Do you compost?

Reba

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If you compost, what method do you use?

I want to get serious about composting for my garden but I'm not sure which method to use. I've tried various ways before, and I didn't have much success. I want to try again but I want it to work. :)

Most of my composting material will be leaves, grass clippings, and garden debris. I'm going to try to get some horse manure to add also.

I want to use both the solid and liquid "tea" fertilizers from the compost.

I would also like to have a worm "farm". (Example: Tumbleweed Worm Compost Bin )

Any suggestions or experiences to share?
 
I compost using two methods. One outside and one near house for red wigglers only.

The one outside is contained with wood pallets. We just dump stuff in. We don’t care to turn it around. It will take longer for the debris to turn into compost, and that is fine with me.

The one near house is in a large plastic tote with holes. The worms live in horse manure & newspapers. I put daily bio-trash (vegetable & fruit discards) in a sealed bucket. Once a week or so I dump it in the worm box. I used to keep it inside, but gnats drove me crazy. I keep it outside during warm weather and in the garage during cold weather.

There are a lot of information online & reading materials that explains about composting.
 
We have compost in our backyard. Umm it works great for us. I won't put horse manure in compost. We should put nitrogen ( I am bad with names and forgot all stuffs I learned at horticular class) in the compost but we never did. Water and turn it over once awhile to make it works. Or u can build bin and it will do it faster than leave it outside opem alike we do with ours. Look up at Mother Earth magazine or online and it will tell you how to do it. Good luck.
 
We have a compost. We put in vegetable peels, rotten fruits and vegs and eggshells. It seems to work, I think.
 
I do compost here. Garden vegetables growing were very good! :thumb:
 
Yes we do have compost in our backyard.

I use raw vegetables, fruits and chopped egg shells, cold bag teas or filter coffee after use......, grass as well.... collect wood ashes from fire place for compost as well...

I use compost fertilizer to take care of compost twice a year...

Never put boiled or mold vegetables and fruits in the compost...
 
I remember several people asked me how I composted indoor without it being smelly or anything like that. Since I couldn't find Jiro's thread on composting, which must had been deleted during a crash, this thread is bumped instead.


Caresheet: Discoid Roach Care and Breeding

My composting experience: Composting - souggy's

I recovered a bunch of pictures from 2006 to 2008:

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Souggy, what do you do with the finished product........the loam?
 
Souggy, what do you do with the finished product........the loam?

The frass? Use a few strainers to remove the adults, the large nymphs and moderately-small nymphs to put them back into the original colony, then freeze the substrate to kill the nymphs too small to pick out. I just sprinkle it over the topsoil of my indoor plants, and over the flowerbed in the backyard, then mix it up with sand when it come to replanting. (Had mostly ponytail palms, ZZ plants and such at the time.)

Frass is a nicer way of saying: bug droppings.
 
We compost. I dont have a vegetable garden but use it to topdress the lawn. Therefore we are not so picky about what to put in the mix. Our composter is a tumbler that looks like a trash can skewered through the middle. We use clippings, leaves, pretty much anything but no meats or grease. We even add small twigs, cracked, some paper, and since it is a tumbler, I like to add a stone or two. They seem to act like dryer balls and help mix the contents. It makes a lovely dark mix. The nitrogen from the green clippings seems to be all it needs to topdress. If I were using it for veggies I might add a beer to it to help it break down faster.
 
Yes we do have compost in our backyard.

I use raw vegetables, fruits and chopped egg shells, cold bag teas or filter coffee after use......, grass as well.... collect wood ashes from fire place for compost as well...

I use compost fertilizer to take care of compost twice a year...

Never put boiled or mold vegetables and fruits in the compost...

I would not use grass that been treated chemials to made it grown better.
There is only one problem with using veggies and fruits, you need to be carefull if live you close to the woods or place where wildlifes like to hunt.
You do not want to attrack any bears to your yard. My brother in law found this out when he put a bird feeder up , he had a bear in the back yard.
 
My mom has one of those barrel ones that you turn 4 times everytime you think of it. She puts food pieces from the house, grass clippings, garden waste, etc. Has a large veggie garden she uses it for and flower beds. Uses the liquid "tea" stuff from an organic garden center, no chemicals in her garden. I think it is an 80 gallon barrel or something. Got is as a gift from my dad one year. Empties it end of the summer into the garden when she rottotills (sp?) the gardens ends into the soil. No worms as they hate the rolling of the barrel. Has a great garden that over produces every year. (when she gets things in at the right times!) Does it mostly by seeds. Has to fence it in for the wildlife up here.
 
Oh - I also pour my old aquarium water into ours. The barrel got turned today and we added our grass clippings. The stuff in there is fine and very dark. Two really fat lizards were on top the can. lol

For the compost tea it can be made by putting a pan under the barrel and just pour water through it. When we had veggies it worked nicely for the seedlings.
 
Souggy, the compost set up that you have looks very efficient. Wow, I am scared of those bugs though.
 
Souggy, the compost set up that you have looks very efficient. Wow, I am scared of those bugs though.

Yep. They will even eat bad meat too.

Only downside is they won't touch dried out food, and calcium-rich items (ie. egg shells and crushed mussels) lead to massive colony deaths since it makes their exoskeletons too difficult to molt out of.
 
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