Building a "digester"

[labradors]

Good stuff OC and wonderful news that you have WORMS helping!!!

I bought a second Soilsaver in the spring and have left all the chicken infused compost in the old one to cook further all summer/fall/winter. It will have sat for a total of 18 months by the time I use it, so it won't be totally organic, but "cooked" at least. It has gone down a LOT and I figure I can always add any extra windfall apples to the top, and they will always decompose in time for me to use on the veggie garden next year! I won't have enough to cover the whole garden, so I will save my black gold to add to each planting hole next spring :).


Linda

[Ontario Chick]

Notice we are the only two compost aficionados here?
If somebody told me 30 years ago I would get really enthusiastic about bagel of , I would have said just shoot me now
Starting with a heaping bin, this is 24 hours later

and this is 3 month later
[attachment=0]Compst after 3 month.jpg[/attachment}
Comparing my previous results, one major mistake I have made, was not adding a thin layer of soil every foot or two, and watering the stuff as it went in.
The soil bacteria starts the heating process and I totally missed that part in the past, live and learn :)

[labradors]

Exactly! How can people get so excited about compost? Because it's the key to growing wonderful veggies (and flowers too for that matter) :).

Thanks very much for the tip about adding soil. I was always reluctant to do that and felt that it was a cop out for people who didn't know what they were doing. After all, we can make purrfectly good compost without the use of soil, or even watering, but I do see your point about inoculating the mix, and I have not done that and it is taking forever for things to break down.... Mind you, I have just add a ton of Comfrey leaves which are supposed to be a great compost accelerator :).

I have noticed that the new Soilsaver has holes in the lid to allow rain in. My old one is 20+ years old. I could always add some...…

Linda

[Ontario Chick]

Thanks very much for the tip about adding soil. I was always reluctant to do that and felt that it was a cop out for people who didn't know what they were doing. After all, we can make purrfectly good compost without the use of soil, or even watering, but I do see your point about inoculating the mix, and I have not done that and it is taking forever for things to break down....

I have noticed that the new Soilsaver has holes in the lid to allow rain in. My old one is 20+ years old. I could always add some...…

Linda

That was exactly my thinking about adding the soil, a bit like instruction for homemade ice cream starting with ..." Buy a gallon of ice cream and put some other things in it" :)
Learn something every day .
The jury is still out on the holes in the lid, I have one with and two without and all things appeared to be more or less same until a torrential downpour that made the one with holes in the lid sopping wet. So now I just occasionally switch them, hoping it will keep things even.
Now for the exciting news, I have emptied the bin from last year, it heated up perfectly the reduced to about half the size and then it stalled and didn't do anything for the last few month.

Sooooo, turns out that although it appeared to be about the bight dampness in the top layer. Could see, it was absolutely sopping wet in the middle and when I got to the bottom I found the culprit. Layer of leaves on the bottom formed a 1/2 " solid mass that looked lik rubber liner and completely blocked any kind of drainage.

[labradors]

Oh my goodness! Thanks for the warning about the leaves as I collected bags of them and have been layering them every now and then. Perhaps I should not be putting them on too thickly! Then again, I do have a compost stirrer which might help with that. (If nothing else, the "stirrer" breaks up all the egg shells that are in there :)).

Thanks too for the info about the holes in the lid! Perhaps they are not such a great idea, although they are an asset this (dry) summer.

Linda

[labradors]

So you piqued my interest and I checked on my composters. The one that is finishing is one third down (although I have put a few leaves in it). The borage leaves were a horrid tangled mess on the top, the rest seemed ok.

As for the composter that is currently in use, it was very difficult to stir due to me putting long, stringy stuff in there like chard stems and long borage stems/leaves that had flopped and I had hacked down. The pine shavings were very dry, so it was a good thing that I stirred it somewhat :).

Linda

[Ontario Chick]

Leaves are great if they are chopped up and I have seen a good way to do that with a whippersnapper in a garbage can, but didn't quite got the energy to actually do that.
Same with long stems, they should be cut up somewhat, but I must admit I have stopped putting cucumber wines in the compost, too lazy to chop it up and got tired of pulling them out of the compost still completely intact.
I think the problem I created with the leaves is completely of my own doing, as it was fall and a big pile just sitting there.....
seemed like a good idea at the time

[labradors]

I agree that it's the last straw to have to chop everything small for the composter! I discovered though that if you can catch leaves when they are nice and dead and dry, and stuff them into a large plastic container, pounding them down with your hands will shatter them into small pieces, and then you can cram more into the container - no power tools required :) Guess I should do that with my stash of last year's leaves that are in my city green bin! I was going to use them as chicken bedding, but they were incredibly dusty so I didn't.

Linda

[Ontario Chick]

Before and after picture,
bin on right filled in April this year, bin on left filled yesterday
so 5 month reduction down to about 1/3, not ready to go in the garden yet, but will put on top of empty garden bed and let the worms do their stuff, will see how it looks in the spring time.
Definitely a much easier way to handle the manure, will see in the spring how long it takes to be usable in the garden.

[labradors]

Looking good Houston :).

It's amazing how much stuff one can put in a Soilsaver! I've loaded mine up to the brim a few times this season and it doesn't take very long for it to go down.

Hopefully, I will have enough finished chicken manure to put in my planting holes for the tomatoes next season :).

Linda