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Post by woodeye on Jul 30, 2022 16:39:49 GMT -6
It would definitely be better to have a helping hand, I agree with you 100%, chrysanthemum. The 37 gallon composter was delivered just a few minutes ago, I'll start on it first and see how it goes. I hope to have it loaded sometime tomorrow. I've got plenty of material to load it up with, that's for sure...
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Post by woodeye on Jul 31, 2022 8:35:41 GMT -6
Was ready to barge out the door and start putting the composter together this morning, but it was raining! Have not said this for ages seems like, "I'm in the midst of a rain delay". Yay!!
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Compost
Aug 1, 2022 10:36:52 GMT -6
Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 1, 2022 10:36:52 GMT -6
I’m still praying for a rain delay down here. I’m glad you got one.
I will admit that the last building project my family did, we did on top of a drop cloth in our family room. It was building a PVC reel to roll up a leaf net that goes over our swimming pool. It wasn’t a hard project, but it was just too hot to be outside in the evening. We needed to be inside in the air conditioning.
I could totally see myself building a composter inside as long as it wasn’t too big to go out through the doorway.
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Compost
Aug 1, 2022 11:31:05 GMT -6
Post by woodeye on Aug 1, 2022 11:31:05 GMT -6
Ended up getting about 0.60" of rain yesterday, so my July total was about 1.80". I sure hope you get some rain soon, chrysanthemum. And of course cooler temps would no doubt help matters.
I may put some parts of the biggest composter together here inside the house. I can't put it entirely together in here because of a chest freezer that's in the way going out to the garage. I can't move the freezer without unloading it, so I'll just make do somehow...
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Post by woodeye on Aug 1, 2022 14:19:57 GMT -6
Got the 37 gallon composter together today. I did not put the divider in it because I'll have 2 composters running all the time anyway. It was easy, I never had to get out of chair at all during the build. Took about an hour to do. So that's one easy one down, and one bigger & not so easy one to go...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 2, 2022 13:06:38 GMT -6
That looks great, Woodeye, and I like the fact that you were able to leave out the divider to give you a bigger second tumbler. I actually took my camera outside a little bit ago because I was emptying the kitchen compost bucket, and I thought I’d show you some pictures of our system. I don’t claim to be a compost expert or anything, but we manage. Here’s where we keep our tumblers. It’s outside of our garage beside our driveway, so it’s convenient for me to take kitchen scraps out there. It’s also on the same side of the house as the garden, and there’s a gate from the backyard where we can haul out leaves or grass clippings on the rare occasions that we have those. The little metal bucket sitting on top of the closed composter is what we use to hold our kitchen scraps under the sink. This is the tumbler that we just recently emptied and have started filling again. We need to add shredded leaves to it as we have lots of those that need cleaning up, but we haven’t gotten to it yet. We fill our composters pretty slowly. This is the compost that is finishing up now. I added the cottonseed meal and alfalfa pellets to this just a few days ago, and that gave it the boost it needed. I’m also experimenting with adding some unused kitty litter into my garden soil (it’s made up of mostly zeolite granules and some bentonite clay, and I can buy it super cheap at the local grocery), and I put about five pounds of it into this bin to see if I could sort of pre-charge the zeolite with moisture and nutrients. I’m not recommending that as a normal procedure, but I think I need more moisture retention in my raised beds, so I’m just explaining the white granules that you may notice in there. Some of it could also be eggshells. We compost lots of those.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 2, 2022 14:23:39 GMT -6
That compost is beautiful!
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Post by woodeye on Aug 2, 2022 15:08:56 GMT -6
chrysanthemum It helps me tremendously to see your composters setup! Your place, trees, etc., looks just like mine here, love it! Your compost looks so good, that is what I am aiming for, exactly. Thank you so much for posting this!
When you wrote about your stainless steel kitchen scrap container, I looked around for one of those. I found this one, it's in my kitchen now and almost full of scraps already. It looks just about like the one you have...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 2, 2022 17:29:27 GMT -6
woodeye, glad it was helpful to you. heavyhitterokra , I have to say I feel like I have somehow arrived to get a compliment from you on my composting efforts. I think that all you do for your soil (and the scale on which you do it) is just amazing.
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Compost
Aug 8, 2022 12:59:49 GMT -6
Post by hmoosek on Aug 8, 2022 12:59:49 GMT -6
woodeyewhere did ya get the stainless doohickey?
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 8, 2022 13:21:13 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum, and anyone else doing composting.
It doesn't take much more effort to compost a ton of stuff than it does to compost 50 pounds. The same dedication and determination applies in both cases. I'd say "You have arrived." That compost looks amazing! I just want to run my hands through it!
I have a book here on composting, written by Charles Wilber, when he was in his eighties. The title is, "How to Grow World Record Tomatoes." It sells for about $15.00 on Amazon and is well worth the price. I've referenced and re-read that book several times over the years. It's amazing what a person can do with good, healthy soil. Some good weather would be nice too, but I guess we can't have everything.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 8, 2022 16:55:33 GMT -6
woodeye where did ya get the stainless doohickey? hmoosek I got it from Amazon. I might could have beaten the price someplace else, but I have Amazon Prime already, so just got it there. By the way, it works great. One of the reviewers showed pictures of how he inserted paper towels inside of it first, then inserted a plastic bag. It makes the lid fit a tiny bit tighter. I did that and had scraps in it for several days, zero gnats in the house...
www.amazon.com/dp/B00AMNCYNQ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
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Post by hmoosek on Aug 8, 2022 17:03:42 GMT -6
Thanks!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 8, 2022 17:51:11 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum, and anyone else doing composting. It doesn't take much more effort to compost a ton of stuff than it does to compost 50 pounds. The same dedication and determination applies in both cases. I'd say " You have arrived." That compost looks amazing! I just want to run my hands through it! I have a book here on composting, written by Charles Wilber, when he was in his eighties. The title is, "How to Grow World Record Tomatoes." It sells for about $15.00 on Amazon and is well worth the price. I've referenced and re-read that book several times over the years. It's amazing what a person can do with good, healthy soil. Some good weather would be nice too, but I guess we can't have everything. I’ve been keeping an eye out at the used book store for a copy of that book ever since you mentioned it. I might have to break down and order it. My compost is still cooking. It still heats up just a bit, but I’m thinking that it might be done by the end of the month. I have plans to use it around my rhubarb (which I think deserves a party because it has survived into August in record-breaking heat in Texas) and my second planting of Glass Gem corn. (I pulled up my first little tiny planting the other day because they were tasseled but had no ears.). It’s such a small amount of compost, but I think it will benefit those plants. Our big challenge down here is nitrogen inputs. We’ve got tons of carbon, but nitrogen is harder. My husband and pulled up lots of Nandina sprouts the other day from bushes we took out when we first moved here. We put all of that as well as some shredded privet into our new compost bin (new compost, not a new bin).
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Post by woodeye on Aug 8, 2022 20:11:32 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum, and anyone else doing composting. It doesn't take much more effort to compost a ton of stuff than it does to compost 50 pounds. The same dedication and determination applies in both cases. I'd say " You have arrived." That compost looks amazing! I just want to run my hands through it! I have a book here on composting, written by Charles Wilber, when he was in his eighties. The title is, "How to Grow World Record Tomatoes." It sells for about $15.00 on Amazon and is well worth the price. I've referenced and re-read that book several times over the years. It's amazing what a person can do with good, healthy soil. Some good weather would be nice too, but I guess we can't have everything. I'm reading the e-book right now. I thought about ordering the paperback edition, but since Kindle is a free app and I can read it on my laptop, I just got the kindle version for $6.99...
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