Compost pile or barrel?

Becoming too wet is the most common complaint and yet it proves that tumblers are better than piles. It's from moisture which would otherwise escape into the atmosphere as gas or into the ground as whole liquid. Melt an ice cube on a sidewalk and it vanishes. Melt it in a jar and every drop of it remains in the jar.

There are forums just for soil and compost. They are the ones where one can learn all the pros and cons of every aspect involved in obtaining the maximum benefits from recycling organic matter.

Martin

I don't even build a pile anymore. I just spread vegetable material around the garden. I live in Georgia where it is extremely hot. When I built a pile in the past, it would get smaller, smaller, and then would disapper. The bacteria, sowbugs, earwigs, crickets, and other small critterss would literally eat all of it up. I did not end up with any compost.

Do you know any private party making compost for them selves having anything close to this. I thought we were talking 55 gal drum at the largest.

It's humor.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

55 gallon is the standard for home made compost tumblers since that's the most readily available. I recall a person on one of the soil forums who made one over a thousand gallons which had to have a motor to turn. (I think that it was also featured in Mother Earth News but not certain.) Biggest one for home use is 164 gallon. That's big enough to produce a proper heat cycle if enough material is available. The 164 gallon is just the drum size but closer to 450 gallons of material can be fed into it over the course of several months as it breaks down. Still ends up with about 125 gallons of dense material when finished and condensed.

Started the latest batch with about 150 gallons of material on 23 Nov and planned to leave it dry for the winter. Five days later, on the 28th, there was warmth probably mostly from moisture in the deer head, trimmings, bones, culled pigeons, and several weeks accumulation of kitchen scraps. 10-day forecast looked good so added 3 or 4 gallons of water and it was 140º barely 24 hours later. Since then, have added at least another 150 gallons of finely-shredded white oak leaves and it's still steaming. Gets 2 turns every day to aerate it.

Martin

Here's several previous HT threads which show that a tumbler works for some but others apparently have problems for some unknown reasons.

www.homesteadingtoday.com/country-living-forums/gardening-plant-propagation/452482-any-review-composters.html

www.homesteadingtoday.com/general-homesteading-forums/homesteading-questions/404478-does-anyone-use-compostumbler.html

Martin

I like piles because I can flip and access them with the tractor bucket. Barrels are too much work. Mine vary from about 8'x8'x4' to 80'x8'x8'. Compost is valuable stuff. We're gradually adding nutrients to our poor mountain soil, improving year after year.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Tried to find the article about the guy who made the big one out of expanded metal but no go. I know that it's also somewhere in the Garden Web archives in the soil forum.

A guy on our sponsor's forum made one with two 55-gallon barrels mounted together horizontally and with a section of gutter to divert the leachate into a bucket so that it's not lost.

I don't expect everyone to learn how to use a tumbler but they do work for a lot of people. I also don't expect everyone to learn how to fly a plane but every day they pass over the house so it must work for somebody.

Martin

I suspect the tumbler technique is too nit-picky for those of us who aren't into that style of project. Most of us do better flinging things on a pile and waiting a year or so. This is why I have four piles in rotation.

Hubby built me a tumbler years ago. Tried it ONCE. I suspect if I'd had more dry leaves, the results would have been better. Soggy mess inside with really impressive fly larvae.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

i have done all 3, a compost tumbler, several types of piles and sheet composting but I find that sheet composting is by far a much more suitable way to compost.

in a barrel or tumbler..it just doesn't work very well, piles lose so much in the ground underneath the pile..but sheet composting loses NOTHING

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

If there are fly larvae in the compost, that's a good thing. We should have them up here but I've never seen them yet. They are soldier fies and are just one more "good guy" among everything which breaks down material high in vegetable content. One can even buy them for composting. If anyone has them, keep them happy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetia_illucens

Martin

If it were properly heating up, would there be fly larvae?

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

A heat cycle only lasts as long as there is enough volume and nitrogen available. One can keep adding a quart of kitchen scraps to a pile every day of the year and never once have anything higher than the ambient temperature. Heat cycles are only possible in batch composting and my tumbler will reach as high as 160ºF and maintain that for about 2 weeks after which it drops off very quickly. That's why the big Compostumbler is advertised as producing compost in 14 days. After that, it's done and will never go through another heat cycle no matter how many times it is turned. Addition of a large amount of nitrogen will somewhat warm it but the composition of the carbon material will have changed and it will not heat up.

Soldier flies are an indication of excess vegetable matter, a common thing during summer months when carbon material is not available to the average gardener. Since only the center of a large pile would be too hot for them, and even then last a short time, the larvae would simply move away from the heat. Remember that many people are quick to welcome worms into their compost pile. Same applies to worms as with soldier fly larvae. When I used to make compost piles nearly 10' at the base, there would be nightcrawlers several feet above ground level around it while there was steam coming out of the peak.

If one doesn't want to do any more than merely walk to the compost area once a week, the simple Earth Machine will work just great. Lift the lid, drop the material in, and put the lid back on. Just like feeding worms except that it's bacteria which is being fed. Eventually finished compost comes out of the bottom with no other effort by the gardener. Like a tumbler, no rain can wash the soluble nutrients out. That would work well here if I did not have a pickup and unlimited access to material. Otherwise, yesterday would have only been 2 teabags, coffee grounds, and trimmings from one onion. Not certain what is planned for supper but nothing in the compost bowl yet as canned and frozen vegetables don't generate any waste at this time of year. And if there were anything edible and atop a pile or on the ground, the crows would eat it. Nearly all of my neighbors have an Earth Machine mainly because they've watched me over the years. If even one of those is too much effort, then I don't have the answer.

Martin

On the surface since the temperature is lower there - just right for the maggots. Our chickens patrol the compost piles so we don't see much in the way of flies.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Having dumped the fall batch early, winter batch was allowed to have enough liquid to go through one heat cycle but it was too cold in December to complete the process. Lots of good stuff was in it including a deer head, feet, scapulas, busted ribs, and other trimmings. There were also some cull pigeons in that short heat cycle. Most of that cooked in the week where the temp was around 120º. Then it froze with about 120 gallons in it without having reached its full temperature potential.

For 3 months, all kitchen scraps went in as well as a few rabbits, squirrels, sparrows, mice, etc. until it was up to at least 150 gallons. Four days ago, and despite continued cold weather, everything was somewhat thawed and broke up quite well when turned. After 4 or 5 turns to mix in the winter's accumulation, the temperature was about 75º the following day. Saturday, material had shrunk to allow about 30 gallons of shredded oak leaves to both supply carbon plus absorb some of the excess moisture. There was still room for more material and 15 gallons of pigeon loft floor droppings was added and mixed in. That again brought the total contents to 150+ gallons and the core temperature on Sunday was 160º. There should be more than enough nitrogen to maintain close to that for at least another 10 days.

Presently it smells like a rather strong stew in a slow cooker. There was a lot of frozen garlic that went in it plus lots of vegetable trimmings and the various meats. One time yesterday there was something solid which ended up on the surface and I poked it around a bit to figure it out. It was the deer head but ears, snout, skin, and neck meat were all gone. After the next heat cycle is done, the skull plates will have separated and vanished. Only the lower jaws will remain somewhat intact.

When dumped in about 3 weeks, it will be about 150 gallons of very rich compost and ready for use. Spring and summer batches are mixed 50/50 with soil for hole mix for tomatoes but the winter batch is 25/75. With one extra batch in 2012, there's roughly 600 gallons presently stockpiled without including the present batch. There will be 750 gallons available when planting begins in about 6 weeks.

Already planning the spring batch. Plenty of shredded oak leaves bagged since last October, 50# feed sack with loft cleaning and more to come, and maybe 30 gallons of finely-shredded white pine boughs. That will be just the base. Lots of other good stuff that might be added as it becomes available.

Martin

We have the soldier fly larvae in our tumbler composter and two trash cans with holes drilled in them. Sometimes there are so many it is creepy. At times they cover the whole lid (inside of the lid) and come out the holes and I was wondering if that is when it is too hot or maybe too wet. Apparently they don't hang around when they turn into flies because we have never seen any around.

I would like an open compost pile but I have one dog that will eat ANYTHING. They both are crazy about cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli and reg. taters so I think they would make themselves sick if I didn't Chihuahua-proof it. Hubby took some chicken bones/scraps away far away from the house AND dumped them in the creek and the super-eater found them and was even brave enough to wade the creek to get any that were still around that the wild animals hadn't eaten.

Electric fence. Low enough to stop the chihuahua, and you can step over it.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Put those chicken bones in the tumbler. Other than the leg bones, the rest of the carcass will vanish in one heat cycle. The Columbia County website used to mention that roadkill deer were gone in 5 days until they got a lot of unfavorable feedback. The meat increases the nitrogen content and the bones jack up the phosphorus.

Martin

I started composting with a barrel composter, I guess a year or so ago, so I'm a super newb. I researched a little and got started with putting in the kitchen scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds, grass clippings, leaves and small twigs, and when winter came, I added some ash from the wood boiler. I had to add some water, and spin it sometimes, but mostly I just left it alone. I read that when it smells like dirt, its done. It smells like great dirt now. I guess it would have went much faster had I tended to it better, but my point is, that I just threw stuff in there and paid it minimal attention, and it turned into dirt.

I didn't know I could put any meat or bones in there. I love this forum!

If bones didn't compost, the entire planet would be covered with them. Composting them as we do is not natural but reduces the recycle period from potential months or years to just days or weeks. The only thing that we find from the pigeons are their plastic or aluminum leg bands. And the use of whole fish as fertilizer is quite well known.

Update on present batch is core temperature holding at 160º this morning with air temperature of 29º. Little shrinkage as any high-moisture kitchen scraps have broken down and now combining with the dry shredded leaves. Still has a strong garlic aroma which is countering any ammonia smell from the pigeon manure. Looking good!

Martin