One Person, Garden Compost

catjac1975

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I use leaves then cut grass then a thin layer of dirt and whatever comes out of the kitchen. I have a push mower with a bagger so if I need green I cut it if I need brown I use leaves from the pile I have. I have a black bin that I have had for years where I clean out the bottom about 4 times a summer about 2 5 gal buckets each time, could probably get 3 if I dug hard enough then punch the rest down and start over again. When I start digging the bugs go nuts and once when I started a snake came out the side where the air vents are then I went nuts, I hate snakes.
Grass clipping are my most important waste material. I use them heavily on the most difficult to weed vegetable crops like carrots, onions, and the broccoli family. Then of course it just decomposes over the summer.
 

flowerbug

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we've used a mulching mower the entire time here (25 years now). any parts that are being mowed (not much left of lawn here) have some of the nicest topsoil. my goal would be eventually to turn all of this into gardens, but i'm not the current owner so i can only suggest things to the management and she ignores me. :)
 

Jane23

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I was watching a travel show that emphasizes restaurants and cooking with local ingredients. The host visited an organic farm. I don't believe that they said how large it was but there was was an aerial view and it looked to me that it was about 5 acres.

The farmer said that they brought in between $50,000 and $70,000 worth of compost each year to fertilize the soil :oops: !!! Good Goobly Goop! Well, maybe they could afford that ...

Home Gardening. It would likely take some additional soil amendments in the first year or so. How many square feet of garden could one person keep fertile simply with his or her kitchen scraps?

I imagine that this two person household consumes more fruit and vegetables than the average American couple. I don't collect lawn clippings for the compost but some tree leaves and ornamentals from the yard are composted. I applied my compost to the front lawn once, about 20 years ago and thought "what am I doing? This stuff is much too valuable to use on grass!" Ornamental beds receive conventional fertilizer.

Because of the climate, gardening here is fairly short-term/limited production meaning that not a lot of nutrients are pulled out of the soil through each year. Frozen in place ...

My 3, 5-gallon buckets of kitchen scraps are also frozen in place. Soon, there will be 4 buckets! It's unfortunate in that way that my "stealth compost pits" aren't larger but I've also used the three garden beds, an 18' by 20' garden, for both compost placement and kitchen scraps. My approach is to try to limit that to every two years but I actually do a little better because there is "excess" compost. Imagine me making that claim! How is there excess compost ever? Well, darned if I'm putting it on the lawn grass and I sure ain't gonna haul it out to the distant garden more than a dozen miles away. It's for the fertility of those 360 square feet.

Two people and 360 square feet ???? Subtract the frost-killed flowers and tree leaves - what is that? Easily 1 person's kitchen scraps/100 square feet?

Steve
One of my neighbors is planning on bringing in a truck of manure next year as that is what they used on her old farm and she knows it works. I kind of wanted to say, "hey, I live next 600 acres of BLM land that has cattle on it all the time. I will jump the fence and bring you a couple of bags of manure for free".
 

catjac1975

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One of my neighbors is planning on bringing in a truck of manure next year as that is what they used on her old farm and she knows it works. I kind of wanted to say, "hey, I live next 600 acres of BLM land that has cattle on it all the time. I will jump the fence and bring you a couple of bags of manure for free".
If you are going to run a for profit farm you have to invest. I do not know the answer to how much makes what with compost for your personal garden. If you have room to collect leaves they break down into very rich soil. I have landscapers deliver their leaves and then use them as mulch on my flower beds, and leave them to compost for my vegetable garden. Farmers are always looking for place to dump their manure, but you need the room to do this. A giant pile shrinks down to a nice little hill of compost.
 

Jane23

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If you are going to run a for profit farm you have to invest. I do not know the answer to how much makes what with compost for your personal garden. If you have room to collect leaves they break down into very rich soil. I have landscapers deliver their leaves and then use them as mulch on my flower beds, and leave them to compost for my vegetable garden. Farmers are always looking for place to dump their manure, but you need the room to do this. A giant pile shrinks down to a nice little hill of compost.
She already ran a farm. This is her retirement garden. So far, it is not that big, so a couple of bags would do it.
 

digitS'

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@digitS' , you started this thread end of last year. How much kitchen leftover compost has made it into Your garden in the past year?
That would be difficult for me to know, Ducks'. The "finished" compost in 2022 is from 2021. Additionally, I have been limited by what space the stealth compost provides and had space in the backyard garden to bury kitchen trimmings.

Dug-out & Buried must amount to about 80 sqft, so far this year. There are yet no frost-killed, 2022 garden plants to bury.

The 2021 compost has gone into pots. Three of the pots were for backyard tomatoes and are just over 5 gallons - that was 100% compost. A 50% compost went into about a dozen pots that are about 3 gallons each. There are more but smaller pots. So, might it be about 30+ gallons of 2021 compost?

Keep in mind that under favorable conditions and given several more years, it would ALL amount to about a shovel full of dust!

Steve
 

ducks4you

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Funny, it took 3 subfreezing nights to do in my sweet peppers. They had been stripped of fruit, but yesterday morning they looked like they could make more if it was warm enough.
Tomato plants? Goners. They have surrendered.
These cold temperatures are our normal winter highs and lows, just cold enough to freeze at night, just high enough to melt and make mud during the day.
 

Jane23

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Funny, it took 3 subfreezing nights to do in my sweet peppers. They had been stripped of fruit, but yesterday morning they looked like they could make more if it was warm enough.
Tomato plants? Goners. They have surrendered.
These cold temperatures are our normal winter highs and lows, just cold enough to freeze at night, just high enough to melt and make mud during the day.
I also discovered some mildew on some of my snap peas. Time for everything to come up. Maybe I will plant kale here next year as it’s in shade part of the day during the spring/fall.
 

ninnymary

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I have been composting for years now. I have 2 bins, one that is "cooking" while the other is being filled. I've studied about the 50/50 greens and browns and even took a composting class! Needless to say my compost is always cold and the leaves never really break down all the way the way they are supposed to. There are worms in it and I do add my chicken poop daily from 4 hens.

Every fall I gather about 4 bags of leaves to add one bag a quarter to the bin. In the past I've added leaves to my garden beds but they get blown away by the wind and if it rains they get really matted down. I don't have a chipper or lawn mower to mulch them down.

I have started thinking about getting rid of my 2 bins. It would free up some much needed space and things would also look neater by the side of the house where they are. I figured I could add all my compost stuff to the city"s green compost bin. Our local non profit nursery is also now offering free compost via the city so I could always get some from there. Even if the program doesn't last long I wouldn't mind getting 1/4 yard of compost once a year from a local place.

Mary
 

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