frozen compost pile, fresh kitchen scraps

Just tried to put my fresh kitchen scraps out in the compost pile. It is under 7 inches of snow and rock solid on top. The tumbler is also frozen shut (note to self: clean snow off before you try to turn it). What do all of you do with fresh stuff if you live where it stays cold for long stretches? Worm Composting under the cabinet is not a choice. Thanks!

Do you have room to pop it in the freezer? Then you can dump it as soon as Mother Nature allows it. I keep a gallon bin in the refrigerator and throw stuff in there so I can dump it all at once. Of course, I don't have snow problems. (Before you get jealous, this DOES mean I can't grow apples or cherries.)

copied --where it stays cold for long stretches? Carole Alaska just may have an idea...

Our compost freezes all winter (though it's not always covered with snow) and we just keep adding stuff to the pile all winter. Eventually it all thaws and starts composting again, though it usually needs to be mixed thoroughly in the spring to get it going again. The birds around here love to pick through our frozen compost for seeds and edible bits.

Kathy4, up here, I usually have a separate "temporary bin" I made out of a pallet with sides built up and covered with mesh. I had an old piece of plywood that just fit and kept it on top to keep it from filling with snow. It was easy to just slide it sideways and throw everything in all winter. Of course it froze, but in spring I would mix it with the top scrapings of last year's compost bins to start the new one in the spring. When I end up shoveling snow paths the width of the snow shovel (On a really good snow winter) to every place (woodshed, chicken house, paths out to the car) I make sure the placement of the temporary compost bin is right on the way to the chicken house. It helps to keep the top shoveled off, it gets heavy, and some of the stuff goes to the chicken and some to the compost (coffee grounds.)
Carol

I'm lazy. I just keep tossing fresh stuff on the pile, regardless of whether it's frozen or covered in snow.

Wrightie, me too, except for the difference in depth of snow, I need to know where to dump it.
Carol

I think that if I still lived in the Snow Belt, I'd have a better thought out system for my compost (well, maybe a flagpole to indicate where to throw my stuff), but we get very little snow here in MD. My compost pile does tend to freeze though.

As for those times when I want to generate more heat in the pile, I'll bring home some fresh horse manure to throw in -- voila, insta-heat.

Wrightie, I'm like you-- I just keep tossing fresh stuff on the pile (in my case, a bin.) Must say, I am still always surprised when I come out to add add more scraps, etc., and see how those perfectly frozen and colorful veggies and fruits are still "decorating" the surface of my pile! I just have to have faith that they will eventually break down!!

After a few years of doing this.. I now don't even own a pile or worm bin anymore and I compost in place and dump scraps where I want them to decompose.. They generally get tossed out the back kitchen door into a garden that will probably be my best for all the scraps I toss.. I make it a game and try to hit the plants I want to enrich :) The lazy gardeners method "In place composting". Dump your scraps and they will be fine. I read an article somewhere... wish i knew where it was about a gardener stating that the heating process of composting actually took away nutrition in the form of burned off heat and that it could be much more effective to not let it heat up and decompose where needed..so that's what I subscribe to now.. Kinda like wood burning and turning to ash and using that or using wood mulch which slowly breaks down over time in your garden and adding benefit to it all the while.

Susan

LOL, SGL, I do a bit of 'gardening in place' as well ... I've still got a pretty good arm, btw.

oh, wrightie ??? in few months you'll have a helper trying to get those goodies, won't you???? c'mon Jan 10th : ^)

I'd love to do that, but the dogs around here eat anything I pitch out the door, apple cores, potato peels, you name it. It has to be put in the bin.

Good point, SG. By mid-March he/she will have foiled my plans.

gosh... I'm always so glad to hear how low maintenance and easy my dog is.. she doesn't touch a thing and walks around my beds.. and stays in the yard, and goes in the back to do her business..and not on our good stuff out front..

The only down side to composting in place is that if your not expecting anyone over and they do come..it looks very trashy to have veggie scraps laying around all over your beds.. My FIL gave me some grief about it that last time he was here but he knows I garden like nobody's business so I'm sure it was with love! :)

I will just cover it with leaf mold come spring..

We have snow and cold but it is interrupted by warm so I collect kitchen scraps in small kitchen container then transfer to large garbage sled on porch where I mix blood meal and kitchen scraps to speed up the heat and then weekly (or when I get home) I sled it out to the pile and uncover it (tarp over) and dump the kitchen scraps/blood meal on top and cover again. Unless - F's it cooks all winter.

Aha, Sofer, so this is where we crossed, not in the Poultry forum. Must be that ("old timers disease", CRS, can't remember 'stuff') LOL
See you up here, next summer, I hope.
Carol

Yes Carol I want to see you and your garden. I am up in Juneau every month this year but I thought June would be the best time. So you keep going and stay beautiful with your battle.

I'll hang in here just for you....
Carol

Carol, I've been reading your threads and didn't know where to jump in as the chat had started way before I got there. Hoping for your best and whatever that means for you personally :) Sending you light and love.

Merry Christmas :)

You are my angel in AK. So I am anxious to see you so maybe sooner. Steve.

SGL, Thanks, all good thoughts are welcome in the world, I wish you and all your family the best, always, Carol

Merry Christmas to you all, we are doing the reverse today, Grandma and Grandpa are going merrily to the kid's house! Grandma likes it! Bring some goodies and sit down and enjoy the grandbabies and the day! Hugs to all!