My Compost Pile

I'd try to compost any manure before putting on veggies.

Horse manure-they don't digest their food very well, sometimes you will see long strands of grass in the poo.

Cow-they digest sometimes too well and there might not be much nutrients left over.

Chicken-be sure it's composted well, for chickens may carry all kinds of disease that could be transmitted to humans, via the veggies.(salmonella, e-coli) Doesn't take much to get the pile hot! and the nitrogen level is high! I use this.

rabbit- don't know much about the poo, but, rabbits can carry salmonella.

The one thing I don't like about using our horse pooh is all the seed. I do use it but in small amounts. It still seems that no matter what I get things growing from it.
We have lots of chickens, but we don't really get much manure from them as we use a "deep liter" method that they pretty much keep broken down themselves. I use very little amounts of chicken pooh for that reason and the fact that in most of the pens its mixed with pine shavings... But I do use it and know my chickens are healthy as I get them tested every year.
Steer manure. I have lots as well. Honestly, I like it the most of any manures I have used. I just make sure I take from our oldest compost piles for it.
I still really, really, want to use some llama pooh!!!

awww rooster! wish you lived closer! my neighbor dropped off another barrel of alpaca manure last night! he said there's plenty more!

nKedrOoStEr wrote:I still really, really, want to use some llama pooh!!!

I'll ship you some llama pooh. What's your address??

littlejo wrote:I'd try to compost any manure before putting on veggies.

Horse manure-they don't digest their food very well, sometimes you will see long strands of grass in the poo.

Cow-they digest sometimes too well and there might not be much nutrients left over.

Chicken-be sure it's composted well, for chickens may carry all kinds of disease that could be transmitted to humans, via the veggies.(salmonella, e-coli) Doesn't take much to get the pile hot! and the nitrogen level is high! I use this.

rabbit- don't know much about the poo, but, rabbits can carry salmonella.

I'm thinking that I'll just stick with the horse, llama, and rabbit poop that I have in my compost pile. Because this compost pile is my first ever, I don't want to monkey around with something like chicken poop. When it comes time to prepare for springtime planting, I can always get bags of already composted cow and chicken manure from my local garden center. That way there's no danger of anything bad in it from improper composting.

From what I understand, rabbit poop can be used right in your veggie garden without any composting.

Something else I read about and if I can find the source, I'll post it.....

If there would happen to be salmonella or e. coli present in any of the improperly composted manures, all that you would have to do is keep the veggies off the surface of the soil via a sufficient layer of mulch. I'm not so sure I'd trust this method.

I have no sources of poo, but when I was dropping off stuff at the recycle station today a lady pulled up with 3 vegetable boxes full of yellowing cabbage and collard leaves. Before she put them in the garbage dumpster I asked if I could have them for my compost pile. (once something is put into a dumpster there is no scavaging) So I got there just in time and have a nice addition to the old straw and kitchen scraps.

Kay

walshevak wrote:I have no sources of poo, but when I was dropping off stuff at the recycle station today a lady pulled up with 3 vegetable boxes full of yellowing cabbage and collard leaves. Before she put them in the garbage dumpster I asked if I could have them for my compost pile. (once something is put into a dumpster there is no scavaging) So I got there just in time and have a nice addition to the old straw and kitchen scraps.

Kay

That's awesome!

A few weeks ago my Mom and I went to a garden center for their "Fall Festival" One of the things they had there was fresh-pressed apple cider. They had a huge pile of the pressings. I found the manager and asked him if I could come back to get a couple buckets of that stuff to add to my compost pile. He said I could have whatever I wanted. I told him that I would be back later that evening. I went back there no more than 3 hours later and that pile was gone. I looked around the place and found it dumped into a pile of crap and there was all sorts of junk piled on top.

Boy was I a little mad

Know how you feel! I checked with a friend in the burbs to ask if there were still any leaf bags being put out for trash day. Oh sure! Just the day before his neighbor put out 30 bags of leaves and the garbage truck just took them away. I was so close, so close...

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:

nKedrOoStEr wrote:I still really, really, want to use some llama pooh!!!

I'll ship you some llama pooh. What's your address??

Thanks Tall Mater! Haha. I was actually by the farm with all the llamas yesterday several times. Unfortunately, I was too busy with the gas company (Excel) getting a couple of new gas regulators put in. Otherwise I would have stopped and had and lil "pooh chat"!

I forgot I had this thread. Anyway, here's a pic of my compost pile that I took this morning....



Because of the way I built it, I'm probably going to rent a tiller just to mix it up once it's ready. It's just way too much for me to handle.

Nice pile TTT

Thanks Rooster.

It's supposed to be in the 50's and 60's today and tomorrow. I hope the compost temperature increases. Right now it's around 62F

I checked my compost pile today It's frozen solid! I hope it thaws soon; I'd like to turn it

littlesapphire wrote:I checked my compost pile today It's frozen solid! I hope it thaws soon; I'd like to turn it

Can you cover it with black plastic? That should build up some warmth.

Yup, still quite frozen here. After all, I am in the north and that is to be expected. I have plenty of time!!!.

The blue line is the temp each morning. The red line is Pile #2, which I started in January. Pile # 1 is in green, which was started on an unrecorded date last fall.

Pile # 2 was turned on 2/22 and 3/2, with additional rotted manure of unknown farm animals added on 3/2 with no consequent rise in temp. The rapid rise in temp in pile #2 was due to the addition of chicken manure and straw, but the excitement generated by that performance has since died down. Both piles are now poking along at 60-61 F. The stuff in the oldest pile (#1 dating from last fall) looks like it wants to be a finished product, but is hanging on. Compost worms found in bagged compost have been added to both piles. When I can find some time, I'll add some alfalfa pellets to the center of both piles and see if that heats things up a bit. The ambient temperature will reach 70F tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see if either of the piles responds in any way.

Tom

Your compost pile looks great !!



I was turning mine over today to see how it's doing.. I've got a lot of black in there and all the greenery that I tossed in there on the last warm day was sprouting up something fierce !! It's still got that damp musty smell to it, so I'm guessing it's still doing well in there.. I'm planning on adding some worms to it soon since a friend of mine offered me a box or 2 of them(around 50 or so a box).. That hopefully will hel things out once I had more saw dust, bark and such along with other goodies throughout the spring and summer..



Will have to remember to post a pick of it also..

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:I forgot I had this thread. Anyway, here's a pic of my compost pile that I took this morning....



Because of the way I built it, I'm probably going to rent a tiller just to mix it up once it's ready. It's just way too much for me to handle.

Have you thought about just pulling up the fence and posts and moving it over and turning the pile into the new space?

camprn wrote:

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:I forgot I had this thread. Anyway, here's a pic of my compost pile that I took this morning....



Because of the way I built it, I'm probably going to rent a tiller just to mix it up once it's ready. It's just way too much for me to handle.

Have you thought about just pulling up the fence and posts and moving it over and turning the pile into the new space?

I would like to but I really can't. I have ferns and Solomon's Seal to the right of it and to the left is a holly bush. Not only that but the entire chunk of land that the house is on is so full of rocks. If I would pull out the posts and try to hammer them in again elsewhere, they would probably break.....no joke. The soil is that rocky. I got blisters on my hands from swinging the hammer when I put the bin where I did last fall.
I was at Lowes tonight and found one of those compost aerators...it's a metal pole with wings on the end. That'll help me keep it aerated.

That pile is just way too big to properly manage it. It's 5ft wide by 5ft deep and 4 ft tall. That's 100 cubic feet. That's a heck of a lot of compost.
I don't regret making that much compost. I just regret doing it the way I did.

I won't make that mistake again.

On a more positive note, I just checked the temp of the pile and it's up to 71F. That's an increase of 10F since this morning.

tomperrin wrote:
Pile # 2 was turned on 2/22 and 3/2, with additional rotted manure of unknown farm animals added on 3/2 with no consequent rise in temp. The rapid rise in temp in pile #2 was due to the addition of chicken manure and straw, but the excitement generated by that performance has since died down. Both piles are now poking along at 60-61 F. The stuff in the oldest pile (#1 dating from last fall) looks like it wants to be a finished product, but is hanging on. Compost worms found in bagged compost have been added to both piles. When I can find some time, I'll add some alfalfa pellets to the center of both piles and see if that heats things up a bit. The ambient temperature will reach 70F tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see if either of the piles responds in any way.

Tom

That's some pretty neat stats. I like the graph. If alfalfa pellets are the same as rabbit food pellets, then I can tell you that it works. I added a 25 pound bag of it to my compost(in layers, with some dried blood mixed in) and it's heating up nicely now.

Hey Tuxdad, adding worms to the compost pile is a great idea. Thanks for that. If I do that, then I better not use an aerator to mix my compost up.

I checked the temp of my compost pile this morning and it's up to 78F. Last night before I went to bed it was 71F.

Not bad.

Hey Tuxdad, adding worms to the compost pile is a great idea. Thanks for that. If I do that, then I better not use an aerator to mix my compost up.[/quote]



Forgive my ignorance but what's and aerator, and what's it look like ?? I just use a pitch or gardening fork for my compost bin, so I won't have to worry much about hurting the little guys...

It's a pole with little wings that one uses to poke holes into the pile. For me, it looks like tool that leads to a good way to throw out my back... I use the stake method instead.

Well that looks better than the one I bought yesterday