Still wondering: Where It All Goes!

[digitS']

I know. I've said it on TEG before.

Decomposition just amazes me! Gardeners who say that they have "lots of compost" seem likely to me to gardeners who have lots of unfinished compost. That's okay. It could still be really good stuff but here's my composting:

I have refilled the potato bed after digging all the spuds (reds did much better than Yukon again this year). I have refilled my pits under the deck in front of the greenhouse & chicken coop. (Maybe one day I won't be able to lift those things out of the way but until then - they are good places to have stealth composting .)

So, I'm back to my garden compost pit:

That is five, 5 gallon buckets of plant wastes - about what was "average" for the weeks before I got to digging out & refilling the potato bed. I have taken NOTHING out of this 4' by 10' pit this year! It was "full" in the fall of last year. I arrived this spring to a depression :/.

I went thru this thing 3 TIMES with about this much material each week. Dig out about 3 or 4 feet at a time to the depth of about 8" and pile in the trash. Three times I completely refilled the pit by the time the 1st of August rolled around and I stopped and moved on to another composting location. If you look closely, you can see the depression. The level of the compost/soil is lower than the surrounding soil between where I have dug it out and piled it up. What in Heaven's Name does it take to fill it?!

I must have put in about 35 buckets of compostables this spring alone . . . . . . !

Steve

 

[canesisters]

It really is amazing istn' it. My #2 pile was about 4' high with grass clippings just a couple of weeks ago. Now it's about 2'. Time to add a few loads of manure and mow the yard again.

I love composting. It 'feels' like I'm growing something... and it's SUPPOSED to have bugs and it's SUPPOSED to look dead.

 

[digitS']

Cane',

I bet you can get a foot of material down to a fraction of an inch with complete decomposition.

I mean, a fraction . . . like 1/10th, or something like that! I know that the earthworms might carry some of the material away into the surrounding soil but that can't be significant. I don't really like to be covering it with old compost, soil would conserve more of the nutrients, but some must be lost to the air - darn it. That methane & ammonia gas could be better used.

Composting is something like making beer. We have to pay attention to microorganisms. I'm often left wondering where the beer goes, too :/.

Steve

 

[MontyJ]

I know what you mean Steve. I once had 20 yards of horse manure/bedding delivered and mixed it with all the grass clippings that 3 lawn maintenance companies could bury me with. When all was said and done, I ended up with less than 4 yards of finished compost.

 

[digitS']

I'll say that you did right by that compost, MontyJ!

That is a fine reduction of compostables to compost. It was gold, there's no doubt about it.

I've gotta go dig more compostables into my compost this morning. Good thing we've had so many days in the 90's since I started thru it this month. Worries me tho'. I think I'd better skim the old compost off to serve as a covering because, I'm afraid there might be slime under it .

Steve

 

[digitS']

One shovel-full down - No slime.

There is some gravel from the addition of what I laughing call my garden "soil." Digging deeper, I came across some sticks, what remains of branches from the very first time something was added after winter had caught the last bus outta town. Bits of this and that . . . a produce sticker or 2, a piece of weed whacker line .

No, it is pretty good stuff and kind of shows what a rapid rate of decay goes on since I have added buckets of compostables 4 times in 2013 and the last time, just 9 days ago!!!

In contrast, I can take a green plant. Let's say the leaves of a cabbage plant harvested in late October. I can bury the root and remaining leaves in this compost and come back in March and those cabbage leaves will still have their green color! This is where I buried that mess of plant material 9 days ago and what you now see is a reflection that there have been 7 September days with temperatures above 85. Add, one more - since it is now 91. Also, this is some very biologically-active compost!

Active but it isn't steaming hot. It isn't even piled up since when I got there this morning, the surface material was just about the level of the soil around it and - it is just 8" into the ground.

I don't know whether to encourage people to compost like this or not. Your soil has to drain well or you'd be making sauerkraut rather than compost. My soil drains like mad and I just do this too keep the compostables from drying out in our arid climate. The sprinkler covers this area but it doesn't get any more water than the garden.

Steve

 

[bobm]

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust". Remember ?

 

[AMKuska]

I think my compost must be improperly done because I have a big huge heap that never seems to dwindle in size.

 

[canesisters]

Mine hasn't done much this year either - but I haven't been 'tending' it like I did then either.
Last year Marshall told me to get a-hold of some fresh manure. Then dig down to the bottom of my pile and dump the manure in. Then cover it up and wait. I tell ya, that thing was steaming within a couple of days and within a week or two I noticed it had suddenly 'dropped' about a foot one night.
Yeah Marshall!

 

[AMKuska]

Any sort of manure, or a specific kind? I can probably get horse apples from the stable down the road, and there is certainly no shortage of fresh chicken poo in my coop!