Extreme Composting

Half inch mesh hardware cloth, set in a two' by two'' frame constructed of 2x4s or even 2x2s.....would be perfect.

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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.
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We have a friends small tractor here for awhile and DH just pushed up all our compost so that we can add more the the front of the pile. We keep it in a fairly small area of about 16' x 10' so it needed to be pushed to the back and piled a little higher.
It was very exciting for me to see it all piled high like that! Next year it will be so wonderful for the garden!!! I can hardly wait!

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Trisha in WA
Visit my blog @
Diamond Belle Ranch

What else does a man have to do in his short time here on earth than build soil and feed people~Forerunner

Taking this endeavor to extremes has been costly, to say the least, but as each new year's crop unfolds, the rewards are incredible.
I don't regret one dime spent, nor one flat tire, 18 miles from home, just before dark.

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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.
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Screened almost all of the 2008 material, about another 30 yards to go. Might not get the last bit done due to rain.

Lloyd

Now that's pretty.

I screen mine after it's spread, via kids (and occasionally, adults) with buckets and time on their hands.

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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.
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Loyd and Forerunner When I get a bit closer to done with it I will show a pic of a vibratory screen I m building to screen my compost and the leaf compost from the plastic bags the city buried them in. Im trying to talk m brother out of the old vibratory plow off his old trencher for a better built one. Im using a honda motor with a belt drive to an eccentric shaft. Not to soud like a chicken but I need to finish my guards for the ecentric Imean 2000 RPM offset shaft what could go wrong.

I did have one screen leaned against an old building Id throw shovel fulls of material on and the heavy anon aver sized would shake off but it took forever. And a booger was ou couldnt screen a bucket load effectivley. I started looking at over priced screens and figured i could build one. I wanted a trommel but I couldnt find a company to roll my screens.

My next problem is the old leaf compost that im gettin has a ton of nut grass in it. Im putting it where I alread have nut grass. Im also thinking about after screen int the fines out and repiling the oversized and mixing in some fresh to recook it. I had some rotted bark at work and it was loaded wit hnut grass and had a nice 40 ard pile of almost done wood chips and this did agreat job of killin the nut grass.

We just used some cable connectors to put a pulley off balance. At the right RPM's (1/3 throttle), it shakes pretty darn good. Too fast and it smooths out.

Lloyd

I know what you mean by compost and anaconda sweet potatoes. This baby is 11 pounds and a foot long!

Loyd thats a great looking rig. May I borrow a few of your ideas? I have a few questions for you. What kind of bearsings are ou running, Are the ball or tapered. and is the wire tight across the frame. I had a pit manager tell me I I wont get and screening done if they arent tightened on a cam. I like the way you used leaf springs to I was about to use coil springs off a golf cart but cant find the ones I wanted to fit to it. Is one side of your springs set up to slip and one end fixed or are both ends anchored.

Im gonna have to procure a gravity wagon when i get back to alabama and a corner of our land... this has me inspired

The bearings are just standard sealed pillow block bearings.

The "wire" is actually a metal screen from a gravel pit. Once they wear down too much, the gravel pit discards them but for compost they work just fine. It is fastened on the edges but the middle is loose and bounces like heck when there is no weight on it. We have various sizes but I think we will stick with 5/8ths for now. I have the trommel if I need some small amounts screened finer. If I need more we will swap out the screen for finer.

We went with leaf springs as they were a) on sale and b) fit the steel frame we were using. Coil probably would have been better. They are fixed on the top end and are loose on the bottom. We found the spring was too stiff and disabled one of the leafs by turning it 90 degrees. If you look close at the bottom springs here, you can see the top leaf sticking out to the side. Next time the unit is in the shop we will probably just cut them off.

The design mostly came about because we wanted to use junk we sort of had on hand. Probably not the best but it works well enough for our purposes.

We just found out a local auction has a compost turner and a bagger coming up. Guy says it will probably go for scrap steel price.

Lloyd

Lloyd I love the tumbler. I gotta see about making that for the wood shavings.
We are looking at starting a buisness "manure managment" well clean the paddocs and remove the manure. But what is a good price to charge. we have a new tractor with scoop, claw, and back hoe, dump trailor and truck almost all paid for. We need to cover our gas costs. Any Ideas. Alot of people ask us to move and clean their horse paddocs and manure but when we tell them 50 per hour they say no way. They want it for free.

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I'm so done here.

Loyd thanks for the info on the bearings and screens. I have the same screens from an old pit. I made my eccentrics on the burn table a few weeks ago. I have a few old motor options right now. I wanted the ydraulic unit for running it off my old 2 ton trucks remote. I found a giant trommel down south on a trailer thatthe farmer wants the trailer and wants to sctrap the rest. Im trying to save it. Id probably mount it to a 10 wheeler frame and make it self propelled.

As promised some time ago...... a few photographic representations of this year's sweet tater harvest and a little compost application to boot.





I wear 10-and-a-halfs, for those interested in details.

Spreading a small pile in the west garden, next to the driveway and barn.
Note the steam..... cold morning/not-quite-finished compost.
Had to get it spread, though. We had dry ground. (still do, too)





Pics of spreading/ripping in and discing a couple for-real piles up in the field to be aired tomorrow eve.....

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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.
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These piles have been active for almost a year. I find very little trace of heat left in either, though there was a bit of potent urea evident. It should really give my bone-dry timber soil a boost come spring. One day, last mid-summer, a local horse trader showed up with a dozen cripples. It is a hard business, that, but we accommodated him, and my eldest son spent an hour or so burying carcasses in the pile I'm working on in the pics. I found the undigested contents of two stomachs, which is oddly common, and lots of clean bones, the bulk of which were near odor-free. There were multiple other carcasses buried in that pile over the duration of it's working existence, and I was surprised at how little evidence there was remaining. As the material is mixed with earth and dries out, the bone pickers will have plenty to do.




I figure there were well over fifty semi loads in the two piles.
That would be well over one thousand tons. I worked that much material into about an acre and a half, the other acreage being covered earlier with other piles, and one pile left at the top to break down over the winter. The average depth of the material upon spreading has been 6 to 8 inches, and my does the ground look black where we've been.
It never ceases to amaze me how much material can be incorporated into the soil and the soil never seems satisfied. I think of it as job security.

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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

Nice taters and steam, Forerunner! I've not spread any of my compost yet. Hopefully, we'll have some ready by spring.

The latest news is that the local stock yard was writing bad checks. Of course, it was the fault of the corporation that owns it -- the Eastern Cattle Company. So, it's unknown what's gonna happen yet. Hopefully, they'll get things sorted out soon -- I want more manure! And, there are a lot of people around here to who need a place to sell their cattle.

mudburn

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The greatest waste in life is life itself.
H. L. Roush, Sr. (Henry and the Great Society)

Well, there's always that old stuff down at the mill.....

Negativity seems to be going around, these days.
Sign of the darkness to come, I reckon.

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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

We finally finished spreading compost for the year.
The last three weeks have been rather intense... spreading, ripping in, discing, harrowing....and then the trash picking.
Just ahead of last week's first rain, we sowed everything in winter wheat.

I think the fields look great.

This is the first view you get when coming to the farm here, from the east.


....and if you look north from there......


The pile up there is the last of the big ones. I'm holding it over 'til spring for several reasons. Namely, it's not quite finished; there are multiple carcasses buried within; I'm going to spread it thickly, where it sits, with the dozer, and plant tomatoes, peppers, melons, pumpkins, potatoes and onions in it.
Stay tuned for some record crops if we have any kind of a decent year.

Same pile, different shot.


The new pile (yeah, there will always be a new pile ) is located on a patch of ground that I've been working into shape for several years now, literally. It started out as a pond dam, then, over the years, folks with excess concrete, dirt, bricks, etc. have been adding to the back side of that dam, some days by ten or more semi loads. So, consequently, with a little management and imagination, I've managed to turn a humble pond dam into an acre field, and growing. The dam, and field have been sitting up against my north property line for a long, long time..... but, no more.
We recently had opportunity to move that line 300 feet further north, and we've been busy maximizing the field to the north, and cleaning up the woods that is new to us. Where the little tractor is sitting has always been a deep ravine and a tangle of old barbed wire and multiflora rose.
Well, as you can see, that eyesore didn't last long under new management.



My oldest son, Caleb, has been ramrodding the timber cleanup while I move dirt. There's enough dead black locust and elm in there to last us ten years.


The root ball of that bigger tree on the left was hanging out over a ten foot deep ditch that was about 20 feet wide. The fence tangle was on my side of that ravine.
Note the new compost pile to the right.


The view here is looking north. The pond is to the right, east. The ravine that is being filled with concrete, etc. to the left, west.
There is always so much that needs built, improved upon, or maintained.
How can one man do his life's work justice in so little time as his allotted 75 years, give or take ?

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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

Hello. I am new to the HT forum, and enjoying many of the sub-forums. But I discovered this thread (and it has taken me several days to go through it, post-by-post), and am thrilled. It validates my 'crazyness'. When I mentioned to a friend that I will be trying to find a couple of tons per week of raw compostable materials, they thought I was crazy. After reading this, I am looking more towards a goal of a ton per day.

Some fool, who obviously doesn't understand soil dynamics, was harping about 'when is enough enough?' Within practical limits, I do not think there is an answer to that question. Think of the math: 40 tons of finished product, spread on one acre equals about 2 pounds per square foot - the weight of 1 quart of water. Considering that the soil & crops will easily consume that amount, how many years would it take at that rate to increase soil organic matter 1%? It could be a never ending challenge.

Considering generations of NOT feeding the soil, it will probably take generations of feeding the soil to get it BACK to what it should be.

Thank you Forerunner, and everybody who has contributed to this valuable thread!!!

I've been rather letting others say their piece here, and was waiting for some other composter/enthusiast to speak up after Rusty's encouraging intro.....but, alas, the cat has everyone's tongue, of late.

Welcome aboard, Rusty (or his dog, whichever the case may be )
It's heart warming to make the acquaintance of yet another extremist-in-the-making that gets it.

I don't know, though...... a ton a day may be setting your sights a little low...
If you've pickup and a pitchfork, you're already on the fast track.
May your energy levels always match your ambitions.

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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.
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