Compost ‘‘Tis Nearing the Season

[Samuel Adams]

Wrote this on another forum, some years ago.

Was compelled to share here, as well.....




“I have been gardening for the purpose of feeding the family since I was three– likely sooner, but I’m going from memory here…..

I recall my early days in St. Louis, Mo. My father was a fresh graduate and was hired as a school music teacher. That was his first real departure from the farm here where he grew up. We spent 4 years there, in a modest little house in downtown Jennings, a suburb….. and Dad had a compost pile right next to the roughly 500 square foot garden. It was a hefty pile for being down town. He had it piled against the cinder block garage and tarped with one of those heavy old black oil tarps. I don’t recall much detail about his application of the stuff nor where he got most of the raw components. I do recall the healthy green of the tomato patch, and I do recall the day that I saw movement under the tarp and went straight to the house to make the report only to have Dad come out and peel the tarp back to reveal a ‘possum.

He promptly dispensed the ‘possum with a crowbar and I got my first lesson in composting animal carcasses.

Years passed. Gardens were grown. Leaves, grass clippings and table scraps were procured and composted.

Justice would not be served if I failed to make mention of my paternal grandparents, their obsessive work ethic, and their flawless gardening over the years. Grandma, especially, encouraged me in many ways to become, among other real and crucial things, a master composter.

In my early teens, circumstances unfolded in a manner to give me the opportunity to become head stall cleaner at the local thoroughbred race track. It was a smaller, family-run affair, but there were 20 or so horses on the place and they knew what fresh bedding was for….

The local sawmill was a quarter mile north of home, and they gave me sawdust. The race track was a few hundred yards across the field from home and I got all the manure I wanted, plus a few bucks an hour for the shoveling.

The true nature of Heaven cannot be far removed from that picture.

I used Dad’s John Deere A and an old homemade trailer that hauled about a pickup load to do my trucking. The trailer did NOT have a dump mechanism….

Well, I was an impressionable young lad, and eager to please, so when Grandma came out one summer afternoon to look at my tomatoes and potato patch, only to confide proudly to me that my garden was doing much better than Dad’s….. I was hooked.

I bought the place, here, in ’89. I was young, 22, and stuffed clear full of pioneer spirit. This was an old, rundown farmstead that hadn’t seen life for nearly 40 years… the last being a pair of loggers that helped run the long-since disbanded mill on the river, a mile or so south of here, so they tell me.

The soil here was, at best, timber. At worst, sand and clay.
I remember our first few years, and recall that gardening was on the back burner due to the fact that we had succumbed, a bit, to the modern notion of eeking out an existence, “off the farm”. I was doing backhoe work and shoeing horses. She was teaching school.
It was likely our third or fourth year here that she wanted to start a garden.
I had a neighboring farmer plow up a good sized patch east of the house– which was about the only level site on the place at the time.
That was my–and her–first experience gardening in raw clay.

This is where the survival end of the story begins.

People have to eat. It is fast becoming apparent that people are soon going to be forced to grow their own food, or suffer the consequences.

There are very few places left in this country, or the world, I suppose, where the ground is of proper tilth to raise quality produce, without the diligent hand of man being wisely and laboriously applied.

The time to begin preparing your soil for your family’s future survival is now.
The men who grow the food for this nation have been mining the soil for what it can provide THIS YEAR, without giving a thought to the next, for decades. The quick fix of NPK, with an occasional shot of calcium or sulfur, has become the norm. Indeed, the men who grow this nation’s “food” have largely forgotten the value of humus, let alone the dire need for a balance among all of the trace minerals. Consequently, the nation’s collective health is at an all time low, regardless of what the media or medical lobby might be shouting from the rooftops.

Most of us have no sense of bearing for the sake of comparison. We have never known real health….. real energy….. real strength. We only assume that what we know and are is normal. We assume far too much.

In order to thrive, people need to eat plants that are superior in every way.
For a plant to be superior, to be full of vitality and high resonance, it must be grown in soil that contains the minerals, the humus, the enzymes, the balance and the energy that only millennia of natural topsoil development can provide….. or….. in soil to which a few short but intense years of composting has been applied.

Compost offers clay soils drainage and the enzymes required to release the abundance of minerals that clay contains naturally.

Compost offers sandy soils the structure required to resist erosion and drought. It offers many of the minerals and organic nutrients devoid in sand.

Compost is composed largely of carbon, the natural sponge that was intended to absorb and slowly release all manner of nutrients required by plants.

Heavily composted soils resist excessive moisture as well as drought.

I have many times been in my small fields with my mid-sized tractor and disc, days ahead of the local chemical farmers. My living soil does not compact near as badly nor mire down the equipment as a typical clay or timber soil field would.

Compost chemically and physically binds nutrients to the soil molecules in such a manner that they will not wash out with heavy rainfall.

Compost can absorb up to ten times or more the amount of water that other soils can, thus reducing runoff, leaching, erosion and the resultant flooding and polluting of the waterways that has become pandemic these last few years.

I dare say that if just 20% of this nation’s agricultural land were so tended, the rivers would be calm, the waters clear. Surface wells would contain far less in the way of nitrates. More carbon would be locked into the soil rather than saturating the atmosphere in the form of CO2. Topsoil erosion would be checked. Riverbed silting would be drastically reduced. Food would contain nutrition again…..

I’ll leave off now, and go to bed.
If anyone isn’t convinced of the dire straits in which rest this nation’s agriculture and food industries, or needs more evidence before he or she starts throwing their own pile of organic matter together, we can take it up tomorrow.”

 

[KMR58]

We put very little in an actual garbage can to be taken away. It's either burned in our wood burner, eaten by the chickens, or composted. Compost has given us amazing garden soil. In our last house our soil was mostly hard clay. Within a few years of putting in compost we had beautiful garden soil. Now we are in a new place with mostly sand. We already have a nice compost started. The only thing we actually throw out anymore is plastic or cans, and of those we have very few.

 

[Samuel Adams]

Excellent set of practices you have there.

Here, cans get thrown on the scrap metal loads, and what little plastic is incorporated into the occasional brush fire, come cleanup time.
Throw it in whilst the fire is rockin’.....little to no smoke.

 

[Babs]

Yes!! This has been my focus the last couple of years. I used the "no-till" method on my last garden, before we sold our home. I layered heavy compost and peat onto the top of my raised bed. My compost was about 8" thick. It was by far the best harvest I've every had, and the weeding was little to nothing.

Lord willing, I'll be starting to get the garden going on the new property in Feb/March. I'm already searching out for my compost materials. We won't have animals or anything much to compost for the first year, and so I'll be buying a lot.

 

[Samuel Adams]

No horse farms nearby ?

Municipal yard waste dumps ?

Livestock sale barns ?

Tree services for wood chips ?

Saw mills ?

Even sources of cardboard to lay under your mulch.....between rows ?

Assuming everyone here is familiar with “Rodale’s Complete Book of Composting” and Joseph Jenkins’, “Humanure Handbook” ?

Also look into the history of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer....

Positively inspiring works.....

 

[John Deere Girl]

This is just what I needed to see on this frigid day. Now I'm thinking about plans for our garden and talking with DH about the layout for spring. I love to garden!

 

[Samuel Adams]

Well, shucks.....

Let’s just keep going, then.


“Composting for Survival, part two.

After nearly ten years of building a successful excavating and light demolition business, a rather messy run-in with bureaucracy and the infamous "y2k" potential scenario were the stimuli employed by Providence to set me firmly to work on a different strand.
Wendy and I were already quite familiar with independence and self-sufficiency, having by that time built our cabin from scratch, birthed three young at home, gardened for a good portion of our food supply and intentionally foregone the insurance "safety net" so prevalent in this day and age.
When I finally realized the scope of the battle that had been waged against me, I was gaining a fierceness about that previously dabbled-in sense of self-reliance and my determination to survive became a driving force. It was in the thick of that dark time that she and I resolved to go it alone.
I recall well the conversation we had. We looked long and hard at our future as a family. We looked long and hard at our past and I told her, "This isn't a problem.
I was raised growing food, tending livestock and building things by unconventional means. I spent my youth in the woods, living free. We've already come this far thinking outside the box." There was no hesitation. She had no illusions of where we were going with this. For reasons I won't go into here, we believed it to be in our best interests, and in the interest of purity, to close all bank accounts. We cancelled all credit cards.
As circumstance would have it..... we were debt free.
We shut off the power then, though it was several years before the electric company came to remove the poles between us and the next farm toward the road.
We turned in our driver licenses, so as not to consent to being bound to a contractual jurisdiction. We sold our automobile. Etc. etc. etc.

There we were. Alone. Vastly unfettered. Resolved. Harboring no illusions.
Among many other urgent priorities at the time, I turned my attention to the garden.
Over the course of the time we had been gardening, I had taken advantage of several opportunities as they presented themselves-- a truckload of horse manure here, a load of spoiled hay there, etc. But I had been enjoying the bounty of an "economy" enough not to have given much thought to building the soil. No longer so.
I recalled the experience of my youth, knew what had to be done, and began to seek out sources of composting material.
Though I had no license, etc., I knew through various means that I had the respect of the local police. I bought an old, heavy duty Chevy pickup from a farming neighbor, built some high sides and a special tailgate for it, and began to travel the back roads in pursuit of humus. It was the yard waste disposal site of a small municipality 15 miles away that most notably caught my eye. There was a fair abundance of grass clippings, leaves, garden weeds and occasional wood chips... plenty for a man/pickup/pitchfork combination. I promptly adjusted my schedule to accommodate several trips thereto each week. I recall my first real pile, placed strategically at garden's edge. I recall thickly mulching my potatoes with the first few loads of grass clippings and leaves.
I made paths through the garden with wood chips.
Somewhere in that time we purchased our first milk cow. We already had chickens, an acquisition which she requested a couple years previous (a woman of foresight, she was). So began my use of manures to inoculate my compost piles with more of the proper strains of bacteria.
As often happens when one sets one's course with definity and resolve, opportunities began to present themselves. People began to take notice of my bent, and the number of sources for organic material increased.
Neighbors began to offer my their stall cleanings. Farmers with a rack of spoiled hay would bring some by from time to time. My compost pile began to take on a life of it's own, and soon outgrew it's allotted space. I suppose by that time it contained two or three semi loads of material.
During my greatly reduced travels throughout the surrounding area, and given my newly reawakened passion, I began to take far greater notice of the landscape, always on the lookout for material sources. It didn't take long for the monster manure and bedding pile at the local sale barn, ten miles from home, to capture my undivided attention. I recall making what must have been a weak attempt at contacting someone in charge there and being summarily turned down....
I don't remember just how long a time went by between that disappointing day and the one during which I decided to call the owner, out of the blue. His name was Bob, and I'd done some backhoe work for him in years past. I called him at his office and simply offered,"say, I'll keep your manure piled up indefinitely if you'll let me have it all."
His immediate reply was,"well, why don't you just have at it, young man."
I have one valuable contact in a local trucking company. I knew I was in over my head, delightfully, though certainly, so promptly called them to hire a semi.
Having held on to my construction equipment, I was able to supply my loader/backhoe and we hauled out twelve or thirteen semiloads of stall cleanings that first go
'round. Obviously, my operation was never the same.
As I mentioned in chapter one, the local sawmill was just a little ways up the road. (We settled 2 miles from the home farm, just a little further out in the woods, a little closer to the river) I went to school with the two boys there and was kind of an eccentric oddity to their father, who started the operation from scratch. At that time they had hundreds of tons of old sawdust, that market not having yet ever come grandly into it's own as it has since.....
As it happens, I hauled off-- with an age old tandem truck that I came up with, and, after, when I gave up automobiles for good in exchange for farm tractors and dump trailers-- several hundred tons of ancient and some fresh sawdust over the course of several years. Obviously, I was never short of carbon in my compost piles, which brings up an important point; in your determination of proper carbon/nitrogen ration, always err to the side of carbon. Carbon will absorb nitrogen from any source it can, whether it be the atmosphere, the soil, a man urinating, animal offal, animal carcasses, etc. and will always decompose eventually. A compost pile with an excess of nitrogen will putrify, even ferment and become a sort of silage smelling what-have-you if left alone.
Carbon, incidentally, is generally the cheaper and more available ingredient as well, as chance would have it. I have found it advantageous to maintain a carbon pile at all times, therefore having excess to balance the regular compost pile in the event that a nitrogen windfall is sent my way.

Now by this time, I was taking my composting pretty seriously, and the areas of garden that were most intensely treated with the material began to take on a seriousness of their own. Stuff was beginning to grow, if you know what I mean.
I had several piles going at once, varying in size by location.
At one point, a local locker plant inquired about dumping it's offal for me to compost.
I happily made allowances and kept a large hole in the side of my biggest pile for them to back up and unload into.
At one point, a large, commercial hay barn burned, and the owner brought me twenty some odd semi loads of charred hay and straw.
Local farmers began to bring me dead livestock on a regular basis.
The sale barn's pile waxed and waned under my diligent supervision.

Somewhere in all of that time--it was winter-- I went through my old Mother Earth magazines and found the article on Jean Paine, I believe it was. He was the Frenchman who amassed huge piles of wood and debris shavings from the surrounding forests, ground to perfection in a tractor mounted chipper of his own design and manufacture.
He constructed massive piles of the material and ran tubing through them to form a water heating system that heated his house and water supply. He also drew methane from one of them that ran the small engine which produced his home power AND fueled his tractor.....
Now I wasn't ready to expand my technical knowledge to that brain-straining level, but I was intrigued by the compost house heat idea enough to begin digging a trench on the east side of my house (next to the garden) to accommodate a massive, three bay, concrete compost bunker, poured directly against the east house wall. That next fall I filled the thing to the brim, and waited. That December was one of the colder ones that I recall enduring down here in the timber (it was 2005) and we burned roughly half the wood we normally would have, and the ambient temperature in the house, especially in the typically cooler kitchen, furthest room from the wood stove, was ten degrees warmer (about 70 degrees compared to a previously experienced 60). The northernmost section of the bunker sat directly outside the kitchen window, where, subsequently, all kitchen waste and most dishwater was summarily discarded.
As some of you already know, we have long embraced the rocket technology of the sawdust toilet, and that material has always been deposited in the bunker, next to the house. Amid the shock and appall that must be going on among some readers at this point, there must be the double-edged question, "What of flies and odor?" Well, herein lies the secret, not only to flies and odor, but to compost across the board.”

See next post......

 

[Samuel Adams]

“
Carbon.

Sawdust, dry leaves, dry grass clippings (the fresh ones contain up to 50% nitrogen!!!) wood chips, straw, older hay, garden weeds, bean hulls, peanut hulls, ground up corn cobs, paper, cardboard, etc. are all sources of carbon.
ALL odor and pestilence are rectified absolutely with the proper application of carbon.
You see, carbon and nitrogen have a chemical valence that binds one to the other.
The relationship is near nuptial, such is the mutual attraction.
Carbon also captures and neutralizes the sulfides and ammoniums that a rowdy compost pile can generate, especially one containing dead animals and such richness as gooey kitchen waste.
Of course, for the kitchen composter with a small pile and limited sources of other organic material, there still remains somewhat of a potential odor problem.
But, in this survival forum, I am certain that we are among far more serious preparation fanatics who by now wouldn't be caught dead with anything less than a fully integrated composting program and mountains of the stuff rotting everywhere.....right ?

Well, nearing the end of my energy for the night, I'll conclude with the most recent and, likely, most comprehensive boon to my composting efforts to date.....

Though the place has likely existed longer, maybe far longer, than I have, it only recently was brought to my attention that the city of Canton, Illinois, maintains a fairly extensive site for the locals to dispose of their yard waste. In fact, it was this early last summer that I and my new wife, Lori, went on the maiden journey to where I was made aware the place was located. Upon entering the gate, it was immediately impressed upon me that I had graduated, somehow yet again, in the ever-broadening scope of my soil-building pursuits. There were pick-up load sized piles of grass clippings all over. The quantity of material simply dwarfed the scope of the first, smaller municipality that I mentioned. There were larger truckloads of wood chips, various piles of sawdust, leaves, garden waste, stump grindings, corn stalks, old straw, rotting hay..... my God, I was delirious. I honestly didn't know where to begin. I remember just backing the tractor and wagon over to several of the larger piles of grass clippings and bagged leaves and began loading up. I felt drunk almost all the way home (about 17 miles). We immediately began the new routine of three or four trips a week.
First we used the larger farm tractor, a 150 horse John Deere 4630, and the wagon. Then we tried the old Model A, just me and three boys with pitch forks, and the one wagon.
Occasionally we would meet some of the city workers out there, dropping something off or picking up various items of trash. A couple times a week, they'd come out with a big loader to push the brush into a pile for burning and to push everything else out in a three foot thick or so layer to decompose..... after which they apparently shoved everything over the hill, out of the way (egads!!!).
Once I asked one of them if we were overstepping our bounds by hauling the stuff off.
He assured me that it was fine.
Well, it was during this time that it was impressed upon me the need for a smaller loader tractor and I began to pursue that end with a passion. The days were awfully hot, at times, and one wagon was enough to be loading by hand, but I wanted to pull two for efficiency sake..... It wasn't long before I was the proud new owner of the little 3010 diesel, complete with front end loader. I began pulling both of my dump wagons several times a week, often twice in an otherwise unhindered day, loaded to the gills with fresh organic materials. If I wasn't completely ecstatic with the new-found ease and convenience, my three boys certainly were.
It wasn't long before the city workers really began to take notice.
One day the man who operates the loader came over as I was finishing up and asked me what in the world I was doing with all that material.
I told him I was composting it. He asked if I had a truck patch and sold organic produce or something. There came a certain gleam in his eye when I told him, "nope, just building about 4-5 acres of Eden-like soil for my family's provision, and giving away the excess". He left, only to shortly return a passenger in the fancy pickup that belonged to the city's Street Superintendent. He said, "tell the Boss what you told me earlier".
So, I promptly repeated my short story.
Later, I found out that there had been no small conversation about me and the boys' efforts out there. They were impressed with the way we had just come in and started, not only hauling away what we wanted, but tidying up the place and picking out the trash and sticks as we went. As it happens, they had just recently determined that they were running out of space out there....
So when I began hauling two loads out at a time and actually starting to dig into material that had been there a couple years already, more than keeping up with the city's flow of yard waste, the Boss had been biding his time, wanting to meet and talk to me about further prospects. As it turns out, I still haul about a load a week, more to keep the place tidied up and running smoothly from my standpoint.
When I relayed my story to the Boss that fateful day, he confided in me his long-held, but henceforth unpursued passion for the soil.... and promptly scolded me for working too hard. They have since been hauling, in their several city dump trucks, up to twenty loads each week, to my location....thus saving me hundreds of dollars in repairs and fuel, not to mention countless hours on the road. They are beyond delighted to have a place they can go with the stuff where it will be put to productive use.
This fall, the Boss tells me that there will be several hundred loads of shredded leaves that will be hauled directly to my composting operation......

So, where there is a will, there is a way.
Where there is focus and diligence applied, there are opportunities waiting.
There is no excuse for delaying another day the process of gathering materials and beginning or expanding your own soil building efforts.
Let's spread the word and take back the fertility that once made this nation the greatest land of opportunity on the planet.

*bows profusely, blowing kisses and waving to the roaring crowd*

Chapter three coming soon...... "How to properly construct a compost pile"

 

[Samuel Adams]

Forgive any overtly pompous expressions from my past.

I have gained a very slight degree of humility, since those days......slight.....

 

[Samuel Adams]

Composting, Part 3; The Pile

“
Compost is one of those natural phenomena that seldom manifests itself in the natural world. It disposes itself more to the diligent caretaker of the earth, available when needed. It must have been a gift, given to those who find themselves the recipients of dying soils.....

Thermophilic bacteria are everywhere. They wait for an opportunity. They apparently multiply and subsist under less than ideal conditions.
They have preferences, but they are patient. It is only when some one, or some force, kicks together a large enough mass of organic materials consisting largely of carbon, with just a comparative touch of nitrogen, adequate moisture, and a suitable quantity of trapped oxygen, that they lose their grudgingly held inhibitions and really come out of the closet.
Thermophiles create, and thrive on, heat.
The seemingly near infinite strains thereof collectively consume and digest every organic substance on the planet in it's due course.
It is their dead bodies and the enzymes given off thereby that make up the
rich, black, grainy, sweet-smelling substance known as compost.
Those enzymes are the key to unlocking the nutrients pre-existent in heavy clay soils. Those dead bodies are the key to giving structure and sufficient mineral composition to sand. The residual living bacteria in finished compost will break down vegetable matter in the otherwise lacking soils recipient of the material, much faster than they would otherwise be naturally returned to the soil as humus. Compost offers, without the addition of costly mineral amendments, a natural pH balancer. Compost provides, depending on the variety of the original ingredients, an assimilable source of trace minerals to the plants that are so fed. Compost unlocks the minerals previously unavailable to plants due to pH and other deficiencies and imbalances.
Compost is the gift that keeps on giving. Artificial and superficial mineral treatments common today feed only that year's crop, as a rule. Well composted soil will feed the crop this year, and so on for several years following. Compost can be somewhat of a quick fix, but it is better approached as a long term investment.
I'll do my best in the following paragraphs to give instructions on some of the better ways to manufacture this food producer's gold.

Compost microorganisms might be treated and considered as any other livestock. They need space. They need a specific diet (though perhaps more forgiving than some). They need water, oxygen, time to grow, mature and reproduce. Unlike most livestock, once set up in their preferred environment, they won't require much attention. They won't be a part of your daily chores, unless you are an enthusiast, of course.
You can readily identify the compost obsessed because they cannot pass a compost pile by without prodding it, feeling the warmth beneath the surface, and appreciating the different fragrances as the pile goes through the several stages of decomposition.
Compost microbes are the livestock of last resort as pertains to the quality of forage that they might prefer. They will, literally, grow positively festive when given the opportunity to eat things that really willmake a billy goat puke.
In fact, one of the most valuable traits of thermophilic bacteria is their collective willingness to promptly dispose of what would otherwise either go to waste, or, worse, those items and materials that would otherwise cause health and eyesore grievances in both urban and rural settings.
Compost is the best tool we have for turning many necessary evils into good.
In a long term survival situation involving any number of people, compost can be the greatest asset for maintaining the health and dignity of the populace. It is a wonder to me that any civilization claiming the smallest degree of enlightenment could so absolutely abandon such a valuable practice. It is a wonder to me that any thinking human being could waste so much potential plant nutrition for the shameful convenience of a landfill.

So much for philosophizing.

The process of manufacturing compost is as varied as are the local materials available for it's manufacture. Think of it as a large scale whatcha-got stew.
The two basic elemental ingredients have been covered multiple times in previous chapters. They are carbon and nitrogen.
Carbon is available in many sources around the globe.
There are few locations on the planet where compost might be profitably manufactured and utilized that carbon might be in short supply.
My first compost piles were matters of practicality.
I had only my father's tarped suburban composite and the later leaf bin as examples to draw from. Having the resources of manure from our own farm and the horse track nearby, combined with the occasional load of old sawdust
from the mill, my own first piles were just material dumped and forked or shoveled up for the sake of good space management.
I doubt I even knew to blend my sawdust well with the juicier manures.
I do recall spreading a thin layer of sawdust between my garden rows with satisfactory results. Just don't use too much.... and avoid the fresh stuff when applying directly.

Fast forward from 1982-84 to 1999.
I still don't recall having put my hands on much reading material concerning the proper construction of a compost pile by that time, save the occasional small Mother Earth News article. My father did get in fairly early with that publication, having subscribed in the mid 70s. He promptly ordered all of the, then, still quite available back issues.
For whatever happenstance of foresight that I may have had in my early teens, I did save up and buy my own set of the first 60 MEN issues. I've never regretted that.
Anyhow, I do recall gaining a focused enthusiasm as I took on composting anew in the very late nineties. I wasn't too long loading, hauling and piling the materials before my father made to me a gift of his copy of "Rodale's Complete Book of Composting". His was the original version, published in the late sixties, I believe. The revised version is great reading for, say, a restless third grade class at nap time (by comparison).
That thick old hardback book changed my life forever.
Ten years later, I still haven't come across any compost-related concept not mentioned if not thoroughly exhausted in the pages of that book.
Every aspect of composting was covered. Many and varied theories and concepts were introduced. I took it all in by night, gathering materials and building piles by day. Then I came to the chapter(s) discussing Ehrenfried Pfeiffer.
That man had a vision--and put it into practice-- that drives me to this day.
It was from Ehrenfried that I gained my ambition to think big.
I highly, highly recommend the book.”

Enough of history. See next post.

 

[Samuel Adams]

“
A compost pile should be built according to the materials available to and the
soil-building needs/ambitions of the manufacturer.
I've had just about enough of the negativity expressed by readers here thus far, whining about the small size and therefore presumably less suitable nature of their own piles compared to those of men with, say, a more obsessive nature....
The only reason anyone should ever feel shame about their compost is when an opportunity innocently presents itself and no positive action is taken.

There are three basic types of compost piles; the quick, the typical, and the long term.
The quick pile requires a lot of effort. The material must be ground to a rather fine consistency and the pile turned every few days or so.
I don't make quick compost, one main reason being that I hate to turn a pile.
A compost pile is rather a living thing, and turning it is akin to major surgery.
It always takes time for recuperation and most piles are never quite the same after turning. Nitrogen is invariably lost. The heating cycle is disturbed and often never regains it's original fervor. The only real advantages to turning are re-oxidization and the incorporating of weed seeds and pathogens from the outer layer to the inner portion where they can be exposed to the extreme heat. Both of these tend to take care of themselves given time.

Long ago, I once heard of a concept embraced by what was then referred to "real investors". Apparently the more advanced and determined investor takes into account the invaluable nature of time.
I have found that time is priceless, and it is for that reason that I forgo the "quick" and instead build mostly "typical", and even a few "long term" compost piles.
Typical will likely be the focus of most readers here, so I'll just briefly describe the basic tenets of what I consider a "long term" pile and devote the rest of this article to what works well for most everyone.

As I've mentioned, there is a very large sawmill just up the road, and over the course of the years that I have hauled sawdust out of there, I have had many occasions to walk around and observe while waiting to be loaded.
Over twenty years ago, there was a good deal of clearing done on the east end of the mill property. The brush, stumps and debris resultant have been added to over the years with various grades of waste lumber ends, slabs and other organic matter for which there was no ready market at the time.
The mill owners have since developed good markets for every waste material they generate, and so the old material has been allowed to mellow, undisturbed for some years. There is still evidence of what the original material consisted of back there, but most of it-- stumps, logs, etc.--hasdecomposed to the very consistency of the potting soil-liked material found in a rotting tree stump.....
Just about every publication out there warns against the use of even light brush in a compost pile, and, generally, I would agree. But there is a place for the construction of a pile that one might not be in a hurry to use.
For those on the edge of timber, who might come up with brush, coarse bark, small chunks of wood, stumps, etc., don't be tempted to burn that material merely for the sake of its disposal. Such things as round hay bales, wood chips and even old lumber could be considered as additional materials from which to construct such a pile. I am in the process of slowly leveling wasted space around the property here and have buried much of the above-mentioned material just under the surface where I plan to plant fruit trees, grapes and bramble berries-- i.e. areas that need never be tilled. I know that the carbon in that material will act as a sponge to absorb, not only nitrogen, but a host of other long term nutrients that larger plant roots will easily access as they establish themselves.
The heavy carbon-rich materials that compose the long term pile will decompose on their own over time, but the occasional addition of animal stall bedding and rich manures will only speed up the process and add nutrients for the long term. Enough said about long term compost.

The typical compost pile is the one that you might expect to use within 6-12 months. The materials used to construct it aren't woody, and attention must be paid to balances and ratios to obtain the best results.
Good compost needs oxygen, and oxygen can be trapped in sufficient quantities to complete the decomposition without turning the pile.
One method that can be used to ensure this is to use your heavier garden wastes as the base material. This base is best constructed of a high carbon ingredient so as to best absorb and assimilate the high nitrogen liquids that leach out of the materials above due to gravity. Another good reason to put the heavier material directly on the bottom of the pile is to ensure their exposure to the ravenous bacteria that exist in the soil.
I use corn stalks, Jerusalem artichoke stalks, sometimes cardboard (if I have some to "dispose" of), okra stalks, and occasionally wood chips for my foundations. These materials are coarse enough to trap sufficient quantities of oxygen for the aerobic microbes to breathe. If the heavier stalks aren't available, any carbonaceous material will serve, such as sawdust, leaves, weeds, old straw, lightly shredded bark, corn cobs, peanut hulls, newspaper, etc.
The next layer is best composed of a material with a slightly higher nitrogen content, but not too much. We want some space between the highly concentrated nitrogen sources and the ground, to avoid both nitrogen loss and any excessive leaching of that valuable commodity to the soil in its raw and unpleasant (read unbalanced)state.
While we're on the subject, never put wood ash into your compost pile.
For one, the microbes don't need that ingredient to thrive. Ash is best applied directly to soils where high pH crops are to be planted. Ash reacts with nitrogen, driving the latter off into the atmosphere where it is lost to our purposes.
Back to the second layer....
I use such things as garden weeds, old alfalfa hay, partially dried grass clippings, animal stall bedding that has more sawdust than manure in it, etc.
More concentrated nitrogen sources should mixed throughout both the first and second layer in small portions, it's just best not to overdo it at those levels. I seldom add water as I construct a pile, but if the only available sources of material are dry, add enough water to give the material the moisture content, roughly, of a lightly wrung out sponge. That moisture level should be fairly consistent throughout the pile. Too dry and you will see an infiltration of mice and insects. Too wet and you will see pooling to the downhill side of the pile as the excess liquid, now carrying too much of your nitrogen, oozes out of the material.
Pay attention when using such things as leaves and, especially, grass clippings in your compost piles. Both have entirely different C/N characteristics depending on how fresh they are. In their dry state, both can be used as a carbon source. Fresh grass clippings, however, contain up to 50% nitrogen ! Freshly fallen leaves can be used as intermediate material.
For that matter, fresh leaves are relatively balanced, as is, and can therefore be incorporated into the soil directly or used as a sort of stand alone compost ingredient. For the sawdust toilet crowd, a material known as leaf mold can be easily manufactured and used in the event that sawdust becomes scarce. Simply contain in a bin, or, pile several cubic yards of fresh leaves and apply that crucial component called time.
The resultant, partially decomposed material looks and acts a lot like course sawdust...”

Tangents, anyhow..... see next post

 

[Samuel Adams]

“
Now that we have a partial pile constructed, of any necessary size, composed of high carbon at the base and mid-range carbon/nitrogen material on top of that, for a depth thus far of, say, four feet, we can begin to add the high nitrogen ingredients such as heavy, wet manures, table scraps, organic dumpster contents (if one has such access), dead animals, humanure, rotting soybeans, rotting corn (I get these materials in from time to time), fresh grass clippings, etc. Mix those materials, about half and half, with a higher carbon source, such as sawdust, to avoid creating pockets of foul-smelling anaerobic activity that putrifies rather than breaking down to compost.
For the average pile, a circular shape is best as it reduces the surface area of the material exposed to the sun and weather. Sunlight and wind can be detrimental to your pile. Shade is good. A bin of sorts with a tarp cover is good. Large-leaf, vining crops such as pumpkins, squash and melons can be planted around the outer edges of the pile and allowed to climb all over it during the growing season to both supply shade and to make preliminary use of the nutrients contained therein. If the pile is constructed in an area of typically high rainfall, it is best lightly coned at the top to provide a water shed effect. If the pile is constructed in an arid region, it is best concaved in the center for the purpose of gathering and absorbing all the rainfall it can get. For larger piles, it is recommended that the material be wind-rowed roughly 6-8 feet deep, 12-15 feet wide, in as long of rows as necessary to accommodate the quantity of material available.
It is claimed that such a ratio allows for the best balance of proper heat and the entrapment of a suitable quantity of oxygen. Having long outgrown such dimensions, I pile my materials as they come, mixed to the best of my ability, in mountains up to fifteen feet high, up to a hundred feet long and any dimension of width. I have seldom seen evidence of a lack of oxygen due to compression. Most of the anaerobic activity that I find evidence of in my piles is from an over-abundance of nitrogen or moisture. Normally, given the large dimensions that I have mentioned, my material turns out black, rich and sweet smelling.
The finishing of a compost pile, after proper layering, is every bit as important as the beginning. After the heavy nitrogen sources are placed toward the top of the pile, they must be covered with a high carbon material to avoid odors, lock in that nitrogen, deter flies and other vermin, insulate the heat within from extreme temps on the outside, prevent eyesores of the unsightly potential of animal carcasses, etc., and, lastly, to protect the pile from sunlight in the event that shade is unavailable.
Of all the minerals and nutrients contained in compost, carbon is the most stable. It can handle the roughest treatment and it will be the last ingredient to be lost by leaching or degradation by outside influences. That is one reason why it simply makes the best cover.
Once so constructed, such a pile can be added to in any number of ways, i.e. more material can be placed against the side, or undesirables such as carcasses and toilet bucket contents, etc. can be buried within. The key is to always repair the carbon cover. I use sawdust, because it is the densest, least porous and most readily available material for the job. It simply does the best job of locking in the good, and locking out the bad....
Other high carbon materials can be thus utilized, the finer the material the better.
A pile so constructed should break down uniformly to a level quite suitable for direct application. Any small pocket variances in the ideal carbon/nitrogen ratio should be largely eliminated during the loading and spreading of the finished material. If there is doubt as to whether decomposition is complete, best to hold off applying the compost rather than to attempt growing satisfactory crops in undigested material.
Finished compost should be black and granular. It should smell sweet with little to no remaining traces of urea odor.

This has been, to me, the most basic overview that could be given, so I'll leave the rest up to discussion.”

Happy composting.

 

[Old Goat]

Be careful about compost ingredients that might be contaminated with high persistence herbicides used on lawns and "weed-free" hay and straw. A city in this area established a large municipal compost operation that distributed free compost but abandoned the project because the compost killed plants.
Pyralid weed killer used on a hay crop can still kill plants when the animal manure is used as fertilizer.
Here is a video about weed killers in compost:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D1idnMNKng

 

[packyderms_wife]

Love a good compost thread! If you're using manure make sure you ask the person you're getting it from what type of hay/grass the horses, cows, etc., were eating. See post #13 for more information.

 

[John Deere Girl]

Very interesting!

 

[Border Collie Dad]

Great thread, Sam!

 

[Samuel Adams]

Here......have another.......


Composting 4, Vermiculture and Various Thoughts

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Composting 4, Vermiculture and Various Thoughts


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[IMG alt="Forerunner"]https://www.homesteadingtoday.com/d1/avatars/m/25/25289.jpg?1355358975[/IMG]
Forerunner
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Discussion Starter · #1 · [URL='https://www.homesteadingtoday.com/threads/composting-4-

I hadn't much considered worms in the earlier composting endeavors of my teenage years, though I did regularly pluck dew worms out of the nighttime yard and sell them to local fishermen as one of my earliest entrepreneurisms.
I always knew, likely due to conversations or object lessons with my father in my earliest years, that worms were a good thing.
Not until coming across the chapter on "vermiculture" in "Rodale's Complete Book of Composting", did I really give detailed thought to the subject of worms.
I do vaguely remember reading bits and pieces about the little guys in other publications, and there is quite a contrast in opinions out there concerning the value of the earthworm and the messages that their varying degrees of presence and activity in the soil convey to the horticulturalist.
Some authors put great value in both the worm, itself, and in what the worm's very presence in your soil might mean. Others--and this is what gets me--adamantly declare that the worm is too small and their numbers grossly insufficient to effect any measurable degree of benevolence in soil, compost activity or plant life, whatsoever.
I have made my own observations, and will dedicate this writing to both what I have experienced and what I have come to believe about the little guys.
Earthworms of all kinds possess and contribute to soil structure and fertility
immeasurable value. The excrement they leave behind as they pass through any soil type is said to be seven times more fertile than the surrounding soil.
That is noteworthy, to say the least.
The infinite and intricate maze of tunnels that they form as they pass from one place to another allow oxygen and moisture to travel freely, regularly as deeply as six or more feet in the ground. Now those worms--and the number of them that you might have working for you will determine time frames--are burrowing down into clay after having eaten a belly full of rich, organic matter. The steady exchange of such matter to the lower depths with high mineral clay brought to the surface must be one of the quickest ways that nature builds six feet of topsoil. All the worm asks for is adequate moisture and an organic bite to eat, here and there, and they will happily give their all to the soil connoisseur. Another benefit that the worm offers via his extensive borrowing is the gradual loosening of soils and breaking up of the hardpan. Some plant roots actually follow the tunnels in their deep and ambitious quest for lower lying minerals, and, during dry spells, water.
Therein lies another means by which worms greatly facilitate the introduction of organic matter far deeper than even our mechanized means care to dig. Those roots die in the tunnels and become food for worm and plant, alike, as they decompose. The whole notion of farming with worms has a positive snowballing effect that lasts for several years as the little guys get themselves thoroughly established in a new area.
The very presence of a large quantity of very active worms is assurance that the land is quite fertile and devoid of harsh chemical applications for some time previous. The absence of worm activity in what otherwise looks to be rich, black soil is a shameful testament to the harsh manner in which that soil is being treated by the steward.
As I've mentioned before, I came out here to clay, sand and timber soil. The land had been occasionally been used as pasture, and there was the occasional evidence of worms, but certainly no notable population. Their activity was only evidenced during heavy rainy seasons and there was zero evidence of the commonly sought after red wriggler, which brings us to one of my key observations....
I have always been told by book and "expert" acquaintance, both, that red wrigglers must be imported. They simply aren't supposed to exist in most of the natural world. My experience coincides with the maxim, "if you build it, they will come". I recall my first few compost piles. They were simple affairs containing mostly manure and sawdust. Digging around them and in the older piles always produced ample dew worm and smaller fellows for fishing, but the wrigglers didn't show up right away. It was after I had built the concrete bays against the house and fed those bays a steady diet of manure, sawdust, grass clippings and then kitchen waste that I got my big surprise. Sure, I knew the piles were there, but I wasn't in the habit of giving them or what went on inside them a great deal of thought. Compost was, well, compost. I remember well the day. There was a fresh supply of garden waste, both fruit and vegetable, thrown out on the piles. It had been sitting, uncovered, for a week or so. I went out to the piles to scratch around for no particular reason and upon turning over that fresh fare was shocked at the large wriggling ball of voraciously dining red wrigglers.
They came, seemingly out of nowhere, and they came by the hundreds of thousands.
Over the next few years, as I spread the piles on the gardens and fields, I would monitor the worm populations. At first, turning over the occasional clod or leaf would reveal a worm or two, but they would be few and seemingly far between. Just this last late summer, after the digging of the potatoes, I walked through the patch to see the few straggler spuds that the rains had turned up, and they were in the middle stages of rotting due to the excessive moisture. I kicked one of them over for no reason and was shocked again to find another surprise. If I cupped both my hands, I could not have held the number of red wrigglers that were feeding beneath just one, tennis-ball-sized, rotting potato. They are now evident in the bare, fall soil; even more so under the residual grass and wood chip mulches; but most of all under the watermelons still huddled out there in the corner of where the patch was this summer. There is a veritable wriggling explosion every time we pick up one of those grossly overripe melons to take to the chickens.
The regular worm activity in the compost piles by the house has also increased steadily, though said activity waxes and wanes with the seasons and with the level of decomposition that each pile is currently undergoing.
There is one pile that is composed of the late summer/early fall garden waste, topped with two feet of wet leaves for insulation, in which we routinely bury the contents of the sawdust toilet. That pile is warm just to hold my hand over without digging, and there are wrigglers scattered throughout it's warm and nitrogen-rich outer six inch layer. Deeper than that it is too hot for them. The pile at the opposite end of the three bay structure was completely decomposed, but rather than spreading it this fall (due to excessively muddy conditions for accessing the pile) I decided to keep adding to it. There is finished black beneath, where can be found the occasional wriggler. But, as in the garden, where there is fresh food, currently cabbage leaves, jalapeno and sweet peppers, tomatillas, egg shells, and etc. there is a wriggling ball lying just beneath.
Now, maybe some of those more skeptical authors only had a worm or two working for them. Maybe they were stingy with the groceries and the worms were on strike..... I really can't imagine why else. But by the sheer number of worms that are evident here I KNOW that they are breaking down the material I give them as fast or faster than the microbes, themselves.
They are spreading their rich enzymes throughout both compost pile and garden. Their dead bodies are contributing nitrogen to the more carbon-rich piles. They are one of the happiest worm populations on the planet and they serve the organic needs here with devotedly reckless abandon.
Now IF I were "trapped" in town with limited space and resources, I would definitely have an array of plastic tubs or barrels in my basement to feed and house as large a worm population as I could sustain, if for no other reason than to watch the kitchen waste melt into the bedding pack basically overnight, and to be able to run my hands regularly through the mess to enjoy the fellowship with all those wriggling and slimy little buddies. I really enjoy watching them, knowing what they are doing for the soil. I would regularly, and in season, facilitate the transfer of a few hands full at a time from breeding/feeding ground to garden. They are the quietest and least intrusive breed of livestock and I've yet to have a neighbor call because they are through the fence eating his corn......

See next post......

 

[Samuel Adams]

“A few thoughts that I've had since beginning these articles have come to me.
They will likely be found scattered and some may be redundant with what has already been written, but I'll share them as they come to me, all the same.

Always err in your C/N ratio in favor of carbon.
Carbon will always draw nitrogen to itself from the land and atmosphere surrounding. Too much nitrogen will lock up decomposition and putrify.

Your compost pile should be your first consideration for homestead waste disposal. If the worms or microbes will eat it, feed it to them. It the material is offensive, cover it with carbon. The worms will appreciate the resultant privacy as you will the lack of odor. Of course, less offensive and higher grade wastes might be better given to the chickens, pigs or other suitable feeders.

A word about chickens..... if you possess a particularly abundant supply of worms, and a particularly hard heart, and your compost piles are suitably bordered to avoid overt scattering of the contents, consider letting your chickens have the run of the pile every few days or so. The protein in the worms will make delicious and abundant eggs, and the scratching around does wonders for the pile as well as the birds' trace mineral needs.

Employ gravity efficiently. Everything on the homestead, whether it be fresh water, grey water or the slurry from a wet compost pile, flows down hill.
Locate the house below the spring, the compost pile below the house, the gardens below the compost piles. Let the rains work thereby for you, rather than against.

If the growing size of your compost operation takes on a life of its own, you will eventually witness a quantity of black liquid seeping from its downhill side. That liquid should be, at worst, seeping into the garden, and at best be contained and reintroduced to the upper layers of the compost pile. The liquid is extremely rich in nitrogen, trace minerals and enzymes and wasting it is a sin.
Dilute the stuff with water for a great compost tea.....

Build at least two piles in close proximity, and three if you are able.
Be constantly building the one, aging the next, and drawing off the finished latter of the three. Add a little finished compost to each layer of new. A shovel full every now and then is enough. That ensures adequate biological activity from the start.

A pile of pure carbon, i.e.sawdust, wood chips, old straw, dry leaves or grass clippings etc. can be converted to a full blown compost with the addition of animal urine, compost tea, the occasional dead animal, and immediate contact with already fertile soil. Allow it a little more time and watch the color over time. Black, nearly odorless and grainy at the finish is the key.
Finished compost consists largely of the dead accumulation of microbe bodies, hence the lack of evidence of the finished material's original components. They literally eat the raw material and die, adding, as do the worms, certain ezymic activity and trace minerals in the process.

Do not hesitate to add any of the normally taboo items to your compost pile, be they meat, pet wastes, fats, food grade oils, etc. so long as the pile is of sufficient size and balance to heat for several weeks or longer. A pile the size of two ample pickup loads would be an adequate minimum.

For those who may believe themselves to be in too short a supply of organic matter to undertake composting, never underestimate the value of weeds.
Most of the gardeners I know have a ten to one ratio of weeds to intended crops, by weight and volume. Those weeds are begging to be profitably employed in some manner or another. Before they seed, they make great on-the-spot mulch. During and after seeding, they make great chicken feed for penned up birds, as well as a great base to the best of compost piles. Use them as green as possible for their higher nitrogen content. Layer them with other dry carbons and occasional animal wastes, grass clippings and the like. Every weed brings to the table a different trace mineral package. Volumes have been written about what the presence and condition of various weeds in your soil might be trying to tell you.

The stinging nettle (urtica), for many and sometimes mysterious reasons, is an excellent addition to the compost pile, as well as highly nutritious potherb and tea, as well as most benevolent to soil and living vegetable companion plant. If it volunteers in the garden, let it grow and harvest it sparingly as you have need. It benefits everything around it except for your bare skin, and there has been much written that suggests that it may well be of high value there, as well....

If you live in drier climates, or if you are very frugal with your household water use, or if your compost piles are larger than average, you might consider employing your microbes and the carbon sponge of the compost material to soak up and filter your grey water. In wetter climates, all other criteria being equal, consider tarping the pile and using grey water exclusively for its irrigation. Reference Joseph Jenkins "Humanure Handbook" for all of the practical and bureaucratic details. You might be surprised what his research has done to pave the way for a more exploratorily permissive approach to the residential handling of grey water.
If I haven't mentioned his book, previously, I highly, highly, highly recommend it now.

For the hardcore, I will conclude with two more reading recommendations.
There is a pair of researcher/authors from the late 60's/ early 70s who have individually and collectively put out some very interesting reading.
They are Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird.
The two books I am recommending are "The Secret Life of Plants", and "Secrets of the Soil".

I was first introduced to the former by a very mysterious gift in late '04.
It didn't take me long to order my own copy of the latter.
At the time, I was dubious about the content of "Plants".
I mean, how many types of books about plants could there be ?

That book more than doubled my knowledge base and awareness of the natural world around me, period. You will lose most of your remaining blissful ignorance of a great many truths upon it's thorough digestion.”

 

[packyderms_wife]

I have a couple of huge tubs of pinecones, for crafting. I've decided I don't want them anymore, save a few I'll put into a half gallon jar for decoration purposes (can be used as a still life for drawing, etc.), can I put them in my compost pile? They've got to be going on 20 plus years now. I know some people use them as fire starters for their wood stoves, etc. but wasn't sure if they were compostable or not.

 

[summerthyme]

I have a couple of huge tubs of pinecones, for crafting. I've decided I don't want them anymore, save a few I'll put into a half gallon jar for decoration purposes (can be used as a still life for drawing, etc.), can I put them in my compost pile? They've got to be going on 20 plus years now. I know some people use them as fire starters for their wood stoves, etc. but wasn't sure if they were compostable or not.

Sure...

Summerthyme

 

[packyderms_wife]

Sure...

Summerthyme

thanks!

 

[Samuel Adams]

Pinecones will take a little time to break down, but they will compost.

I do use mine to make a quick, hot fire in the early morning wood stove, to boil coffee.

 

[Murt]

just a word of caution concern manures --especially horse manure---if they were fed hay that was treated with graze-on or any other broad leaf herbicide the manure that they produce may be harmful to a garden

I use some chicken manure and a good bit of rabbit manure when I can get it
and I have a HUGE pile of shreaded wood and some wood chips that have been sitting for 2 -4 years
like many here my ground was red Georgia clay 4 years ago and today it is a wonderful soft loamy soil that the worms are returning to
I was told that I needed to grow the dirt in order to grow the plants

 

[Marie]

From a half century composter with centuries of knowledge behind me. Bravo

 

[Samuel Adams]

From a half century composter with centuries of knowledge behind me. Bravo

Oh yeah ?


You should see what happens when I write about stuff I’m passionate about.....

 

[Freeholder]

Oh yeah ?


You should see what happens when I write about stuff I’m passionate about.....

Sam, with the caveat about the hay and straw treated with herbicides (and manure from livestock fed on the same), have you thought about putting all of this into a small book and publishing it on Amazon? You might make a few bucks, and readers would learn a few things -- and be entertained!

Kathleen

 

[Samuel Adams]

Entertained ?


ENTERTAINED ??!!!!


So now it’s all about the comic relief value in the kid with the lisp.


I see.

 

[Freeholder]

LOL! Well, *I* enjoyed reading it!

Seriously, though, it's a gift to be able to write non-fiction in an entertaining way, so people will enjoy reading while at the same time they are learning something.

Kathleen

 

[Samuel Adams]

The folks on the other site were regularly pestering me about writing a book, as well.

I do bow my head, graciously, at the honor.


But......the first book I would have to write, were I to go to authoring would be....

“On the Gravity of God’s Most Honoring Gift to Man”;

subtitled

“Life With the Rarest Among Women, Perfect in Mind, Character, Body and Soul”


The preface would be 100 pages, and that not nearly enough to prepare the reader for the depth of my experience.


Then I’d write one about my childhood, from my earliest recollected youth....until the day I met her.

Don’t know what I’d call that one, just yet.....

Then there would be those intensely excruciating to beyond otherworldly “dating” years....

That’d be a title to remember....


Then one on the mental and practical process of conversion from rather typical American upbringing to off grid, Constitutional outlaw......



THEN I could, of good conscience, begin the practical, hands-on self reliance series, of which composting would be among the top priorities.


See why I have yet to, uh....begin writing, formally ?

 

[Samuel Adams]

Here is the thread that started it all.

Back when I initiated, the site was non-commercial and otherwise fantastic to work with.

Forgive any overt advertising attempts.

A lot of my own history is contained in this thread.

Extreme Composting

www.homesteadingtoday.com

 

[ejagno]

Currently seeking about 100 yards of composting material to till into this awful clay that was used to elevate my property 3' to meet the new parish ordinances before we could rebuild our home. My once beautiful black gold is now horrible slimy and nasty clay. I'm going to purchase cinder blocks tomorrow to at least get some raised beds going at the back of the property.

 

[Samuel Adams]

You have my sympathies, E.

Is your area somewhat flood-prone that there was such a requirement ?

 

[Samuel Adams]

warning/disclaimer: This is a resurrected thread from centuries past…..


COMPOST !!!

It’s that time of year.

(see OP)

 

[Wildwood]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around. Thanks for resurrecting it!

I use to hang out on that forum a lot back in the day. I still say they have the best animal husbandry forums out there.