Colonyhkman asked:


What is the best way to start a compost pile?

By: Allan Wilson

Composting can be achieved in a simple compost pile. However, building a compost bin is an effective way to contain garden and kitchen waste. A Compost Bin also provides easy access to waste material for frequent turning. Further, Compost Bins help control heat and moisture content to speed up the composting process.

They come in various designs and can be commercially bought or assembled at home. Usually Compost Bins are made of plastic, metal, wood and wire.

Types:

There is a plethora of designs available. There are as many designs as your imagination allows. However, four main types of Bins are outlined below.

1. Worm Composting Bin: This bin relies on vermiculture to produce compost. This Wood Worm Composting Bin can be used year round to recycle kitchen wastes. It has the added advantage of working indoors.

2. Wires mesh Composting Bin: These are the least expensive to construct. Simply bend wire in a circle or square and dump yard waste in it. Turning waste is easy, and finished compost may be obtained within 6 months.

3. Portable Wood and Wire Composting Bin: This portable bin, where wire is tacked to a wooden frame is ideal for moderate volumes of compost. Turning waste is easy. Finished compost is available within 6 months to 2 years.

4. Wood and Wire Stationary 3 Bin System: This bin processes large amounts of waste in the shortest time period. It also doubles as a storage unit. But constructing this bin requires extensive carpentry skills

Obviously then there are many Compost Bin designs from the elementary one bin system to multi-compartment bins. The latter allow large amounts of material to be processed in batches. A multi-compartment bin holds piles in various stages of breakdown while permitting turning of the pile as it is transferred from one bin to another.

What Compost Bin design you prefer depends on your garden size, your waste output and your budget. The simple Wire Mesh Composting Bin is highly affordable and requires no skill sets to construct; therefore it is easily replicated in an average garden. Complex bins require more input in terms of labor and material. What you ultimately choose depends on your personal preferences.

Building a Compost Bin – A Simple Guide

A compost heap should be a mandatory feature in every garden. What the compost heap does is turn everyday household and garden waste into organic fertilizer. This is achieved through the action of bacteria and fungi which decompose waste. Commercial Compost Bins can be purchased at any Garden store and they are usually made of stout gauge wire or have a wooden framework.

Most commercial Compost Bins have a removable side or hinges so that the heap can be filled or removed easily. If you don’t want to spend money simply opt for a compost heap or build a Compost Bin from inexpensive household products.

How to Make a Compost Bin:

Ideally a compost heap should be unobtrusively located. It should not be more than 3 ft. high and 3 ft. wide. It is also necessary that it be placed where it is not damp or shaded so that the organic material rots into a dark friable mass. If you want to make your own price-conscious Compost Bin, you can use old sheets of corrugated iron or timber.

Use 4 corner posts, 4 ft long to be inserted in the ground. The sides are made of 3 ft lengths of timber, 3 inches wide and at least 1 inch thick. Six will be required for each side making a total of 24 pieces. They are spaced approximately 4 inches apart and screwed into the corner posts.

To provide for removable side, one set of side pieces 3 cm less in length than the others are screwed to two separate corner rails 2-5 inches wide and 1 inch thick. The complete unit slides into two of the fixed corner posts in a groove or channel made from two 3 ft pieces of timber spaced from the two fixed corner posts by two thin strips of wood 1one and quarter inch thick and 1 inch wide. All timber must be treated against rot.

To reiterate, it is easier to make a compost heap. Even though it may look ugly or untidy, a compost heap is the least expensive and the least labor-intensive option.

RGK asked:


I added pine needles in my garbage can compost pile for the brown part of the pile but its been weeks and everything else is decomposing except the dried pine needles. What should I do, trash everything and start over again or is there anything that can break down the pine needles?

By: Vicki Duong

I’ve been composting for quite some time now, and I can honestly say that for the first few trials I was having difficulty keeping the area around my compost wildlife and insect-free. Composting is both a science and an art form, and I was foolish to think at the beginning that I could get it down on the first try. I followed all the directions, read all the web forums and even carried the 1 over to the other side, yet I was coming across the same problem: insects and animals were invading my compost! But now that I know better, let me share my experiences with you so that you don’t have to waste as much time as I did on fixing the problem.

First of all, don’t ever place any meat products, fatty foods, oils and bones in your compost bins, compost tumblers, or piles. This is a recipe for disaster since animals are generally attracted to these products and will be more than likely to dig around in your compost. Dairy products like cheese are also considered a no-no in terms of adding it to your compost. Not only do these products get smelly after a few hours, they also do not decompose well so it’s best to just avoid these items all together.

To avoid this situation, be sure to use a tight fitting lid atop your compost bin, better yet, make sure it’s rodent proof. As long as the lid is tight rodents like raccoons won’t be able to jimmy the bin open and feast upon the cut-up fruit rinds and veggie leaves. In addition, remember to turn your compost pile a couple times a week to turn up the heat in your bin so that the organic matter can decompose properly; this will also help in turning off animals from you compost.

Since you’ll be using fruit rinds, vegetable stalks and leaves along with other acceptable food wastes such as coffee grinds, you’re bound to come across the problem of flies and gnats hanging around your compost (this also applies for kitchen composting). Work around this problem by covering up your compost and by adding brown matter (no, not that) to your compost. Yard waste such as dried up leaves, hay, cut-up wood chippings and even sawdust mixed into your compost will balance the nitrogen levels and mask the fruity odors. Using some already made compost or soil will also do the trick.

Learn from my mistakes and take these tips to heart. After all, there’s nothing worse than looking our in your backyard and fining a zoo of animals nosing around in your compost bin like they’ve found the jackpot!

By: Paula Brett

Have you ever thought about what actually happens when things rot? It may be that, like me, you have got confused reading garden books, as they are usually full of vague meanings for words like `stabilised humus’!

Many of you may think that making compost is an unpleasant or difficult process – well, I can assure you, it’s not!

For a fast track way of changing crude organic materials into humus (something resembling soil) read `a compost pile’. The word humus, however, is quite often misunderstood, together with the words organic matter and compost

Making compost is really a very simple process. It can become a natural part of your yard or gardening maintenance if done properly. If you are mowing your lawn or weeding your flower-beds, making compost doesn’t have to take any more effort than bagging up your garden waste.

To me, astounding as it may sound, handling well-made compost is actually a very pleasant experience. Don’t but put off by compost’s `dirty, nasty’ origins. There is little similarity between the healthy-smelling black or brown, crumbly substance dug out of a compost pile and the garbage, leaves, manure, grass clippings and other waste products from which it began.

To define composting precisely, it means ‘enhancing the consumption of crude organic matter by a complex ecology of biological decomposition organisms.’ Many raw organic materials are eaten and re-eaten by thousands of tiny organisms from the smallest (bacteria) to the largest (earthworms).

The components are altered gradually and recombined. Unfortunately, many gardeners use the terms compost, organic matter, and humus as interchangeable identities. However, there are important differences in meaning that need to be explained.

This organic matter food gardeners are vitally concerned with is actually formed by growing plants that manufacture the substances of life. Most organic molecules are very large and complex – inorganic materials are much simpler. Of course, animals can break down, reassemble and destroy organic matter but the one thing they cannot do is create it.

Only plants can make organic materials like proteins, cellulose, and sugars and they produce this from inorganic minerals derived from air, water or soil. The elements plants use to build include magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, sodium, cobalt, zine, iron boron, molybdenum, carbon, manganese, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen

Thus, it is organic matter from both land and sea plants that fuels the entire chain of life from worms to whales. Because humans are most familiar with large animals, they rarely stop to consider that the soil is also filled with animal life consuming organic matter or each other.

Our rich earth is crowded with single cell organisms like bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, rotifers and protozoa. Soil life forms increase in complexity to microscopic round worms called nematodes, various kinds of molluscs like slugs and snails (some so tiny the gardener has no idea they are even there), thousands of often microscopic soil-dwelling members of the spider family (arthropods), insects and, of course, the larger soil animals most of us are more familiar with such as moles.

The entire sum of all this organic matter – living plants, decomposing plant materials, and all the animals, living or dead, large and small – is sometimes called biomass. One realistic way to gauge the fertility of any particular soil body is to weigh the amount of biomass it sustains.