Tell me about your compost pile

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m thinking of building one in the backyard. There seem to be a number of ways to do it, and want to see if anyone has an opinion. My yard is about 50’x170’ (with a house to account for), so I wouldn’t be generating a TON of grass clippings. I have two and a half gigantic trees though that provide plenty of leaves and sticks.

There seem to be a couple ways of doing it.

  1. http://www.leangreenhome.co.uk/wp-content/themes/revolution_city-10/images/compost_bin.jpg
    I’m not sure how feasible it is to turn a compost pile like this.

  2. http://montereygardenclub.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/wood_compost_bin.293172658_std.jpg
    Seems to be a better idea with the door - but I question the structural integrity of the wire walls.

  3. http://www.petersonsawmills.com/images/project_compost_step11-13.gif
    This seems like a good way to go - but how necessary are the lids?

2

We built a tumbling composter last summer, using the instructions here:

It works beautifully, and it’s inexpensive.

That said, we generate a lot of stuff to compost (we have 6 chickens, do a lot of gardening and cooking), so the tumbling bin isn’t enough to accommodate all of our compostable waste. The rest of it goes into a pile. We put the pile against a wood fence, and attached wire fencing around the pile to the wood fence (using bungee cords). That way I can remove the wire fencing to turn the pile, then re-attach the wire fencing to contain the pile again.

3

At this point I’m just digging the compost into my garden. I’m thinking about buying an actual composter, though.

4

We just have a free-form pile. It takes longer to break down, but we aren’t in a hurry.

5

My compost pile’s name is Lumpy. He’s a pretty decent guy. I don’t really know that much about him though, since he is not much of a talker. Still I consider him a friend.

6

We stopped composting because bears kept turning the composter over, even when there was just veggie waste in it. Oh well.

7

My compost pile is just that - it’s a pile o’ stuff in my back yard. No lids, walls, fences, nothing but a pile of kitchen scraps (vegetable only!) and lawn clippings. Every now and then I remember to stir it/turn it over.

Actually, I have two. When one gets too big for me to turn over easily I start a new one. I might have three by the end of this summer. I load one up with stuff for several months, then lets it decompose while working on the next in line. The one I let simmer over the winter is ready to be spread with the rototiller and I’ve started up #2 with scraps all winter and the spring “house cleaning” and such. After I rototill the first heap into the group I’ll “close” #2 to let it break down all summer while loading up #1 again with stuff.

It’s graceless and inelegant but it works for me. I get a couple cubic yards of nice, black, crumbly natural fertilizer each year. I’m sure there are more efficient ways to do this, but like another poster said I’m not in a hurry.

8

A compost pile is surprisingly non-smelly, too - that’s what I was doing at our last house. The time factor is a good point - I’m in no hurry, either. I just don’t want to throw my green leafies in the garbage.

9

My husband bought a compost bin. It has four walls and a lid, and little doors at the bottom of 3 or 4 of the walls. This is so it’s easy to scoop out the finished compost, or at least that’s the intention. In practice, these are used by the local possum family to access my compost materials!

I have a largish plastic tub, about a gallon or a gallon and a half in volume, that I keep in the kitchen. During the course of the day, I put vegetable waste and eggshells in it, and each evening, I trot out to the bin and dump the scraps. If the bin fills up before evening, then I dump it as it gets full, but that’s only happened a time or two.

Every now and then, my husband takes out a little bit of finished compost, and puts it on something that desperately needs it.

10

I’ve traditionally used the “big pile” method, but I’m moving towards the bin method.

I laid down landscaping fabric (to prevent roots from coming UP into the compost bin), and built a simple cage with fencing wire, and metal supports. About 4’ x 4’ or so. 3 sides are attached to the posts, and one “end” left clipped to “close.” You can open the side, turn out the compost material, and then reload. I’m planning to build 2 more of these, all in a row, so that I can have stages of new material, finishing, and ready to use.

First stage materials, lawn clippings, leaves, and other compostables go into the first bin, and get a couple of turnings to get things going. In late summer, this bin is moved to the finishing bin for the winter, and to make room in the raw bin for fall waste. In early summer, the finishing bin is screened and transferred into the ready bin. The ready bin contents get put into use during planting, and as needed for other uses.

One thing about using grass clippings, is that they can turn into sludge, if they don’t have enough “brown” material mixed in. Keep a supply of leaves to mix into the grass clippings… this balances out something or another, but I can tell you from experience that grass clipping sludge will turn you off of composting right quick.

Start simple. You can always improve & beautify your systems as you go, using found materials, and scraps from other house projects. Be creative. As long as it’s moist, and has access to air, you’ll get compost eventually.

11

I have a 2+ bin system. The main part is 6 metal fence posts arranged to form two adjacent squares 4 feet high. The “walls” are wire fencing. The front pieces just hang on the tabs of the fence posts. One bin is used for new stuff and the other for the actual composting. If I need space I move the finished stuff to a small pile surrounded by logs. (I cover the bottom of this with newspapers to slow down the intrusion of tree roots.) Extremely cheap system. I’m not into speed composting.

If your pile smells, then it’s not a compost pile. You’re doing it wrong. Aerobic decomposition doesn’t stink.

12

Ah…so most of the examples I linked to use chicken wire to increase air circulation… :smack: So my idea of stacking 4x4s lincoln log-style would be good, just so long as I don’t notch them out and keep the gaps between them.

13

Hi, Munch. Composting brings out funny sides of people. Some people can get veerrrrry picky and detail-oriented about rotation schedules, ingredient proportions, and so on … and some people just chuck stuff into a pile.

Me? I’m in the latter camp. Decomposition happens naturally in scrap heaps and forest floors across the globe, happened before humans came along and it’ll happen after we’re gone, too.

Our current compost pile is housed in a 3-sided (U-shaped) cove of cheap cinderblocks that rise up about thigh-high. The side that’s open is where you stand to heave in the pitchfork and turn everything over every once in a while. It’s a step up from the compost pile at our last house: a pile of leaves sitting in a corner of the yard. This one at least is shielded from the neighbor’s view. (By cinderblocks, which are probably not much of an improvement. :rolleyes:)

Along the lines of **butler1850’s **note about too much “green” and too little “brown” … we tend to have the opposite problem, because we leave lawn clippings on the lawn where they fall. So our compost pile consists largely of raked-up leaves augmented with kitchen scraps, which technically makes it too much “brown” (carbon) and too little “green” (nitrogen). If we added green lawn clippings to it, it would heat up faster and finish faster, but like the others said … I’m in no big hurry. (Though I’ve thought about snagging the plastic bags of lawn clippings other people leave out at the curb as trash. It’s got no place in the landfill and would serve me well, but I don’t know what chemicals they’ve been spraying.)

As near as I can tell, I’m technically making something more along the lines of leaf mold instead of compost, but eh, either way I’m re-using organic matter in my garden, and the thick heavy clay around our parts needs all the augmentation and mulching it can get!

Others will probably chime in to disagree with me, but we’re not terribly careful about making sure only vegetarian/vegan scraps go into the pile. We live in a pretty urban area, so it’s not like there are bears or anything, plus I figure if an occasional possum wants to go rooting around in there it just helps turn it over for us anyway. We don’t add meat or bones… but, for example, a bread-based stuffing cooked with lots of chicken broth would go right in, if it’s been sitting around the fridge too long. Little scraps of cheese rind would be another candidate. (And no, our compost pile has no smell at all.)

The only other random thing I can think of to share is to beware of the large tough leaves you get from things like magnolias and sycamores. They take eons to break down, and worse, large *flat *leaves like sycamores tend to mat together like the pages of a book - the centers of those mats stay dry, so they really don’t want to break down, and if you pile half-finished compost on top of beds as mulch, as I often do, the big flat mats can crush or smother seedlings.

IMHO the very best leaves to add to a compost pile - if you have a choice for some reason - are maple leaves. They dry into curly shapes so they stay fluffy and allow moisture to penetrate the pile well, and they’re lightweight so they break down quickly.

Oh, and also oak leaves don’t break down very quickly b/c of the tannins that oaks contain. It’s a natural preservative. Makes those majestic old oak trees last forever … makes oak leaves last a long time, too.

14

When I started out, I had all sorts of plans to make a large sturdy compost container. I didn’t want a loose pile because I don’t have a large garden. But in the end, of course I didn’t have the time to build or install anything professional. So I bought a ready made rabbit pen like this oneat home depot. It works perfectly, the air and raind have free access. Smells are absent, but the kitchen waste isn’t a pretty sight up close. So I planted a couple high plants to hide it from sight. You can make the diameter of the pen as small or as big as you like, by removing or adding panels.

And when I need some compost, I lift the pen, scoop up some compost from the bottom and put it all back again.

While you’re at Home Depot, pick up a packet of compost starter. That’s a mix of bacteria and minerals that really quickstart the composting process.

15

Question: I noticed that people in my neighborhood do a terrible job of raking the street gutters in front of their house. Come spring time, the gutters are filled with a delightfully black, rich dirt. Is this stuff good, or is there something horribly wrong with this stuff (mold, runoff, etc.)? If I went up and down the street with a flat shovel and a wheelbarrow, would people look at me any funnier than they normally do?

16

At a previous house with a big yard and lots of trees, I built a wire-mesh composter like the second picture in the OP. Worked well, if you aren’t in a hurry (which I wasn’t). It was cheap(and easy) to make, sturdy, and to turn the pile to turn the pile, I took it apart (it was built with hinges and hook-and-eye fasteners), reassembled it next to the existing pile, and shoveled everything back in.
I’ve since moved to a house with a smaller yard with fewer trees, so bought a tumblerwhich works faster and takes up less space. Kind of spendy but I am pleased with it.

17

My gut reaction would be: maybe not a good idea to use the stuff in a vegetable garden or for other edibles.

My WAG is that it would contain some nonzero and probably not insignificant amount of petroleum-based contaminants. Cars can drip oil, antifreeze and other yummy things, for starters, plus the stuff is sitting right where the exhaust is. (I’ve often seen cautions for owners of small furry creatures like guinea pigs to not feed their pets dandelions or other plants picked by the side of busy roads.)

Of course, if this is a quiet street with almost no traffic, I’m sure that would probably factor in.

Either way, the stuff is probably fine for your pansies. Well, technically, pansies and violets are edible. :slight_smile: So, fine for flowers you’re not planning to eat!

18

Hey, so reading back over the other posts, I think we’ve reached some sort of consensus:

The more money and/or effort you put into the compost pile, the faster you get a quality end result. Being cheap and/or lazy means you have to wait longer. And also, it shouldn’t smell bad at any time, but is probably not going to be the aesthetic high point of your garden.

Did we as Dopers actually come to agreement about something?

19

Munch, I’d probably not use anything on a vegetable garden that I wasn’t sure of the origin of. That would rule out the street debris for me. I’d be concerned about pesticides/herbicides & other contaminants (oil/gas/etc) being taken up by my vegetables.

purplehorseshoe, I have that problem as well, in early spring. Most of my cleanup is from the fall, so that generates mostly leaves in the raw pile. A few mowings into the spring, I have the right balance, and things really get moving. If the grass is short, I tend to leave the clippings on the lawn, if it’s too long, they go into the compost bins.

20

Back when we were composting, I accidentally put in some chicken-and-veggie soup that had gone bad into the compost mix and ended up with Soldier Fly larvae, which apparently is a composting bonus comparable to other types of vermiculture. I wouldn’t worry about minor amounts of meat-laden foods like this of the stuffing, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to add meat to a compost pile or bin. We never had any smell issues with the compost, and it helped maximize the production on our food garden at the time. Make sure there’s good airflow, and try to make sure there’s plenty of dry stuff to mix with the kitchen scraps, or you may end up with black-brown glop (yes, that’s the scientific term ;)) in your composting area.