Extreme Composting

Welcome aboard, Kaiser.

You remind me of a cat my family had during my early teens. I don't recall, for the life of me, where I came up with it at the time, but I named him Kaiser Bill.

After playing with those little composters and stuff, you'll thoroughly enjoy going big.

__________________
“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

Forerunner,
Have you noticed any drought resistance in your soil this summer, from all your humus building activities?

Or mabey you aren't in a drought affected area.

Just curious!

By the way, I've been chewing on this thread for a while and LOVING it.

We've been doing sheet composting (kitchen scraps with carbon sprinkled over the top) and have definitely seen an improvement in our soil life. It's so cool to finally see worms in the dirt again!!

I've got some questions for you all. First, about black walnut leaves. My dad's been told not to compost with them or incorporate them in the garden, they'll kill the plants. Seems to me when I was a kid and we didn't know any better, they never hurt anything. Which is it? With our wind all the yard rakings are out if the black walnut is out.
Our piddly little attempt at compost (kitchen waste) has been scattered completely by the chickens, probably be half a foot tall if not, but I'm going to see about the fair, and there'll be some stuff from the chicken shed by and by (they don't seem to poop much at night). I just don't have anything to haul in except two wheel barrows--what's a decent cheap sort of trailer? Dad's got a vehicle that can tow.
We're on part half-decent clay stuff, part creek bottom, (future orchard/pasture); part yucky-clay-infill-with-maybe-phosphate-mine-tailings (garden and yard), part scree slopes (wildlife habitat-eh, who am I kidding, the deer eat everything), all quite alkaline, with an average rainfall of 11" a year, but have a good well and the creek's never run dry and we have water rights, so while distribution's an issue we can get water out there. I've got some slave--I mean willing child--labor (Saxon math or shovel--they'll pick shovel). I know that other than water distribution and deer, the main problem is what claims to be soil. The main garden areas had a decade of me doing 4-H rabbit project to the good, but that was 14 years ago that ended (my folks didn't want to keep rabbits when I went off to college), and a lot of the good has vanished.

as far as walnut leaves...I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that nothing produced directly by a plant can do long term damage to your compost or soil. That is assuming you run a well constructed compost pile that has good size and heat and/or sits a year before being spread on tender young plants. It all degrades and decays and the hotter you run a compost pile, the longer fungi work it, or the more worms that till it, the faster that degradation will occur. If someone knows an exception to this rule, please set me right.

That said, there is probably a way to so overly concentrate some natural plant substance by shear volume or human derived distillation that there could be a severe negative effect in the short run. So if you have some "dangerous" allelopatic plant matter like walnut, cedar, maple, oak, ash beech, sweet gum, wisteria, hosta, day lilies, or etc. etc. (are you getting the picture that there can't be that much to be afraid of when so many plants have this allelopathic trait) just make sure you are mixing in all your other normal kitchen scraps, woody materials, manure, and whatever else. Also, chopping the walnut leaves with your mower is a good way to make the decay process speed up.


As to improving your clay soil, one acre 6 - 7 inches deep is 2,000,000 (yes two million) lbs of soil. Your goal should be about 6% organic matter to get to what many experts recommend as the best, most economically viable soil. More OM might be better but it isn't so much better that you should be spending lots of time and money to improve it further. Once you have your soil tested and it comes back at say 3% OM, you know you want to add 3% more OM. And 3% of 2M = 60,000 lbs or 30 tons/acre. Wow, scary isn't it. And that amount will need to be added again every 2 to 6 years depending on how fast things decay in your area. I'm guessing because of your winters and low rain fall, your decay rate will be on the slow end of that scale.

The good news is that ANY amount of compost will be an improvement and obviously if you are doing less than an acre you can reduce that proportionately.

Well, that's good to know. The chicken leavings have to set a while--maybe I'll use the leaves for bedding in their coop this fall. They'll mix it and I'm lazy enough to let them do whatever work their scratchy little feet can do.
There's about four or five acres that really need attention. I'll be doing a little at a time as stuff becomes available. I need to find out about renting a chipper--didn't get to burning the burn pile this spring. It's mostly wood not suitable for the fireplace.

Sunbee, let me assure you, your chickens will do a great job of composting for you. We have 2 hoop houses, both 12' x 24' that I got in trades. We've fitted one with contained raised beds for growing cold season crops ala Eliot Coleman and keep the chickens in the other. In the summer, we remove the cover fabric from both and grow warm season crops. I start in the fall by digging out the not contained beds from that summer's crops and spreading the more or less finished compost on the garden proper or under fruit trees. Before cold weather, we put the covers back on. Then I throw in all the leaves, grass clippings and spoiled hay I can find until it's knee-deep. Next, I move feeders, waterers, roosts and nest boxes back in and then the chickens. Add more hay, etc., as it becomes available and occasionally scatter some scratch grain. Our chickens have gone wild for the bugs in the leave and grass clippings and do a great job of turning the mass. Once in a while, I'll empty a waterer in there when I'm giving them fresh water but it doesn't make a mess. By spring, we put the chickens back into the chicken tractor, remove the cover and plant in the not quite finished compost. Since it's chicken poop, I'm careful to plant only things to be cooked before eating. We usually end up with an average of 8" of compost over the whole floor without much work on my part.

I've had no problems with juglans or any other allelopathic substance in our compost piles either.

Child slave labor and chicken slave labor. Incidentally, chickens can do a great job of spreading compost in your garden too. I have some feathered slave labor too.

I didn't and today I found someone had abandoned all the horse barn cleanings several months ago. Do they have a big pile. It will take me a couple weeks at a couple loads a day and they have already asked me to leave a trailer for them to load. And it is less than half my usual hauling distance.

God is good.

We're definitely in the drought.
I have farmer friends within a 30 mile radius who are in a very bad way, as well as some in a slightly different direction that say they're at least going to have a sustaining crop.

I am very much seeing drought resistance in several of the patches we garden, as well as....a year ago, seeing saturation resistance in the same areas.
I have no reason to believe that the compost effort here will not see my grandkids through both extremes, as well.

Our worst gardening this year is in a couple areas planted a little later, well into the drought, and poor germination was the problem....due to my having worked that dirt dry and having it not rain for two weeks after planting. That rain was barely enough to germinate the late sweet corn.
Now I am gearing up and over-killing on water retention and massive gravity irrigation....but that is another thread, if I decide it's worth the headache.

__________________
“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

Walnut=juglone= 6 months in a hot pile=dead juglone=happy compost.

__________________
“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

Forerunner, thanks for verifying the drought resistance, as well as the saturation resistance. We've been sheet composting/ mulching and have seen similar results. I wasn't sure if the soil being bare would affect the results.

I havn't watered anything besides my seed beds and greenhouse more than once or twice this summer.

We're working on hashing out a rain catchment idea right now, and would love to see what others are doing! I'm sure there are threads regarding this, I just havn't found them yet.

Any thread pertaining to rainwater catchment is immediately scrutinized and demonized by the institutionalized................


ETA........ the following post even hurts my feelings.

__________________
“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

This Craigslist ad is enough to make me cry. I'm a bit too far from them.

FREE MANURE FREE DELIVERY,FREE,HORSE,FEED,HAY

You are not the only one. I did locate bout a 100 yards of stall cleanings within 10 miles and I have to load and pick them up to get for free. Then it is about 10 yards a month. But hey beggars can't be choosy.

I just had an idea, could you get the local hospitals etc. bring you their deceased people so you could compost them too? For a small fee you could offer this alternative burial service to the residents of your community since many cemeteries nowadays are running out of space.I realize, this might be a relatively novel concept in your area, but it sounds like that you can be very convincing and people seem to look up to you.I, for my part would love to be composted after my death but somehow my wife still has reservations against that idea.Can I contact you about that as soon as I pass away?

What is taboo today may be commonplace, soon enough.

I wouldn't mind being composted, but, I think I'd rather be buried whole, underneath a new apple tree.


Winesap or old school Jonathon, if you please.


ETA........ composting would certainly be a viable option in the event of war or pandemic disease.
Just hope that the worst of the carnage takes place within a short distance of a sawmill.

__________________
“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

Hmmmm...
Rain water catchment. We have a 40x80 pole barn next to the garden-a little bit higher than the level where things are planted- at least a 6 foot at ground level. I have often thought of putting gutters on that building and then asking my husband who will do anything that requires use of power tools to build a 8-12 foot frame and put an old milk tank (there are many in this area gone by the way from old dairy farms) on it to collect the rain water. Gravity from the tank should provide a constant drip to garden boxes and most field planted rows. Some will not as hoses would take a shallow upward trip and I don't think there would be enough umpf unless you had a pump to help it. We've been lucky this summer as we have had plentilful rain. But..food for though as the summer slows and it sounds like a really good early fall project. Wondering if anyone had thoughts about how to figure out if this might work?

If you actually have fall from ground level at the building to ground level at the garden, then you may actually be guilty of asking a silly question.



For purely warmish (above 32F) weather watering, your power-toy loving Hubster could build that tower at any comfortable level and you'd be good to go........

Just be sure to drain any above ground water holding receptacle completely....before the first hard freeze.

__________________
“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

A 40x80 structure with a metal roof would shed approximately 1,800 gallons of water per 1 inch of rain. Gutters can be fabricated from many different materials. I bought several 10 foot sections of metal ridge cap from a local company for $2.00 a piece (they were cover sheets for orders) with the intention of making gutters for my barn. I've not completed that project yet, but doing so will involve cutting out holders to attach to the ends of the rafters (a 2x4 with a V-notch to hold the metal, basically). Sewer pipe cut in half lengthwise would also work as a gutter, or one could do as the old-timers and hollow out a small log half.

A holding tank (or tanks) is important, too. In this area, I've found the least expensive and most durable catchment tank readily available is a 1,500 gallon concrete septic tank. I had 3 delivered last summer (cistern for the house I'm building) for $725 each. They do not have to be buried, just to have a good surface to sit on. I rented a core drill and drilled holes near the bottom of each one in order to plumb out a 2-inch pipe used to connect my three tanks together as one and to facilitate draining if necessary. In this area, the temperatures in the winter do not necessitate emptying tanks that are not completely buried, but WI is a different situation. (BTW, my tanks are buried into a hillside in front of the house, but my dad has 2 such tanks for a cistern that are only 1/3-1/2 buried.)

As long as the "shallow upward trip" you mention does not leave the output end of the hose above the water level in the catchment tank, there is no need for additional "umph." The siphoning action of the water in the hose will carry it over the rise with no problem. The key is to have the output end lower than the height of the water in the tank and to have the hose filled with water.

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