One Alaskans greenhouse

Alasgun

Deeply Rooted
Joined
Jan 11, 2021
Messages
1,032
Reaction score
4,319
Points
195
Location
S. Central Alaska
I read about that pile, sounds like a whopper! Starting with so many “brown inputs” will be challenging but doable. Keeping this as brief as possible, here’s how id tackle it.
How old are you, can you turn the entire pile yourself? If not get some help or break it into two piles and do one at a time. A 5 tine fork is all my 70 yr old self can handle these days, 4 tine’s have too much space and a lot of effort is wasted, manure forks are simply too heavy. Long handles are easier than short.
make two batches of the LBS. a couple weeks apart.
when you make it use twice as much rice to get a stronger wash solution, this pays off in shortening the time some. I started a batch a couple days ago for my compost too. when making it to use as a foliar spray you need to sift out the thick stuff so it will go thru the sprayer, when making it for compost it doesn’t matter, use the entire batch, cheese and all. Once your sure it’s done, dump the contents into a 5 gallon bucket, fill the remainder with water, grab your fork and get ready to get tired!

keeping the pile as compact as possible (taller is better than wider) start by forking a base roughly 4x4ft and a ft thick. Ladle lacto onto this base. Think lasagna, now add another layer and lacto. Make the lacto last thru the whole pile. After every 2-3 layers give it a good wetting with a garden hose, not to where it’s running all over the ground but pretty wet.

Come back in a week or 2 and repeat however, now’s the time to add some green inputs. For me this is bagged grass clippings. They are the only thing most people have enough of to make some heat in that pile, heat is your friend (to a point). I use a thermometer and only turn the pile when it cools to the inactive range. If it’s in the active range, i leave it alone.
turning doe’s a couple things by adding O-2 and keeping the mix active.
@AMKuska is using a drum composter, i believe; and i can see where a whole batch of lacto in one drum would work wonders, your dealing with a pickup bed full so be realistic. It will take just a bit to enliven this pile but it will work if you put a little effort into it.
Here in Alaska i can almost complete a batch in the same year, this year im hoping rabbit manure will push me into that range. Currently i use the technique described above thru out the year, and thru the fall continue adding all kitchen waste till spring then i have greens again.
this batch im making will be applied when the.pile is turned for it’s last time then left to set till fall. It will be done and go to the garden at that time. In the mean time pile # 2 is being generated thruout the year and go on the following year, yes it’s a lot of work but i value the compost and am willing to keep it going.
here’s a picture of my two compost bins, a fall picture with one full and one empty bin. Keep it perpetual and add lacto anytime you like, for me a big batch in the spring simply helps kick things off by adding a strong dose of microbes.
p.s, in the fall when i fork it into the cart headed to the garden it will be loaded with earth worms each year and i clean the bin right down to the ground when i empty them.
the poly drum is where i breakdown salmon carcasses (with lacto).
i hope this all works for you, it wasn’t covered in great detail here but im sure you get the idea.
 

Attachments

  • CF02EA63-0084-4D3C-97DD-0411F316639A.jpeg
    CF02EA63-0084-4D3C-97DD-0411F316639A.jpeg
    244.2 KB · Views: 115
  • D7BC6B0A-445E-433C-A14F-A675DBF8195D.jpeg
    D7BC6B0A-445E-433C-A14F-A675DBF8195D.jpeg
    357.6 KB · Views: 126

heirloomgal

Garden Addicted
Joined
Jan 17, 2021
Messages
3,609
Reaction score
11,606
Points
235
Location
Northern Ontario, Canada
I read about that pile, sounds like a whopper! Starting with so many “brown inputs” will be challenging but doable. Keeping this as brief as possible, here’s how id tackle it.
How old are you, can you turn the entire pile yourself? If not get some help or break it into two piles and do one at a time. A 5 tine fork is all my 70 yr old self can handle these days, 4 tine’s have too much space and a lot of effort is wasted, manure forks are simply too heavy. Long handles are easier than short.
make two batches of the LBS. a couple weeks apart.
when you make it use twice as much rice to get a stronger wash solution, this pays off in shortening the time some. I started a batch a couple days ago for my compost too. when making it to use as a foliar spray you need to sift out the thick stuff so it will go thru the sprayer, when making it for compost it doesn’t matter, use the entire batch, cheese and all. Once your sure it’s done, dump the contents into a 5 gallon bucket, fill the remainder with water, grab your fork and get ready to get tired!

keeping the pile as compact as possible (taller is better than wider) start by forking a base roughly 4x4ft and a ft thick. Ladle lacto onto this base. Think lasagna, now add another layer and lacto. Make the lacto last thru the whole pile. After every 2-3 layers give it a good wetting with a garden hose, not to where it’s running all over the ground but pretty wet.

Come back in a week or 2 and repeat however, now’s the time to add some green inputs. For me this is bagged grass clippings. They are the only thing most people have enough of to make some heat in that pile, heat is your friend (to a point). I use a thermometer and only turn the pile when it cools to the inactive range. If it’s in the active range, i leave it alone.
turning doe’s a couple things by adding O-2 and keeping the mix active.
@AMKuska is using a drum composter, i believe; and i can see where a whole batch of lacto in one drum would work wonders, your dealing with a pickup bed full so be realistic. It will take just a bit to enliven this pile but it will work if you put a little effort into it.
Here in Alaska i can almost complete a batch in the same year, this year im hoping rabbit manure will push me into that range. Currently i use the technique described above thru out the year, and thru the fall continue adding all kitchen waste till spring then i have greens again.
this batch im making will be applied when the.pile is turned for it’s last time then left to set till fall. It will be done and go to the garden at that time. In the mean time pile # 2 is being generated thruout the year and go on the following year, yes it’s a lot of work but i value the compost and am willing to keep it going.
here’s a picture of my two compost bins, a fall picture with one full and one empty bin. Keep it perpetual and add lacto anytime you like, for me a big batch in the spring simply helps kick things off by adding a strong dose of microbes.
p.s, in the fall when i fork it into the cart headed to the garden it will be loaded with earth worms each year and i clean the bin right down to the ground when i empty them.
the poly drum is where i breakdown salmon carcasses (with lacto).
i hope this all works for you, it wasn’t covered in great detail here but im sure you get the idea.
Thank you @Alasgun !! I really appreciate your detailed response. I've never done anything like this before, so all the angles help. I would have strained the cheese out, so that saves me a bit right there. Here's my pile, at the farthest edge of my yard -

20210418_152058_resized.jpg


It's going to be a haul to fork this stuff up; every time I've tried I wind up standing on part of my pitchfork full, because of the longer twiggy material. The tree was quite in front of the pile when it began, but when you get ten year olds dumping the wheelbarrow, and they can't make it up the pile, well, this is kind of what happens....
 

Ridgerunner

Garden Master
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
8,227
Reaction score
10,049
Points
397
Location
Southeast Louisiana Zone 9A
@heirloomgal I'll use this garlic photo this time, I usually use a sweet potato photo. It shows some frames I made with 1/2" hardware cloth and 2x4's. I rip about 1" off the 2x4 and use that strip to hold the hardware cloth on. I use these to cure my onions, garlic, white potatoes, and sweet potatoes. But I also set it on my wheelbarrow and use it to strain my compost. Looking at that photo it might work for you.

Wood takes a long time to break down but I wind up with some wood in my compost pile as hard as I try to keep it out, a good reason to not put it under a tree. And I get other stuff that hasn't broken down enough. I strain it through this and store it in chicken feed sacks. Anything that goes through is compost, anything that doesn't gets tossed back on the compost pile. I use leather gloves to rub it down. That saves injury and pain. A 10 year old kid may come in handy to shovel or rub it through.

Garlic.JPG


And for fun a shot of my compost piles. The back compartment is my working pile, actively making compost. The front one is where I put stuff that will eventually go into the working pile. If I had to do it again I'd make three compartments. One to collect stuff to compost and two others so I could move it from one to the other when turning. It is a pain to turn this with only one compartment to use.

Compost.JPG
 

Alasgun

Deeply Rooted
Joined
Jan 11, 2021
Messages
1,032
Reaction score
4,319
Points
195
Location
S. Central Alaska
I agree that screening would be a good starting point, you’ll be surprised how much that pile would be reduced. Then start the compost process. It’s not as bad as i had first imagined.
 

heirloomgal

Garden Addicted
Joined
Jan 17, 2021
Messages
3,609
Reaction score
11,606
Points
235
Location
Northern Ontario, Canada
Thank you so much for the pictures and guidance, for the first time, ever I think, I've got a bit of hope that I might be able to turn this pile into something usable. I can see now what a huge mistake it was to include so much tough, woody material. This will be a bigger project to undertake this summer, if I'm going to rework this pile and set myself up correctly. At the end of the year I have so much garden plants ( I used to throw over 100 tomato plants per year on the pile, which are big plants, plus everything else) to compost, I have no idea how I'll fit it all into a proper home compost set up...
 

Alasgun

Deeply Rooted
Joined
Jan 11, 2021
Messages
1,032
Reaction score
4,319
Points
195
Location
S. Central Alaska
After looking this over a bit im of the opinion a chipper shredder might do a better job to clean up this pile, then start fresh composting the new stuff as it comes along?
 

CDitzel

Chillin' In The Garden
Joined
Apr 15, 2021
Messages
14
Reaction score
34
Points
43
Due to our short season and the challenges that presents, a greenhouse is essential if you want to reliably grow some things up here.
we grow tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, bush beans, celery, parsley and summer squash in ours.
initially there were shelves around the sides and we placed smartpots on those shelves.
Well, pretty soon you’ve got everything jamming into the ceiling, making things difficult.
Last winter i upgraded by building the beds shown here. It accomplished a couple things beyond lowering the plants and now the irrigation is more user friendly, the crops have a deeper bed for a better root zone and it’s easier to maintain than with the bags. In the fall all the bags were dumped into brute containers and re-amended for the following year then the bags refilled each spring. Now i just apply the compost in the fall and walk away from it!

just some odd rambling here and a few pictures inside and out. In the spring it’s pretty loaded up till i move all the stuff on the sawhorses etc out to the beds. Then in short order it becomes it’s own jungle!😳
I just ordered a greenhouse similar to that. I can't wait to get it. They said beginning of May!
 

heirloomgal

Garden Addicted
Joined
Jan 17, 2021
Messages
3,609
Reaction score
11,606
Points
235
Location
Northern Ontario, Canada
After looking this over a bit im of the opinion a chipper shredder might do a better job to clean up this pile, then start fresh composting the new stuff as it comes along?
That is something to consider too @Alasgun, I think when we get a bit warmer weather I'm going to go out and see if I can actually divide that pile up. If it's embedded with really difficult material, that is the next consideration. This discussion has given me the wherewithall to finally tackle this, as I've been thinking about it for years. I don't have much 'green manure' around really, so I'm not sure how I'd make a great compost - seems you need to layer green and brown. In my yard we always seem to have so much brown, and so little green.
 

Alasgun

Deeply Rooted
Joined
Jan 11, 2021
Messages
1,032
Reaction score
4,319
Points
195
Location
S. Central Alaska
Well, it’s quiet and dark upstairs this afternoon; however, out here it’s a “collection of compromise” with everything in here at once. What stays is planted and the rest is hanging out waiting to go outside or away😳
 

Attachments

  • 5B82A52A-446E-44CA-9DF1-38A6F1A8FC9C.jpeg
    5B82A52A-446E-44CA-9DF1-38A6F1A8FC9C.jpeg
    328.3 KB · Views: 118
  • DC7DE466-2C5F-4A7F-9DB0-E8C9BAC8E74E.jpeg
    DC7DE466-2C5F-4A7F-9DB0-E8C9BAC8E74E.jpeg
    336.1 KB · Views: 117

Latest posts

Top