Hmmm, Compost compost, how do you fair in the compost worldl?

LittleGardnener.......You need browns, and lots of them. This is the season for leaves, leaves, leaves. Get all you can. Rake them from the sideroads, the woods, in your yard. Store them in big black bags til you need to add more to the tumbler.
Ratio of greens and brown should be 15-20 browns to 1 greens.
Went to a seminar on composting by a university master gardener. Samples of the compost came with him. Lovely, like soil, with that ratio. The resulting crops grew strong and productive.

I just toss the bags behind 'blackie' til needed. I tear one or two open and leave them so the leaves are easily available. Then I add several handsful to the outside compost pile whenever I add greens to the outside pile, keeping the greens covered.

Those leaves cover any tidbits the wild animals might want to forage and keeps down odors when covered with leaves each time.
When the green monster is done and emptied, I refill it with the started outside pile.

I fill outside (pile) compost goodies into the monster til its filled, Add a bucket of water across the contents, close it up, then start the turning process again for a few weeks.
Right now I only use 'blackie' for dried leaves so I can have some nice leaf mold in a year. For me it became too hard to turn it so I just leave it alone filled with brown fall leaves til the next fall, when I can use the resultant leaf mold in my garden beds. Note: Not turning it one year when 'blackie' was my only composter, it still made beautiful compost but it takes about 12 months to do so.

I sift my compost thru a spare veggie storage stacker into my wheelbarrow. Any big bits get tossed back into the green monster for another few weeks.
For me it works this way, learned thru trial and error the last 4 years.

We got a new compost barrel back in the spring, I added leaves, rabbit manure, old plants, vegetable scraps. I turned it maybe once a week or at least once every two weeks. It was all the way full and I stopped putting anything in it, I checked it today and it's about 1/2 full now, and looks like pretty good compost.

That looks like some good stuff there Josh! I got one this spring too and mine is not quite there yet!

And I forgot to add that I used grass clippings plus I added leaves, rabbit manure, old plants, vegetable scraps. And I chose carefully what plants I put in there, and nothing that had seeds on it.

That compost is far better looking than the guy playing the guitar Josh

If it's still warm where you are perhaps add a few ounces of worms to it with a drop of water & turn it once a week for another couple of months to mix in any of their casts .

Nice looking compost Josh! I need to check my compost tumbler thingy. I haven't done anything with it for a month!

Quiltbea I love your idea of sifting the compost! That is something doable for me.

Oh I do have to add that Saturday I grabbed some black yard bags and put my granddaughter in a stroller and went to ask for some horse poo from neighbors a few blocks away. My car got totaled months ago and I haven't been able to replace it. I knocked on doors on several houses. On the third house that I knew they had horses, the nice lady let me fill both of my black bags. She then said her daughter can put the bags in a wagon and help me home with them. I had some large kitchen garden bags and filled those also. Her daughter and the daughter's friend and I had a nice chat on the way back to my house. Who says I have to wait for someone with a car!

Tricia, I think you can clearly be called a composter when you take a child in a stroller and some bags walking to get horse poop. I'm in awe of you.

Tricia....I'm glad you and daughter had a nice walk and got some great future compost from it. You did good!

petunia52 wrote:Tricia, I think you can clearly be called a composter when you take a child in a stroller and some bags walking to get horse poop. I'm in awe of you.

I do hope this did not come across as negative because it really was not meant to. I would send you the link but do not know how so I want to reference iVillageGardenWeb, it is a great site!!! and has the funniest page you will ever read on "You know you are a composter when...". I have just built my first compost 2 days ago and told my husband I am looking forward to the time I can claim most of them. I hope you will read it and you will know just what I meant.
Happy composting.

I'm am dying laughing over that list! Will I become one of "those" people?

gardenertaylor wrote:I'm am dying laughing over that list! Will I become one of "those" people?

If you're like me you will.

I couldn't find the site. Google took me to Garden Web that has many forums.
Can someone post the URL here to click on and get there directly to find the list on "you know you're a composter when...."
Thanks.

Quiltbea +1 I also couldn't find it.

Not sure if this is the link mentioned above, but is nevertheless a good read.

"You know you are a compost wacko when"

Bob, that is the correct site. I'm sorry I'm not better with computers or I would have sent it.

Thanks bnoles, for the site. I got a crick in my neck and had to stop halfway thru. Funnneeeeeee!

petunia52 wrote:

petunia52 wrote:Tricia, I think you can clearly be called a composter when you take a child in a stroller and some bags walking to get horse poop. I'm in awe of you.

I do hope this did not come across as negative because it really was not meant to. I would send you the link but do not know how so I want to reference iVillageGardenWeb, it is a great site!!! and has the funniest page you will ever read on "You know you are a composter when...". I have just built my first compost 2 days ago and told my husband I am looking forward to the time I can claim most of them. I hope you will read it and you will know just what I meant.
Happy composting.

Oh Petunia I took it exactly like you meant it and I am honored to be thought of as a composter, considering I haven't done much of it at all, lol! I am hoping to be successful by spring! I read your post I think it was yesterday and even started to comment and got interrupted and with my brain that forgets what it was doing, I forgot to get back to this post. I got the idea of taking a stroller to "collect the stuff" from a lady on here that would use her power chair to take all kinds of things to her community garden plot. She was amazing what she would accomplish. Oh yeah, that was part of me not finishing my response to you, I was trying to find her original post to find her name and then family interrupted, lol!

I will have to check out that site you mentioned, it sounds great! Someone on this forum started one and it was funny also. I don't have time right now to search for it and you can probably find it faster than I can anyway.

I like you avatar pic, I have a salt and pepper mini schnauzer! His name is Fritz (german name since his breed is from Germany). They are such fun and smart dogs? Sorry for being so long in responding to your post!

quiltbea wrote:Tricia....I'm glad you and daughter had a nice walk and got some great future compost from it. You did good!

Thank you quiltbea! I posted on FB that I wanted leaves and my neighbor around the corner said she has eight bags for me. My daughter said she would go get it in her car but it has been raining. I can't do anything with it till it stops raining but I am getting anxious about getting them to my house. I'm sure that qualifies me as a "composter" but now I have to build the beds and beg for more leaves because I'm sure those eight and my two are not going to go very far.

Tricia,
bnoles found the site (I left a word out) so google "You know you are a compost whako when...". It is on the iVillage Garden Web site. When you google it, 2 will come up, the 1st being the newest the 2nd the oldest. Get your tissue cuz you will laugh yourself to tears.

And by the way Tricia, my schnauzer's name is Heidi, from the Swiss Alps. She is the apple of my eye.

Petunia I love all the light color on Heidi around her face and chest! I just read one of the threads, I was laughing my head off and had to visit the rest room. (Should I have saved it or even mention this out loud?) Of course I had to read some to my daughter! Here is a direct link to one, if someone hasn't done this already. http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/midatl/2002101805019109.html I have to go look for the other. Now I am very anxious. My friend around the corner has the 8 bags of leaves and my daughter didn't pick them up for me while she was out. I don't want to bug her so I am going to take the stroller and go get them. I am now a "wacko"!

*LOL* That's very funny! I'm sitting here at work laffing away and my co-workers have no idea what I'm laffing at. I don't bother to tell them because they just wouldn't understand. I'm only part way through it but will continue between work projects.

Thanks for the day brightener!
CC

Tricia, I wouldn't mention that "bathroom thing" outside the group of "wackos" but isn't it nice to know we are in such great company. Oh, and CC, just remember that is an ongoing list so we will have an endless supply of smiles.

Happy composting ladies.

camprn wrote:I have tried to use a'Compost Starter' and had poor results.
>Now I use as much grass clipping as I can lay my hands on< and occasionally sprinkle dried blood when I am pile building, this results in good hot composting action.

LittleGardener wrote: What is missing?

oxygen, a requirement for active composting.

If your collecting grass from the neighbors, be sure they don't use herbicides or pesticides! Composting won't remove them.