To Compost or not to Compost that is the question...

i don't have use for cobs because I never have them, when we do corn there is always butter on the so their discarded.
This info is from Rodale again.

Scorpio Rising wrote:Nooooooo!  No way to shred....options?  How do you shred cobs!  These are basically
5 to 8/ week!?  Need advice!

 Chop then with an axe into 1" segments and then bash each segment with a decent sized hammer to mash it up .

 If you don't have an axe or a saw to cut them up you can  hammer them when they are laid across a bit of heavy concrete or a lump of steel so that they get shredded a bit .


Once they are like that you can add then to the heap as you've increased the surface area available for the bacteria that compost them  and opened up the fibres for water to enter.

I am going to try running over them with my car.....

I doubt that the tyre will be sufficiently rigid enough to crush them as the tyre gives & changes shape to accommodate lumps & bumps on the road . It will be interesting to see your outcomes.he tyre will be sufficiently rigid enought to crush them

You were right, plantoid...despite the mighty mass of Detroit lorded over the corn cobs, the tires are just too forgiving...the Crown Vic did smash the cobs a bit, but no crushing like I thought there might be....hammer, here I come! LOL! Worth trying!

Can you rent  or borrow a chipper shredder locally? It sounds like a crazy amount of work when a chipper will make short work of them and you could chip up other materials from your yard as well.

I haven't gotten to break my chipper out for a while (hubby had total knee replacement so we're tied up for a while).

I tried to compost corn stalks and leaves, but found they take too long, sort of like wood chips take too long for me. Corn, wood chips and peanut shells may just have a heck of a high carbon content for fast composting.

You know, they are TOUGH! I may run to TSC and price a small chipper. It would be very handy around here.

Scorpio Rising wrote:You know, they are TOUGH!  I may run to TSC and price a small chipper.  It would be very handy around here.

I picked up this chipper from Amazon last year, used it briefly one time, however last week I pulled it out, set it up and was astounded at how that little gadget works...
I'll strongly endorse it for what it's rated for....certainly nothing big, however with careful feeding it is great.
I must mention, I do not know how an item like a corn cob would do inside. One needs to be able to control the speed of feeding into the chambers.... It needs to chip away at the items and not in big clumps..


http://www.amazon.com/Eco-Shredder-ES1600-Electric-Chipper-Shredder/dp/B002U82A3K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450061819&sr=8-2&keywords=electric+chipper

Much better than the Sun Joe I read about. How fine does it shred leaves? I want fine shred even if I have to run them through twice. I also have a Xylosma tree with 1/2 - 1" straight branches I have to prune. I would love to make mulch with them, but don't want to rent a chipper again. Your comments? Thank you.

Scorpio Rising wrote:I am going to try running over them with my car.....

ROFL!!!  That is so awesome!!!  I love it!!!  Sorry it didn't work out, but a valiant effort   Running over stuff is way more fun than the mundane chopping and preparing, too bad it didn't work

Update on my piles, good and bad news.  The "older" pile (left) that I have stopped adding too was cold last week when I turned it, but this week it had a little warmth.  So the flipping stirred it up (added air) and it's "mellowing", perhaps "simmering" would be better to stick with the cooking metaphor.
The "new" pile wasn't as hot as I hoped it would be.  It didn't kick start very well.  I opened it and added 2 gallons of coffee grounds and hand ripped up some hanging and potted plants (mums mostly from wife's fall decorations).  Covered it all back up.  Didn't flip either pile, probably should have, just "stirred" them both a little.    


Showing off my camo tarp!!  Ain't she purty!!  After my checking on the piles Saturday morning I scored some coffee grounds from Starbucks.  Saving them for next weekend to add to new pile.  Also got 3 dozen egg shells!  woohoo.  Next weekend plan to add some more horse manure and leaves plus the other stuff I'm saving to hopefully "bulk" it up some more and give it a jolt of greens to get it cooking good.  


I was just out minding my own business at Tractor Supply, snooping around for a new pair of pruning shears, which lead to buying some "herb scissors" also (looked like they would be the ticket for shredding some of the grasses and plants I add to the compost pile).  Anyway, then stumbled on compost below, looked like a good price to me.  I put them in the back of my truck (Yes, I paid for them)


Also found Peat Moss at a decent price.  Put some of that in back of my truck too.  Now all I have to do is find Verticumilite...Verticulite?...Veeeerstuff.  Winter project is to build 2 more 4x4 boxes, need MM ingredients for next year.

sanderson wrote:Much better than the Sun Joe I read about.  How fine does it shred leaves?  I want fine shred even if I have to run them through twice.  I also have a Xylosma tree with 1/2 - 1" straight branches I have to prune.  I would love to make mulch with them, but don't want to rent a chipper again.  Your comments?  Thank you.

leaves ?  I did add dry leaves with brush, it work nicely because there were items being pushed through.
Leaves alone ? I kind of doubt it, however I'll try some for you. That won't be till next spring or summer when I open up my bags.
I can tell you what I use for leaf shredding and I am very satisfied.
Not wanting any more toys, I tried a weed trimmer and large garbage can, stacked leaves in the can, then used whacker at different angles. I pulled out the tops of what was shredded as I went down.
This action at least keeps the leaves from matting together in my compost..
I have a Black & Decker battery operated whacker, 2 batteries works nicely for me..
SAFETY  glasses is a must

I have a Harbor Freight gas powered shredder.  I bought it back in 2011 when Harbor Freight opened a store in our area.  Got it relatively cheap considering what it can do.  It will chip small branches also.  The one thing it is not good for is shredding wet material.  That clogs up the mechanisms and you have to remove about 10 screws to get into the shredder to unclog it.  

I also have a gas powered Stihl weed wacker.  It is super high powered.  I tried doing the garbage can trick this last weekend.  The shredded material flew all over the place (I guess I had it powered up too high).  I also have a much lighter weight Black and Decker battery weed wacker and will have to try that next.

yolos wrote:I have a Harbor Freight gas powered shredder.  I bought it back in 2011 when Harbor Freight opened a store in our area.  Got it relatively cheap considering what it can do.  It will chip small branches also.  The one thing it is not good for is shredding wet material.  That clogs up the mechanisms and you have to remove about 10 screws to get into the shredder to unclog it.  

I also have a gas powered Stihl weed wacker.  It is super high powered.  I tried doing the garbage can trick this last weekend.  The shredded material flew all over the place (I guess I had it powered up too high).  I also have a much lighter weight Black and Decker battery weed wacker and will have to try that next.

 once you get the hang of it, very little flys out. In the beginning I used a lid to cover the can, after a bit I found I did not need it.

Zmore ,
 Put a photo of the bag that shows the contents blurb list.
 I ask be cause if it is a decent content others can  head for the same stuff.

Often most of the store purchased composts are way too one sided or totally deficient of sensible materials .

 " Organic humus & manure " seems a really dumbed down bit of eye candy if the name alone is anything to go by.

If you dig deep into composting  101 threads  you'll discover  some not so nice things about such store  purchased stuff .  WRT.  Far too much un-composted wood content and also the source of where it comes from such as local amenity waste collection points  where it can have all manner of crud in it that's not much good for your garden .

 Before you use the compost as an ingredient in you MM , mix a handful with a handful of peat and water it then try sowing some radish & 24 hr water soaked pea seeds  in a filled small plant pot. Put it inside a zip lock bag and keep it in a warm dark place for four or five days  .
Growing them on in the warm place . Check every other day for eight days or so If they germinate and produce  the start of a plant all is well and good with the purchased compost .

Five or six years ago  I myself purchased half a dozen or so bags of a similar advertised product  ,,,, I  found out too late that it was mainly visible white fibres of wood pulp with  a couple of dozen horse cobbles and possibly diluted or liquefied stable muck.  It smelt strongly of ammonia which is a fair indication of things with dungs not being a fully finished compost .

Being of short arms and deep pockets I decided to make the MM using it as I was spring garden crazy to get it up & running as a permanent onion bed . My onions bed idea was a disaster ,
I managed to grow leeks and garlic in the bed  after  the onions  all ran amok and bolted before they'd even started to form bulbs though quite a lot of the garlics gave forth th flower stems as well but they were good eating so that angle didn't concern me too much  ,

Basically it killed the only ANSFG bed it was put in for about 15 months , by end of that time I had my own home made compost system up & running , I've had decent onions ever since .

Diggin the camo tarp, Zmoore!

jimmy cee wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote:You know, they are TOUGH!  I may run to TSC and price a small chipper.  It would be very handy around here.

I picked up this chipper from Amazon last year, used it briefly one time, however last week I pulled it out, set it up and was astounded at how that little gadget works...
I'll strongly endorse it for what it's rated for....certainly nothing big, however with careful feeding it is great.
I must mention, I do not know how an item like a corn cob would do inside. One needs to be able to control the speed of feeding into the chambers.... It needs to chip away at the items and not in big clumps..


http://www.amazon.com/Eco-Shredder-ES1600-Electric-Chipper-Shredder/dp/B002U82A3K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450061819&sr=8-2&keywords=electric+chipper

Thanks for the link, Jimmy! I asked a question to the Amazon community regarding the cobs.....

I purchased a chipper from Amazon this time last year ..it won't chip soft green matter , this simply clogs things up and is a right PIA to clear out.  But it will chip dried & fresh cut sticks up to 35 mm in diameter ( so long as it goes down the feed hole)

 You have to initially set the chipper up so that he mill /gripping wheel is just scraping the sacrificial anvil . once it done you can put all fresh cut and plenty of dry branch parts through it
.
I ran all the cuttings from a length of 60 or so feet of Cypress Leylandi boundary hedge pruning s .. Many of which came off five inch thick  tree de-toppings , that brought the trees down 12 feet or more back to 12 feet tall .
  This only took me about four hours of continuous work & gave me some thing like 15 heavy rubble sacks of stuf for the composting
I reckon that it would munch through the cobs like a hot knife through warm butter .  You'd have to feed them in one or two at a time to ensure you don't jam it solid.


My model is the
Bosch AXT 25 D Quiet Shredder

There are cheaper look-a -likes around for less than half of what I paid , possibly made in the same factory .

 I intend getting a spare sacrificial anvil plate in the near future so I'm not left with an obsolete shredded in five years time

From what I read on Amazon on the reviews of the one Jimmy has, the stuff MUST BE DRY. Or else it bunks up the apparatus. The commenters responded to my question about corn cobs saying mostly, yes, it could definitely handle them if they are dry. Must a chipper/shredder requirement.

Remember, my chipper is an electric.
They are 2 completely different animals there.
Gas powered will go through items that plug up an electric chipper. + they take larger objects, my electric was purchased mainly for brush and small twigs up to about 3/4 inch..
Details indicate 1 3/8th inch diameter, I dont think I would do much over 3/4"
As I mentioned before, for it's intended use, a tool worth having if needed.

plantoid wrote:I purchased a chipper from Amazon this time last year. . .
ran all the cuttings from a length of 60 or so feet of Cypress Leylandi boundary hedge pruning s .. .  This only took me about four hours of continuous work & gave me some thing like 15 heavy rubble sacks of stuff for the composting.

Plantoid,  I don't know what to say!    Did the surgery improve you so much that you could do all of that work??  If so, Yippee

jimmy cee wrote:Remember, my chipper is an electric.
They are 2 completely different animals there.
Gas powered will go through items that plug up an electric chipper. + they take larger objects, my electric was purchased mainly for brush and small twigs up to about 3/4 inch..
Details indicate 1 3/8th inch diameter, I dont think I would do much over 3/4"
As I mentioned before, for it's intended use, a tool worth having if needed.

Yep, I get it, Jimmy. I cannot handle a lot of gas powered tools, mostly the starting of them if they have a pull cord. And I don't need anything more than grinding stuff into composting material. Love my Black & Decker cordless weed whacker! Runs on a 20 v battery!

I think this may be the hottest I have ever gotten a pile.  About 152-153.  I am a super hottie.  I think the difference this time is I used some Alfalfa Pellets and coffee grounds as my greens.  I ran out of other greens and wanted to get the pile cooking so I bought a bag of Alfalfa Pellets.  Kind of defeats the purpose of free compost but just about every green is gone now except what I have currently growing.  I wanted to get the pile filled and on its way to making compost.  I do not have access to any manure at this time and without manure I have never been able to get it real hot.

@yolos

SMOKIN!!!

(it's sounds funny in my head, I swear)

Fantastic! I only have about seven 5-gallon buckets of horse manure and one bucket of coffee grounds so I am supplementing with alfalfa hay, especially the leaves that shake out of each flake. When did you build the pile? I find after I turn it on the 4th day, the temps really take off. Back to building the pile!