Why I Oughta...

The last time that I showed the state of our two compost bins in the far back of our yard was back in early November when I had just topped the bins with their final collection of grass and leaves.  You can see that post here .  Below, you can see the current (this week) state of the bins after a Winter of snow and compaction.   On the left is a browns-only bin.  And on the right is a mixed bin with some passive aeration pipes inserted in a couple of spots. Not a TON of compaction, is there?  The temperatures are really working against any active decomposition during the Winter, so gravity is what is mostly at play.  The bin on the right had some compaction - and was aided by that log on top.  One of the things I'll get to this Spring is doing a full-turn on both bins and working in more of the browns from the right to get a 'cooking' bin set up for success this Summer.   I suppose, I should include in my 2022 to-do list an item on compost.  I think the right goal is to pu

These are the days for filling up our compost bins.  Each Fall, the leaves in our yard drop all of their annual leaves and I use the mower to mulch them up and pick A LOT of them up off the grass .  My process is actually a little nuanced in terms of mulching vs. bagging.  I use my Ego leaf blower to clean out the beds and push all the leaves to the middle of the yard on the grass.  From there, I use my mower - with the bag attached - set to the lowest level to begin to mulch-up and vacuum all the leaves.   However, I don't immediately clear the mower bag once it is full.  If you've done this (like I do), you know when the bag is full because you start to see dust and little leaf parts flying around because there's no place for them to get ejected into the bag, so they kind of fly out the sides.  I'm doing that on purpose - so I leave a little bit of leaf litter (mulched up, mind you) behind on the lawn to feed the soil. But, after doing that for a couple of passes, I e

A week ago, I posted some photos and talked about the new (to me) process of laying in some 'alfalfa cube soup' in my active compost bin as I turned it over and mixed the browns and greens.  That layering of the material that I've collected since last Fall in the one, active bin, came after I had turned over the top of the active bin and removed all the (mostly) black gold from the bottom a week prior .  We're still in the heat of Summer - with air temperatures in the 80's and 90's around here, so it is prime compost decomposition time and 'active' time in our bin.   I have measured the temperature of my bins before - earlier this Summer, I was seeing temperatures of the pile above the air temperature, but only in the 'steady' category .  Somewhere between 80 degrees and 90 degrees.  I posted a photo of my long-stem compost thermometer here back in July showing right around 90 degrees .    Where are we after the alfalfa soup and turning the pile

Over the weekend, I posted a couple of photos that showed the latest turn in our two-bin and one tumbler compost setup in our backyard .  Since last Summer, I had one bin (the one on the right as you face it) in 'cooking' mode.  That one has some pvc pipes installed for passive aeration and was (mostly) the right mix of greens and browns.  The second bin (on the left) has been my storage, inactive bin.  I almost everything in there that I had collected since last Fall.  That means, once the bin on the right was full of the final grass and leaves combo from early Fall, I started to put in everything on the left. In the post from a few days ago , I showed how I had emptied out the active bin and took the (mostly) finished compost and moved it to my tumbler for a final few months of cooking.  My plan is use that compost come Spring time and will use the rest of the Summer and Fall to get it finished.  I also took the rest of the (not quite finished) material from the active bin (t

The last time I posted about our compost bins was back in mid-July when I measured the temperature right at/below the 'cooking' zone .  Since then, we've had the hottest weather of the year and that means that we had some 'action' in our bins.  Below, you can see in the photo what our two-bin setup looks like right now.  On the right, an empty bin.  On the right, a (mostly) full bin.   Compare these with what the same thing looked like in May of this year when both bins were (mostly) full:  This photo above is from May of 2021. Where did all that material go?  Well...the good news is that the bottom of the bin on the right looked like this below: Lovely stuff.  Black gold?  Almost. But, no smell.  No mud.  Just kinda feels great in your hand.   Where did this stuff go?  Into our compost tumbler - to be finished for next Spring.  My plan now is to run a three-bin setup that uses two large storage bins and our tumbler for finishing.   Below, you can see in the photo w

I haven't turned my compost bins - nor added accelerator of any type - since last Fall when I piled in the leaves that fell on our lawn.  The good news (I suppose) is that with the air temps up in the 90's recently, the interior of the pile; even the part with the pvc aeration at the bottom , is up near 90 degrees in the lighter green 'steady' category.   I'm no compost expert, but I'm taking the 'steady' category as meaning that there is *some* level of decomposition going on, but, it isn't 'active' cooking.  Since I put these bins in the shade, I know that some effort is required to get the temps up above 100 degrees. Which leads me to my next steps:  I have a four-part project in the next few weeks.   First, I'll fork out the contents of both bins.   Second, I'll add some additional perforated pvc pipes for passive aearation. Third, I'll soak the Alfalfa Cubes and begin to layer things in. And fourth, I'll try to pile EVER