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Posted on 3/22/16 at 8:45 am to LSUlefty
I went ahead and yanked out my 4 cucumber plants and my 1 zucchini plant. Everything else was fine. The Cuc's weren't that far along anyway. I would've been upset had the tomatoes died. They're thriving right now.
Posted on 3/22/16 at 9:10 am to TU Rob
quote:
Would it help out to cut up the sticks/twigs some? There is a huge area that I'm going to clear out with my chainsaw, and if I can cut it up relatively small and toss it in, I might do that. Rather than haul these 1-2 inch diameter sticks all to the road. What about a wood chipper? I think my neighbor has one he would let me borrow.
Yes, definitely run stuff larger than your finger through a chipper, if you've got one. Woody debris takes longer to break down than softer stuff. You need a good ratio of "green" debris (high nitrogen, decomposes faster) to "brown" debris. Layering green and brown is a good idea, and you can spike the pile with a bit of fertilizer/compost starter to get things going. If you live in a dry area, you're gonna want to water it from time to time, so maybe locate it near a water source.
I compost anything I can from the kitchen (fruit, veg, cooked veg leftovers, bread, crackers, rice), but no animal material (eggshells as well).
Posted on 3/22/16 at 9:43 am to hungryone
quote:
Yes, definitely run stuff larger than your finger through a chipper, if you've got one. Woody debris takes longer to break down than softer stuff. You need a good ratio of "green" debris (high nitrogen, decomposes faster) to "brown" debris. Layering green and brown is a good idea, and you can spike the pile with a bit of fertilizer/compost starter to get things going. If you live in a dry area, you're gonna want to water it from time to time, so maybe locate it near a water source.
I compost anything I can from the kitchen (fruit, veg, cooked veg leftovers, bread, crackers, rice), but no animal material (eggshells as well).
Thanks. I'm thinking of keeping a couple of separate collections going. The coffee grounds, since we have a ton of them, and can spread right away, and a separate composting bin that I'll build near the raised beds and put everything else in. I'm taking Friday afternoon off, so I'll have a day and a half this weekend with no rain in the forecast to get all of the beds built. I checked on the seed pots last night, and I'm already seeing growth on some things. Not ready to transplant yet, but it will be soon.
There's also a ton of leaves, mainly oak, sitting in a huge pile in the back of the yard, so that is going to be what I pile in there, along with a few bags of compost to get it all going.
Posted on 3/22/16 at 9:47 am to TU Rob
Oak leaves are very woody--it can be helpful to run 'em over with the lawnmower a few times before adding to the pile. smaller stuff breaks down faster. Mixing the pile every few weeks will speed things up too.
Posted on 3/22/16 at 9:53 am to hungryone
quote:
Oak leaves are very woody--it can be helpful to run 'em over with the lawnmower a few times before adding to the pile. smaller stuff breaks down faster. Mixing the pile every few weeks will speed things up too
They are all from the huge oak in my front yard. I used to mow them often in the fall to keep them from collecting all over the yard, but we had several weekends in a row where we were out of town or had something going on, and it got to the point where I just let it go until the tree was bare, then collected them all and moved them to the backyard. It would have been too much to mow. There was literally a pile about 3-4 feet high and maybe a 10x10 area where I dumped them. This was in November, so they've been sitting there all winter, and soaked several times from rain. Would it be fine to just pitchfork them into a bin and beat it up good with a flat shovel instead of mowing? Hard to get my mower back there, and there's a ton of old stumps in the ground too.
Posted on 3/22/16 at 10:10 am to TU Rob
Of course you can just toss em in a pile. They'll just take longer to decay. No worries. You pretty much can't screw up a compost pile, unless you put animal stuff in it (decomposing fats = smells). A good pile won't stink; you want it to attract insects, as they'll speed along the decomp. If possible, make sure it's in contact with the soil below; the existing micro-organisms, insects, etc will find it.
Posted on 3/22/16 at 10:14 am to hungryone
I had never seen an earth worm on my property until I made a compost pile. It was like magic. They appeared from nowhere in huge numbers.
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