Ummmm...... for the life of me, I don't recall posting about a tumbler or trommel, other than a hefty front end loader bucket that tumbles stuff pretty well. :eek:





:run:

It sure seems to me that your or at least someone posted a picture of a small (maybe 26") round screen bout 3 or 4 ft long powered by a 5 horse engine to sift compost. I commented on it in this thread maybe a year ago. I used such a device to sort worms from their bedding late 70's. It even inspired me to collect some junk bicycles to make one. You put the desired screen size inside the spokeless rims with rivits. Place a drive belt on the middle rim.

Anything I would have mentioned, from my own experience, in that regard, would have been extremely small scale and entirely manual.

Any chance you could direct us to the page and post # for reference ?

Oops! it wasn't forerunner after all it was Lloyd J in post 712 with a link to flicker. His is with an elcetric motor. I will set mine up with a 5 hp engine to make it more portable. It will also have some sort of wheels - perhaps swivel wheels. I am thinking about setting it up so that I can take it to the compost yard and sift my stuf there. It would roll the length of my 16 ft trailer on the rails dumping all the debree to the side. My reason for this idea is because my tiller will not handle big hard chuncks and I would get rid of the trash at the sametime. For now I use a slide screen and take the trash back. I keep the large organic material and gravel. I currently net 50% fine compost from a load. Current stash of fines for garden is bout 500 cu ft.

good checking there Am1too. Yep that trommel is just what I want, only I want one several times larger.

I'm thinking about powering from a PTO or possibly running a belt from my chipper which gives me a transmission between engine and belt drive. It would need to be large enough to have a hopper that would take a 1.5 yard scoop from the FEL. I'm thinking having the drum sit on 1 dead and 1 live trailer axle, 4 tires to hold it steady. I haven't worked out all the engineering because I don't have the parts handy and if the screen table works, it is all moot.

Recently moved so had to put my composting aspirations on hold for awhile, but came to get a fix noticed not a lot of pictures recently. :( Makes it hard to get a composting fix guys. Going to try to get my DF to realize that he needs more than just manure to amend the soil, but he is stubborn so I will just have to do it. Then maybe he will stop complaining about me wanting to collect all that manure and other pile food. :censored: Then maybe he wont complain so much when I tell him I'm getting a :cow: and :chicken:s.

P.S. Forerunner you are slacking with the pictures of your black gold /grin

Handy that the homestead cam was recently dropped from an elevation not conducive to uneventful impact. :indif:

You didn't like the field and hydro project pics ? :shrug:

I'm looking forward to the supremely green view around here, come March. :thumb:

We'll likely be back in a cam by then, too.

Well done! :thumb:

I think one would need a ramp to work one that large. I think you would also need a belt or a large pit to handle the volume. I only have 10 acres I desperately need to bury in a foot of compost. My immediate open ground is about 5 acres.

A guy has to work sometime.;)

So, lets talk about grubs. My pile is about 6' x 15' and about 5' tall. It is mixed with leaves and grass with some chicken manure compost mixed in. Is is cooking pretty good right now. I keep adding leaves and grass weekly. There are tons of grubs about the size of your thumb thru out the pile. Are they good or bad?

Don't know your location, there, CF....but I will assume you've got June Bug grubs.

They are actually very good.

I find them at their absolute best sauteed in a spot of bacon grease, then sprinkled liberally with Parmesan cheese. Eat 'em while their hot.

Bon Appetit.



:)

You mentioned chicken manure . . . I would go out one morning and level the pile and let the chickens have at 'em. If you have any doubt about your chicken's foraging ability, pick up a handful and sling 'em in the chicken coop!

Remember, what the chickens eat now, can't hurt your garden this summer!

Copper brings up a point that I think I've mentioned in here before.....

Chickens make great compost helpers.

If a man had the room, he'd do well to set up his composting operation where his chickens had full access. Those birds will find and benefit from every morsel that can be scratched up in the top 18 inches, while simultaneously keeping weeds and bugs eliminated as they appear, while simultaneously re-arranging those top 18 inches, or so, until the whole pile is nearly humiliated to tears....at which point the good compost engineer adds pitch fork or front end loader back into the arrangement and mounds the pile back up to height.

Hogs would do the same, and, back in the day several feeder pigs could be raised to market with little additional feed....if a guy had a big enough pile of residual horse and cattle bedding.

These days, though, I think chickens have more to offer....and are becoming much easier to get a hold of.


I still hate to see good, fat, juicy, tasty grubs go to waste on chickens, though. :bored:

Love the pictures just noticing not nearly as many as I have been spoiled with previously the camera problem is obviously the reason. I suppose Forerunner can have a couple hours to work =p. While I have been not looking at this thread have been doing some research on Aquaponics / Vermaponics. This site Http://bioponica.org/ has some interesting information as well as tons of things I found on Youtube. Seems to me it might benefit from compost also. Thoughts? Oh and just for historical context on it try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinampa

My thought is the gov is paying rual famers not to farm their land via CRP. Now the gov is paying urban famers to farm??????????

Either way, once the government pays....they have a 51% say, at the very least.

Now if we were to remove the enticing tax-funded "incentives" and concentrate on the production methods and capabilities of those in the articles, well......


:)

LoL yeah no tax incentives for me just looking at the methods of production I don't want Big Brother in my back yard.

I'm new here, and wanted to thank Forerunner and everyone else for your wisdom, questions, answers, pictures & pontifications!!
Just on this thread alone I had to jump to the last page to make this comment... now I'll go back and finish getting caught up on the previous 60+ pages... as well as all the other great threads on this site!
Thanks again!!!

Extreme composting failure

My neighbor who repairs my backhoe wanted to borrow it over Christmas while I was out of town. I have no prob with that at all. But I asked him to dig a pit to bury a pile of garbage (mostly junk found on the farm and neighboring national forest since I bought the place in 2011) and to make sure it was all at least 3 feet below the surface. What was I thinking?

He spotted a compost pile that had been sitting for over a year. It was about 40 ft in diameter and still over 6 ft high after sitting that long. It was made from about a quarter acre's worth of land clearing chips, contained many days morning communings, and had more than a dozen dead critters in it to at least move it towards a reasonable C:N ratio. When I looked into the pile a month or so ago, it was thick with wonderful mycelium because I had been throwing shrooms into it all year.

When I got back he told me had had seen my "trash pile" and buried it like I asked. He said it was good to get rid of it because it was just turning into dirt. I so want to :bash: him. And he didn't even touch the pile that really is the garbage.

I was planning on using that compost where I'm putting in fruit trees this year. :smack

Can't you dig it back up? That must have been one big hole he dug!!

Er well ya got er turned fer free.:sob::happy: So jus dig er up and put it where ya wants when time comes.

Oh NOOOOOOOO :sob: How did you keep from :hammer:

I suppose I could dig it up, but there is only so much time in the day. My highest priority is get a horse pasture cleared (almost done), burned (doing), disced (doing), and seeded prior to month's end. If I don't get that pasture ready for the DW's horse, I can forget about her moving herself and her true love down from Virginia this fall. I'm getting lonely!

And it was a huge hole because he also buried about 20 - 30 cords of cut logs that were too big to go through my chipper and probably 50 pine and oak stumps. I guess I'm in the hugelculture businesses, unfortunately he went too deep for optimum hugelculture. That is where i was planning on putting in strawberries, grapes, and blackberries.

CesumP, I am so beyond speechless. :smack:

That might woulda sent me over the edge.






On a positive note, welcome aboard, Gssmms. Me an' the Boys are honored to be graced with yer first post. :)

Don 't mind CesumP. He's always got some elaborate sob story or another unfolding as we speak. I spend a few minutes crying for him, most nights, just before I fall asleep.

Cesum, I second the motion that you dig it up. The mixing with the native soil and such can't hurt, and the stuff is as valuable as gold..... to us, ummm....weird Extremists and stuff.



















:sob:

On the non fail side of the composting equation, I did pick up an otter and armadillo a couple of days ago. First time I've ever held an otter. Their tails are so thick and muscular, nothing like a dogs tail. It was a big male, 30 - 40 lbs. They are one of my fave animals to watch, sad to see him dead in the road but I have new compost piles to feed.

An otter.

Now that's cool.

I've smelled armadillo in hot Arkansas summer......
I dare say, Arkansas smells like dead armadillo in the summertime, IME.
It's getting hotter hear, all the time, but the armadillo have yet to invade this Illinois latitude.

I've gathered a few beaver, fox, coyote......even a badger, but yet to pick up an otter.

Ok, I am ready to DO THIS!

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m...3/100_5769.jpg

This is my garden space.
I am going to add 2 boxes to the top 2 rows and 1 box in the last row this year.

I want to start composting. I have checked out a zillion books at the library and get buried in the details.

I really, don't know where to start, but I know that I NEED to start.
help.....please.

Welcome to the fold, Laura. It's about high time. :)

If nothing else, start with a small pile of sawdust, and commune with it, when no one is looking. After that initiation, the Force will come, and guide you through the rest.

....Or, just start at the beginning of this thread (pour a big cup of coffee, good and hot, if you're into that sort of thing) and hold on for the Extreme Compostingest ride of your life ! :eek:

Laura - Pile. Things. Up. Or... Bury. Stuff. (where you want to start your new beds) :) Just do it!

It's sort of like making your own bread - it may seem difficult but once you get started you learn as you go.

Read this thread and it will inspire you about more than composting, too.

When I first started, I made a goal to get a pickup-sized pile going in my yard and we did it! Then we got used to doing that over and over again. Then we got worms, yay!!

I can't remember exactly where you are so maybe your ground is frozen but do what FR says and maybe you can add your kitchen scraps? We've used everything from grass clippings to cardboard to shredded paper to pony poo and goat poo. Potty training toddlers can be taught to dump their little pee pot in the pile, too - that works great in the Summer (hope my DD does not read this). You WILL figure it out.

Go forth and pile and bury and make dirt and have worms.:banana:

:peep: I'm pretty sure Mr Poopman would tell you to teach the toddlers to "commune" with the pile themselves and save a trip to the pile to dump the potty.Ewwwww:yuck:

BTW, nice looking garden space Laura :-)

Just cuz. :)

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/cou...ml#post4227186

....And fer the newbies.

.....And, CesumPec needed to see some finished compost, just so's he don't forget what it looks like.

I understand he likes to spread stuff that's still on fire. :shrug:

Mow and pile up that grass. A few leaves from thos trees would be nice. Bet there are some brown ones on the ground bout this time of year. Mix em up a little or layer them. A little water once in a while wouldn't hurt either. Let the pile do its thing.

Relax, Laura. Yes, there are ways to speed up the process and balance your carbon/nitrogen ratios and ensure even "cooking," etc., but ultimately, know this: COMPOST HAPPENS. :bouncy:

Hey, at least it's outside! If their Mom caught wind of communing without the potty, well... I work within the system, bwa ha ha ha

Went to the local farm equipment auction today. Because I live in envy of FR, I...MUST...HAVE...MORE...CHIPS.

My 1978 Asplundh 6 inch chipper was slowing me down on land clearing and it had gotten so that I was burning more than chipping just to speed the process. Saw one of these at the auction

http://www.banditchippers.com/index....Id=2&modelId=3

Did my home work, found them online to have sold recently for WAY more than my budget would allow, so I didn't have any confidence I would make the purchase. But it ended up going for somewhere near 25 - 33% of the expected market value. Wooo Wooo, now I have a 12" chipper. There was only one other bidder and he too wasn't all that interested unless it was a steal. So I stole it.

Another advantage of the Bandit is that it has all the latest safety features and hydraulic feeders. The Asplundh is a chuck and duck style with no safety, so if you trip, you die.

Time to sell the little chipper and make lots and lots of chips. And then make the move up from otters, coons, and possums to composting horses and cattle. :happy2:

Awesome! We need pics post haste!

Post haste ! :grin:

Hastely post it!

Forerunner, I am new to this forum and finished the first four pages (120 of the 2000 posts) of this thread. Mighty impressive. I look forward to reading more as I have time. I've learned a lot; thanks (to everyone) for sharing your story.