Composting?

I have an indoor worm bin, 3 in fact and my worms are eating machines!!

We live out in the country but near a gated community where the residents rake leaves, bag them and (sadly) send the to a community burn pile, except for those my husband picks up and brings home. His compost pile is generally about 30 feet across and 10 feet high by the time the leaf raking season has finished.

He doesn't turn the pile, he just digs into the center and uses the 'cooked' part when we are planting new items in the flower/ornamental garden and later, when the rains stop he uses the partially composted leaves to mulch for moisture conservation.

We are now using off the 2007 pile even as he is building the 2008 pile. We started gardening here about 10 years ago on red clay and iron ore rock. I have used gypsum every year to help break up the clay and with the addition of the compost we finally have soil that is workable and that the plants can really dig into.

Wow Maggi, that means you must have a lot of land to work with. I have rescued some leaves that have been mulched and bagged to start mine in the fall. We are big veggie and fruit eaters and I save trimmings in the freezer and dump each weekend when I turn the compost pile all year. I add coffee grounds too but not many. I also have a tumbler type that I turn as often as I remember, it is a lot more user friendly. I need to go back and read the list of usable items again because I am sure there is a lot I am tossing that I should be saving for the pile.
I need to find out about a inside worm bin too ....interesting.

*snort* Ahhh, the foibles of the English language.

I got a compost tumbler for my birthday, and it's now assembled, full of leaves, and I'm adding our household veggie scraps and other compostable waste to it.

We have several large trees on our property, so we accumulate a good bit of leaves each fall. I've done the big piles in the past, but a hernia surgery has left me leery of trying to hand-turn them, so this will let me keep on composting without re-injuring myself.

I get piles of leaf compost at my recycling center...great stuff :)

No turning on wet leaves here, the tractor/bushhog shred them wonderfully. I also do some powertilling turning some into the soil.

Everything goes in the compost pile or the homemade tumbler including the stuffings from my kitchen chairs when I reupholstered them (excelsior and linters). I just dig at the bottom of the pile when I want compost to use in the garden.

I voted that I add all year round . I used to have a worm bin and it was great , I should get one started again
laura

How warm does a worm bin need to be kept?

That would be a great question for the vermicomposting forum here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/wrigglers/all/

Other. No room for a compost pile here.

I would just die if I had worms in my house. I can't even stand the crickets outside let alone worms in my house. And what do you feed them?

I really have no idea if mine is active during the winter or not, because I hibernate until the weather warms up!!!

I said other. I pit compost right in the plant beds. I really hate turning compost!

Compost all year 'round here. No turning in the winter though. The pile freezes. I just throw stuff on top anyway.

I went with add all year. It freezes solid in the winter, but by the time it warms up enough to start planting in the garden, the compost bin seems to have done its job. I toss in everything that will turn to a nice rich compost. No meat scraps though. We have a very tame neighborhood cat that gives thanks for those.
Shredded paper even the slick pages, grass clippings, small twigs after run through the shredder chipper. I have no need for a garbage service, as I recycle every thing else.
I would like to try vermicomposting too but don't have room in the house. I would have to make a place I could keep warm in the winter for them outside or in the garage.

I also sdd to the compost all year. I can't seem to just "throw out" future soil additive.
When the weather warms and I can turn my 2 piles of compost I will add some lime.
During the fall when I'm raking leaves I add a lot of leaves to the compost and turn them under.
It's like gold for the flower beds. Very much a part of the organic gardening I practice.

I voted other because I have an indoor worm bin and compost all year round outside.

Maggie

As above but what is comfortable to us is wonderful for them 65-75.

Maggie

Thanks Dr Saul and Maggie! I hadn't made it to the vermicomposting forum yet. Seems there are too many forums for me to make the rounds. I will tour it though. Thanks much, pod

sheet compost here---mulch, mulch, and more mulch. Can't have too much mulch down here--I just bury the small stuff in the mulch.

I think mulch IS compost!

Maggie

Other. I add to it whenever I can or remember. :~)

Other here... and sadly no compost pile at all. I would really like to start one without all of the extra equipment! How can i start one?

I have a compost pile going under the deck of my suburban 0.19 acre lot. Mostly it is weeds, grass clippings, autumn leaves, and dog poo. I don't have any vegetable gardens, and it is digested well, so the dog poo from all over the yard goes in.

I live in the Pacific Northwest, and as the air temps drop, so does the compost activity. The fall leaves basically spend the winter becoming leaf mold, then are added in the spring as the pile starts to heat up. The first lawn mowing in March or April seems to really wake things up, as does some Dr. Earth Compost starter.

Last year I got some horse manure, but it has been a mixed blessing, as it was very dry when I got it, and it has not really provided any quick nutrition to the pile.

I also have a worm bin that is run by benign neglect. It sits out by the compost pile, and gets vegetable trimmings in the summer, but they live most of the winter on shots of compost and some leaves. I water it every couple of months in the winter, and about daily in the summer. It seems to have a good bit of vermipost in it right now, and I will probably work to move them from it this spring as it warms up.

Rob

I voted other because I too have both an outdoor compost bin AND an indoor worm bin.... :o)

Sanna

I would love to have a compost bin, but my town has a city ordinance against composting. Probably because somebody had a nasty stinky compost pile that was attracting rodents. Ruined it for everyone else.

If you are able to compost, cherish it and keep it neat. I'm now into lasagna gardening. I've considered vermiculture, but I have a large nightcrawler population in my garden that live in the lasagna beds.

greenbrain - you need to start a group to educate your city fathers. How backward thinking of them not to allow composting.

I voted "other". My compost is buried under a metre of snow and not accessible in the winter. But we put a couple of old garbage bins in our screened porch for the winter and dump the kitchen waste out there. In the spring it gets dumped onto the compost piles along with some of the autumn leaves which didn't fit in the autumn and were stored in bags.

Most non-animal waste goes onto the compost except for woody trimmings or those full of weed seeds. During the gardening season, we have city garden waste pick-up every second week. The city composts it and I suspect their piles get hotter than mine because of volume.

There are also a couple of pilot projects to collect kitchen waste which WILL include meat scraps and bones, etc. They want to divert all that from our regular garbage if possible.

Ann

I've never composted before but I am going to begin this year. I am just going to make a pile right next to my garden. I don't have any trees in my yard, but I get enough leaves in my yard from all of my neighbors' trees that I have plenty to work with. There is a pile stacked up against the fence that I didn't mulch and put in my garden specifically because I am going to start a compost pile with it! I can't wait!

I voted other--I have an outdoor worm bin that I add to year round. I add veggie scraps and cover it with leaves/plant matter in warmer weather. I collect all depleted potting soil from my greenhouse and save it to cover the additions in the winter. The whole thing is constructed of cinder block, filled with stryfoam peanuts, this topped with a 3" sheet of stryo & plywood. I remove the lid when it rains.

all year~~

and doing more volume this year thanks to neighbor's bagged clippings in fall. We have a dog now so I 'have ' to go outside in the yard everyday and toss the pile around. Then other neighbor is grinding up old wood, and offered me a big pile of that. When it rains it pours yard waste here.

AnalogDog, I thought about composting under the deck but was concerned about high moisture levels. Last year, even though there was considerable drought and everything was dry, we noticed lots of mosquitoes. The only place there was moist ground was under the newly-built deck. Of course run off from rain and snow will percolate down into the soil, but if we were to cover it with decomposing organic matter, wouldn't that make it more attractive to those pesky skeeters, and possibly to termites?

All year for me... I've got three of them going right now, not very big, but three. ;)

Wanted to start one this year.

I voted "other" because I have three plastic compost bins in the back yard, plus two Bokashi pails in my mud-room. I just keep tossing vegetative kitchen waste all year out into my bins, along with the usual grass clippings, leaves, and yard waste. in season. I had thought that nothing much was happening in the freezes of Jan-Feb here, but when I dug down to layer in some of my Bokashi pickled compost, I found tons of earthworms in the center of the bins! Boy, did that make me happy.
Anyway, the beauty of the Bokashi method is that it composts meat, fish, and dairy as well as the usual vegetative matter. So currently I have two composting processes going.

I have both, compost and worm bin. Gotta get that bokashi thing going, it really sounds awesome!

Hey CapeCod--elaborate on those Bokashi buckets please. =)
Debbie