Re: Homemade Compost

**Turan** 3/14/2013, 5:38 pm

My compost is a mixture of chicken coop cleanings and barn cleanings including sheep and horse manure with straw and hay. All kitchen scraps are processed through chickens first. Then I throw in garden cleanings. I worry that it could use odd micro nutrients and such so I add bone meal and kelp meal to broaden the spectrum.

My compost pille has thawed at last, but it is still pretty cold. Gotta decide if I need to toss it again before adding to beds. probably won't unless I find tooooo big chunks in it.

bnoles 3/14/2013, 9:23 pm

It is unbelievable the items I have been able to round up for the compost pile from just our daily lives. Most of what I add has pretty much been named above so I won't bother to repeat. With warmer weather now setting in, I am hoping my piles will heat up soon and restart to break down all these goodies.

One question I would like to toss out for your wise advice. We will be going down to the beach in a few weeks with the grand boys for spring vacation. Would it be worth my while to squeeze a couple of 5 gallon buckets into our vehicle luggage area and bring back some kelp/sea weed and possibly anything else we may gain access to that would be good for the piles? I have read that kelp is a good thing for compost. This looks like a golden opportunity to get some materials not natural to our area.

**camprn** 3/14/2013, 9:42 pm

YES! collect as much as you can put with in the confines of the car. Though I believe that some areas have restrictions on how much you may take. It may be worth investigating if it is legal or not. When you get it home wash all the salt off. What a Face

**Kelejan** 3/14/2013, 11:43 pm

H_TX_2 wrote:
Kelejan,
I like the idea of having a worm tube in the pile. I am thinking about having a bin for leaves and yard trimmings; waiting to go into the tumbler. Then possibly a bin for finished compost near my compost tumbler. Adding a worm tube to either of those would be easy.

What do y'all do with your finished compost? . . .

My worm tubes are experimental so far. I am waiting for the piles to thaw out so that I can turn them to see if the worms survived the winter and also to see if they have made any difference to the compost. When I rebuild my piles I will take out the worm tubes and any worms, as the piles should heat up with the extra stuff I will be adding and I don't think worms will survive cooking. As the piles lose heat, then I will add back the worm tubes and worms so that they can get back to work. I will report on what happens then.
(I know Llama momma wants to know.)

As for my finished compost - I use it. Very Happy

H_TX_2 3/19/2013, 11:17 am

Thanks for the input. I feel much better about my future compost. We go to the beach every summer so that gives me shrimp shells and sargassum seaweed that I can add. I can pick up some manures and others materials here and there as I find them.

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