at the end of the yard. I compost left over bread from the food pantry. when it gets full my husband buries the contents underneath the clippings.

the garden/yard waste goes on a pile behind the shed and I get a lot, in fact i just used it to compost my veggie garden. It is all organic.

It is a way of life and nothing is wasted!!!
We recycle!!! Happy composting!!!

Bellie

Are you saying the 2 gals of food scraps goes into the trash barrels? or under the yard waste behind the shed? sorry..... I was just trying to clarify. I attempted a traditional "compost pile" but didnt accomplish anything with it except to end up with a huge pile of leaves, debris and weeds!! No way could I have ever recovered any compost from it. So, then I moved to a shady area and started just piling my kitchen scraps and small limbs etc in a pile.... this didn't accomplish much either because I had free range chickens who would feast on it. Now, all my chickens are gone and I am trying to come up with an effective method to compost my small amount of kitchen and yard waste....... I dug a small hole in the same shady location and am trying to pile in the hole and hope that helps to keep it contained in one area...........but it doesn't really seem to be accomplishing anything either. I guess maybe I should try a trash can? I just don't want to deal with a rotten smell close to the house! I have NO trees in my yard so I have NO leaves to add. I do have access to paper which I have been told can take the place of the leaves but I am not sure that is correct................

Thanks!

Hey, Belle!

You must've been busy. Good to hear from you!

Girl, I do not like complicated! I just want my stuff to break down (in the garden), and turn into that nice, earthy, crumbly goodness ya'll have been getting.

When I was married, my DH used to chuck all the yard clippings into this humongous pile out back. Grass and leaves. It was constantly smoldering, and I realized it was from all that grass. I refused to use it on my veggies, cause our yard was the neighborhood latrine for the roaming cats. From what I know now, that heat killed anything pathogenic from the cats, and it was perfectly OK to use. I think it was more of a "mind" thing going on with me.

I might need to go make a compost run... He'd let me...

Gen2026,
I think Belle's method is as follows:

Site #1 is the 2 gallon canister for the kitchen scraps.
Site #2 is the 3 big trash barrels kept all the way at the end of the yard. She also composts leftover bread from the food pantry.
Site #3 is the huge pile of clippings -- the garden/yard waste, on a pile, behind the shed

#1 goes into #2. When #2 (the 3 barrels), is filled her husband buries the 3 trash barrels full underneath the clippings.

The clippings provide the nitrogen to "heat" everything that's breaking down. The 3 barrels of scraps and bread "feed"?? the pile so the organisms and worms will come to the table in the first place. They also throw off "heat" from their own energy, as they work furiously at breaking down the smorgasbord!

Hope I got this right!

Linda

"It is a way of life and nothing is wasted!!!
We recycle!!! Happy composting!!!"

This message was edited Jun 28, 2012 9:43 AM

Thanks! I just wasn't sure I was following the process!

I just get exhausted everytime I read this thread. SO much work going into these composts.

A lot of the results depend on some basic factors ( moisture, N content, particle size, ambient temperatures ) and it's pretty hard to diagnose over the 'net what's happening or gong to happen in your pile.

Small amounts of kitchen waste, buried in the ground, good method. They should melt away. They'll be adding moisture and some bio activity to the soil, you just won't really see it.

I don't mean to sound like a party pooper. We've read so much advice for years about compost, and it just doesn't happen so neatly as all the advice makes it sound, without careful attention to the basic factors... and who wants to spend all day doing that, or has the needed ratios on ingredients ready all at the same time?

Gymgirl, my advice would be to layer all your old 'compost', paper shreds, coffee grounds, then top with your soil mix. By the time the roots get to the compost it'll be just rotting along. The lower oxygen in the lower soil layer will keep the heat down, I would guess. I just don't think we can say what's going to happen because we ( I?) really can't visualize the ratios of what you've got. for example, a gallon of coffee grounds looks like "a lot" when we brew coffee two mugs at a time. The same gallon of grounds over a three by ten garden bed is nothing.

Is it ok to tell Sallyg "I LOVE YOU!" in this thread???

Nothing kinky going on...it's just that she got to the bottom line first!

THANK YOU, ALL! ^^_^^^^_^^

P.S. Regarding any "heat" build-up. I can start that bottom layer with the shredder paper, scraps and coffee grinds for the next 2-3 weekends, before I even have to put the top layer of soil mix in place. I'm not sowing root crop seeds in this bed until the end of July, mid-August!

This message was edited Jun 28, 2012 10:04 AM

Linda,
you explained the process very well, must have been a teacher??

Actually my method is effortless!!

We are now in Birmingham baby sitting our 2.5 year old g-son.

It is gold season for me so i had been very busy but find time to read all the threads that I watch.

My garden is so lush, i do nor have to worry about water because we have a deep well and someone waters my gardens while I am gone. I think of my garden all the time while i am away. LOL!!!

Sally g,
How long had you been composting? You will find a method that works for you.

Belle

Linda

aw Gymgirl, I'm feelin the LUV!!!
ROFL
We have such a friendly group here.
Anyhoo. I like your idea - ". I can start that bottom layer with the shredder paper, scraps and coffee grinds for the next 2-3 weekends, before I even have to put the top layer of soil mix in place"

I can hardly imagine staring from scratch the way tyou are, I think thats what exhausts me.
~~
Belle
I've watched leaves get dirty since high school and um well, for twenty one years at this house. I don't 'sweat' over it. I generally build a large leaf compost bin each fall, in rotating locations in the garden. Then in the summer, plant some kind of gourd, squash, pumpkin on top with some dirt. Watering the pile and plant and by fall this compost pile is done and has shrunk down, then take the lincoln logs style boards away and get ready for a new one.
oops gotta go to work...

Belle,
Actually, i'm a "latent" teacher. That would've been my other career...

>> If it smells highly of ammonia, then I would not use it. I'm not sure if the toxicity can be reduced. I once mixed potting mix that I KNEW had an ammonia smell with good potting mix and not a single seed sprouted!

If it is just ammonia and not some plant pathogen, diluting it a lot by mixing with lots of browns would be sure to cure the ammonia toxicity.

Letting it air out for long enoguh, excess ammonia would evaporate.
Letting rain perk through it, the ammonia would wash away very quckly.

BUT if some nasty bacteria got a firm grip on some unbalanced slime, and that batch went right into pots or seedling flats ... yuck, after things died would be a very good time to sterilize vigorously.

I have great faith in healthy soil, or an acitve reasonably balanced compost maintaining such variety of organisms that they can overwhelm and wipe out unhealthy organisms. It must be in the long-term (evolutionary) interest of soil life forms to cooperate in ways that encourage plants to keep sending down roots. Killing plant pathugens would be "in the interest ofr" the majority of soil organisms.

But maybe I'm just a feel-good dreamer.

I admit that I do throw away diseased or heavily insect-infested plant parts, rather than compost them.

But I believe that slime from most unbalanced compost heaps can usually be rescued by dilution with browns followed by aearation and a few weeks or months cooking in a lively pile.

ive turned my compost 3 times now..started it 2 weeks ago.. idont know if its the
HOT weather were having..i have a good mix in it...combo of all ..but its cooking down
nicely..
i do just a pile method..im very low tech..:) LOL
my ingredients in order of highest % of compost composition
straw,shredded leaves,grass clippings,banana peels,rabbit manure(i make a slurry before
i add it to compost),coffee grounds,any veg throw aways,garden soil
if the compost has a ammonia smell.. its out of balance and letting off that smell
it its a earthy smell..its going right..
i like to cook my compost really well done.. LOL sounds like a steak..:)
i want to make sure most of the weed seed from the straw is dead so doesnt start
growing in the gardens..
thanks to all here..reading others compost experiences..i always learn something new..
and better way to do my gardening..
thanks !!!

thanks , guys.


It rained today (stormed actually), so the leaves in the two cans should be nice and saturated. Saturday, I'll mix the greens with the leaves and layer them on top of a bed of shedder paper and coffee grinds. they can break down in place.

I'll try to get two or three layers down in the next several weeks, then build my soil mix and set it on top. Should be time to sow the root crop seeds shortly thereafter and they can grow down into the organic layer.

Thanks for all the input and suggestions! I'll be sure to post my progress here .

>> i like to cook my compost really well done..

But you don't HAVE to! You get lots more OM and some more N if you spread it rare!

>> i want to make sure most of the weed seed from the straw is dead

Oh! You are 100% right. For sure, no question.

>> good mix in it...combo of all ..
>> i do just a pile method.

The voice of wisdom.

Anyhting much more than that is either obsession (rasing my hand) or being intent on winning a prize for speed.

I also liked the rule of thumb, which I would word as:
- stinky or slimey: add more browns. Maybe fluff it up (add more air) or add less water.
- nothing happens: add more greens, keep it moist and try to make it bigger.
- smells like earth and things dissolve quickly: perfect.

Rick Corey,
It is an obsession for me as far as saving stuff for the compost but not the other stuff like turning the heap. i just dont have the time.

i just read the bokashi method of composting and it is very interesting.

Belle

well said rick corey!!! :)

Well as you can see I am into worms. My compost pile just keeps getting larger and larger. I have not used any of it this last year because I developed heart problems. No problem. They do not know why I developed heart problems or why my heart improved but it did.

But my compost pile is enormous and full of very large worms. I should hire a security guard to guard it. And I have no formula. I just keep adding whatever. I did lose my red wigglers due to neglect when I was in the hospital and I did add the two containers of their castings.

This fall I will order some more red wigglers. When I dig in the garden and find no worms, I know I have a problem and just dig a hole near by and add some fresh cuttings, leaves and whatever I can find. I have been doing that for years.

I will take a photo of my pile and post it later in the week. I do have irrigation on the pile and we do not lack for heat. The pile is at the end of my holding garden. Holding garden is for any plants that are to small to go into the main landscape or plants that are gifts that I need to make a place for. Have a great 4th holiday. Sharon

Thanks, Tropicalnut!

I had time to play with my heap this weekend, and found that the raw materials looked DRY and coated with a WHITISH POWDER below the first inch or so, despite drizzle and occasional hosings-down.

I guess the powder was fungal growth, but why dry and hard-to-wet?

Has anyone else seen whitish, powdery growths when trying to compost a mostly-woody mix?

I knew I had a lot of shredded wood in it from mower-chopped branches. And the dry, whitish, powdery, hard-to-wet look reminded me of some soil I once tried to amend with a mostly-wood-chip "soil conditioner" called something like Soil-Pep.

The wood, whether turned under in my soil or making up too much of my compost heap, encouraged a whitish powder and something that stayed dry-looking no matter how much I watered it.

I finally soaked-and-raked the com post heap about 8 times. I could wet the outer inch or two by drenching it with the hose. The wood and other stuff, especially the sawdust, readily soaked up huge amounts of water.

I also sprinkled some clayey-mud on the surface and washed it in, reasoning that caly holds water, ande also that I was innoculating the heap with a mix of bacteria that might compete with some kind of wood-devouring fungus.

Then I raked the wetted muddy surface layer aside, exposing more dry whitish stuff, and wet down the outer layer of that. Finally the whole pile was dripping.

I speculate maybe either of these two things: some kind of fungus is growing that puts put a whitish hydrophobic powder. Spoors? Hyphal framents?

But where does the water go? Maybe this fungus soaks it up so fast that wood shreds and sawdust never see the water. Maybe the sqawdusty-parts can soak up SO much water that I never got enough water onto the heapo to do more than let the surface layer grab and hold the water. The way I finally got the pile wet wsas to take off the spray head and let the hose run almost free onto the pile (more gallons per minute).

Or maybe the fungus (or something else) is PARTIALLY digesting the wood, like sucking out the lignin and leaving behind a pure cellulose powder that repels water. But natural cellulose is supposed to be hydrophilic! I don't see how or why fungus would converty wood to crystalline cellulose (hydrophobic). Or coukld there be some other woody residue that IS hydrophobic?

Whatever it is, once mixed with enoguh water and mud, it disapears into the mud and looks wetted.

Rick, I had a similar problem with leaves. They just wouldn't soak up water no matter how hard I tried. This year, I've not added leaves to the compost bin. Instead, I'm hoping the earthworms will do all the composting.

Rick- I 'think its fungus. I have no expertise to back it up.

I think we often suffer from:
I watered it this much, it SHOULD BE wet. Should be is like WISH, if its not wet, its not wet and we have just failed to see a reason.
Like Honeybee- it seems really hard to get my piles of brown fall leaves to get really moist. The same structure that a living leaf needs to live and retain moisture , may be in place when the leaf has dried, making it hard to actually get that water back in between cells and fibers the way it needs to be to start to rot.

The strange thing about leaves is - if you leave them in a deep pile, or a large pot with holes in the bottom, they will slowly break down from the bottom up, but not from the top down!

YES!
I think its the constant moisture from the soil, and worms coming up. Once I dumped several inches of shredded leaves on the garden, topped with a big piece of plywood. Beautiful stuff !

I'm currently doing an experiment with tomatoes growing in nothing but a deep pile of leaves. I gave them a small amount of fertilizer and water when I first transplanted them, but since have done nothing.

Each plant has a few fruit. Will have to see how things turn out. ^_^

Can't wait Honeybee. I do it with pumpkins and gourds.

>> Should be is like WISH,

Good point. All that matters is "IS".

I goofed by assuming instead of poking or digging. At work, I have a sign up to remind that, while debugging, I should "stop thinking and LOOK". Time spent on thinking about "maybe it is this or maybe it is that" is nowhere are valuable as time spent running the code, poking at it, and LOOKING at the results.

Thinking is well and golod - AFTER you have looked carefully. Then you have something worth thinking about.

My experience with dry leaves is that if the pile is deep enough, and sits on soil, there is a layer on the very bottom that stays wet and breaks down. Maybe they are just to prone to letting water run off or evaporate.

Maybe packing them tightly into a plastic bag and then flooding the bag for a week? Unfortunately I have no leaves around me, just pine needles that hardly ever seem to drop.

>> Should be is like WISH,

I just learned that from 'steadycam'
Smart, ain't it?