Extreme Composting

What are your favourite uses for wood ash? The stove is going now and will keep going until Spring. That is too much ash to balance pH around my place...

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Progress always seems faster when things are going downhill.

Set up for tanning buckskins and making soap.

Then use the waste from those operations to feed your soil.

Otherwise, set up a barter system.

You got potash...... find the guy gots what you need, in exchange.

Meanwhile, dried and cool, the stuff stores real good in plastic or metal barrels.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

I was thinking about buckskin but the only hides I have coming up soon are from pigs.

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Progress always seems faster when things are going downhill.

Pig makes good leather.......

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

FR, I was asking about grain, but the stake juice sounds good.
Do not have many Maples, so it is Honey,sugar beets, Sorghum & corn.
I am in lower zone 7b, upper zone 8a, so a few sugar canes will grow here in midlands of S.C.

DEKE01, yes you are right, chaff is a by product of roasted coffee.
My coffee chaff is wet & moldly before it is out of the staging zone to be hauled off.
So it can not be used for bedding, but in the dry form it should make great bedding.
I use coffee grinds that have not been brewed, as well as use coffee grounds, even some whole beads.
Whole roasted beans make good mulch for bell & banana peppers, as well as food for whatever is composting the bottom layer. I was picking a bushel every day off 20 small plants.

I finally bought a tractor with a front end loader!

My compost piles have always been impressive, but that was just what I could build by hand. Oh the possibilities are endless! This thread has been an inspiration!

Now my problem is....I need the tractor, truck and trailer at the cow lot all at the same time. It's about 3 miles around the county road for the easiest access. How do I get myself and all the equipment over there and back by myself? I could load the tractor on the trailer, but then after the trailer is full I would have to make a trip back for the tractor...and I'd need it at the compost pile site to unload the trailer with. I could load a 4 wheeler on the trailer, park the truck and trailer and then go back for the tractor. This being single thing is a pain in the backside!

Hoping to have glorious huge piles of compost to show off soon

TxMex - I have a similar prob. Next week I have to haul my backhoe on the flatbed 60 miles. Use the backhoe to load 15K lbs of telepoles on to the flatbed, leave the LBH, drive the poles home, drive back for a second load of poles, then drive back again to retrieve the LBH. Each trip costs about $60 in diesel, so $180 for 30 - 50 fence quality poles, anywhere from 8" to 16" in diameter. I'm hoping for more of the smaller poles because the big ones are overkill for fencing but I can use them for landscaping.

I haven't been able to figure out a better plan. I can't load without the LBH and I can't haul poles and the LBH on the flatbed. The LBH is 17+K lbs so I am maxed out on trailer capacity.

Texmex, unloading by hand (using a shovel) isn't so bad, it is all down hill. Some people on here have made self-unloading trailers by using two chains and a bunch of 2x4. You buy a dump trailer, or rent one a couple times a year.

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Patriot Guard Riders http://www.patriotguard.org/

”Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.”
~Noah Webster

A dump trailer! You little enabler you!

Found a backpack leaf blower on sale today. I've wanted one of these for years. So now I have the front end loader for gathering manure and turning the pile. A backpack blower to blow leaves out of the woods and a bagging mower to shred them up....and.....and....my cousin said he would give me a couple of old half rotten round bales! I'm not sure any one human being should be this happy!

Howdy from another Patriot Guard Rider.

Hey texmex. use an old trampoline top (from the dump) to easy unload the compost fodder. Hook a hook with cable to the bucket from the far end and pull it off. Easy 30 second unloading. Trampoline tops are very durable!

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I'm so done here.

I pull two....sometimes three....dump trailers behind the tractor that I use to haul and load the material.

Trucks are way over-rated.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

Feeding chickens compost.

To watch this video, you have to enter an eaddr, but you can do like me and just create a gmail account that is for nothing but site registrations and other sites I fear may be a source of spam.

Geoff Lawton is a permaculture guru and there are additional vids you can watch about his permaculture work. He is trying to sell you something, so you might want to skip the end of the vid.

The important part is the vid is about a man in Vermont who has a large commercial composting operation and uses chickens to provide starter nitrogen, free turning labor, and free eggs. Since the chix get no feed other than what they can scratch from the raw compost materials, he can afford to keep roosters for guarding purposes and flock reproduction. I think he said 350 birds work for him and help to supply 500 commercial farms with compost.

For those of you who enjoy man toys, he uses a trackhoe and some other heavy machinery, but nothing like custom compost turning machinery that I have seen advertized in farm mags.

http://www.geofflawton.com/fe/59960-...hout-grain?r=y

Good find.

I do thoroughly appreciate the symbiotic feeding and warming possibilities that compost offers the frugal homestead.....

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

I have a fenced-in dog run (the dog has been gone about a month) which I want to use to store leaves. The leaves will eventually end up as mulch or compost for my vegetable garden. Do you see any problems with parasites or other nasty critters from the dog manure, which the rain has by now dissolved into the ground?

I wouldn't have a problem, but if you wanted to be really safe, just build a hot compost pile on that site and then use it for storing leaves. You could do both, simultaneously, building a hot pile 3-4 feet deep, and then piling your leaves on top of that.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

The run is about 9' x 30', so I am thinking of just putting leaves in there to keep them from blowing away. From there they would go in my smaller compost bin with maybe some cow or horse/mule manure to heat things up. Do you think that would take care of any potential problems?

I'd say you've got it covered.

Time is on your side.
Excellent use of an abandoned dog run, btw.......

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

OK, thanks for the input. Hope all is well with you and your family.

Thanks.





I hope so, too !

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

There's also another factor that comes in here as regarding parasites from pets. If your pets have any parasites which may also affect humans, you already also have them.

Martin