Extreme Composting

myheaven · #**3461** 12/30/14, 05:07 PM

you know you have come full circle when you luster for other compost piles. I have 3 piles before the spring cleaning.

deb_rn · #**3462** 12/31/14, 09:02 AM

Oh My!! Compost envy! We have 2 small piles behind the garage and another in the garden for awkward stuff. That would cover my small city lot and bury the house!! LOL

am1too · #**3463** 12/31/14, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deb_rn

Oh My!! Compost envy! We have 2 small piles behind the garage and another in the garden for awkward stuff. That would cover my small city lot and bury the house!! LOL

We are just a little extreme and serious about composting here. My piles do not come close yet. But even my old piles would make a few big dump loads.

palm farmer · #**3464** 01/03/15, 08:05 AM

my current two piles, these are piles of wood chips that we spread out in a in 60x80 open hog pen, we drag the pen about every 6 weeks, stack it and let it sit for a month or sow, and then run it over a shaker table we built this summer. once its screened we use it in the nursery to back fill holes in field grown bamboo and palms. We have been using it in our potting mix with great results

Forerunner · #**3465** 01/03/15, 08:44 AM

Hey !!

No fair on that shaker table.

Studhauler · #**3466** 01/03/15, 12:23 PM

Now Forerunner, I know you could fab up a shaker table. From what I have seen, when I visited, you probably got most of what you need on your homestead.

Forerunner · #**3467** 01/03/15, 12:26 PM

My shaker used to consist of four little(ish) kids walking through the freshly harrowed field with five gallon buckets.

Then they all got big and found other pursuits.

One of 'em even loved to run the bone grinder in his mid-later teens.....

DEKE01 · #**3468** 01/03/15, 01:00 PM

FR, that brings to mind a composting angle we may not have fully explored. Are uncooperative teenagers compostable?

Forerunner · #**3469** 01/03/15, 06:18 PM

Yeah, they are.......but only under the most dire conditions.....

palm farmer · #**3470** 01/03/15, 07:38 PM

when it drys up around here we run a batch I will get some action shots , be warned its pretty primitive !! we basically mounted a frame/table on four car springs welded to the frame, added a motor, a shaft and a counter weight on the shaft and let'er shake rattle n roll thats a finished batch right there and we can pick it up and move it around to meet our needs, next mode to it will be to drop the front end down about 8 inches to a foot so material runs a little faster

Forerunner · #**3471** 01/03/15, 07:48 PM

That just looks like fun.....that's all.

It would take a couple years to screen my current supply on that rig, and that supply is growing fast........

.

DEKE01 · #**3472** 01/03/15, 08:50 PM

palm farmer, more photos of your shaker table please. I made a screen/sifter but have been considering upgrading to a powered unit for creating potting soil.

palm farmer · #**3473** 01/03/15, 11:17 PM

I will post some up in the morning, we have a pig about to domino so I am checking on her on and off thru the night, we got the pigs a little over a year ago and we started off running them on a modified deep wood chip type setup, but it was this website that further inspired me to kick it up a notch and it has been a lot of fun!!

palm farmer · #**3474** 01/04/15, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forerunner

That just looks like fun.....that's all.

It would take a couple years to screen my current supply on that rig, and that supply is growing fast........

.

ours gets used up plenty quick, we have sold some and used it on landscape jobs and as a potting mix, as my liners come in for spring it will go pretty fast,
3000 three gallon containers stacks disappear quick

Forerunner · #**3475** 01/04/15, 04:57 PM

I have friends who own a fairly popular nursery, ten miles off.

They have come to barter several loads of compost from me, each year, for their own use and for resale to those with savvy and an adventurous spirit.
Apparently those old-timers, and even a few modern yuppy types, don't mind picking a few bones out of their premium-grade backwoods compost blend.

Studhauler · #**3476** 01/06/15, 07:22 PM

This is my homegrown pile started this fall when I cleaned out the garden, also has some road kill including one whole deer, the leaves from the yard and two deer carcasses from deer hunting.

The first picture is just after I turned the pile on Christmas Day. Dad lets me use his tractor on a very limited basis, or I would turn the piles more often.

Extreme Composting - Homesteading Questions

Extreme Composting - Homesteading Questions

The next picture is on New Years Day after a week of 20 below at night and zero for the high temp, then it wormed up and snowed on the night of the 31st. I like how the snow is melted on the top of the pile.

Extreme Composting - Homesteading Questions

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myheaven · #**3477** 01/08/15, 06:44 AM

Hey Tim question. I have seen a few blogs and videos of people using their compost piles and pex tubing to heat their showers and or green houses in winter. Would doing so steal too much heat from the piles to "harm" the piles in any way?

Studhauler · #**3478** 01/08/15, 07:55 AM

I have thought that all along. If you are taking BTU's to heat your water from the compost pile, there will be less BTU's to heat the pile it self. The way Forerunner does it, he is capturing the heat that would be escaping anyways.

.

Forerunner · #**3479** 01/08/15, 08:36 AM

It's a matter of mass and math.

BIG piles (well-constructed for C/N and moisture, of course) can do big things.

You will never "hurt" the microbes by removing too much heat, too fast, but you can sure out run them if their mass is lacking.

Jean Pain had it down to a science, though he did seem to favor extremes to the excessive side....

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_...hane_pain.html

If I was going to start over from scratch with an intent to heat home and water (and livestock barn/bunker in the north or plains states) I would build partially underground to start, and dig in silage bunker type pits on either side with pure earth in the back (north) and open to full winter sun to the south. Both lateral "pits" would be capable to hold upwards of ten semi loads of compost.
Might sound excessive to some for a sustainability angle, but that quantity would shrink by half as it decomposed, leaving enough to fertilize an acre or two or three really well for the following year.....and, those pits wouldn't need to be filled all in one day. A couple pickup loads a day would do it, starting in mid to late summer......
Pour a divider wall down the center of each pit to permanently install a very high quality water line to be contained within the concrete, and enjoy HOT water all fall winter and spring, while simultaneously enjoying the radiant heat from the piles.

DEKE01 · #**3480** 01/08/15, 11:04 AM

The uglier side of composting...

In the center of my orchard is my junk compost pile. Calling the area an orchard is a bit optimistic as it only has about 50 young fruit trees so far, but strawberries, blackberries, grape, and more fruit trees are in the plans for this year.

This compost pile receives all the decomposable trash from the house. I have other piles that get dead plants and animals from the farm and imports. When I put something particularly ugly or stinky in the pile, it gets a couple of loader buckets of manure from those piles in the back ground. You can see turnips and rape growing in the manure because the seed is so cheap and I have many pounds of it. I toss seed onto the piles to scavenge nutrients and create more green manure. The young plants will get covered when the next load gets tossed it.

I wouldn't say it is extreme except that it is sometimes extremely ugly with trash, boxes, packing materials, Christmas wrapping paper, junk mail, etc. I'm not a fan of using fence to confine piles, but in this case, it is needed to keep the lighter stuff from blowing around the orchard.