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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 22, 2022 19:35:12 GMT -6
Manure Hotline Update: I just got a text message from a friend in Seminole inviting me to a birthday party Saturday. Not my birthday, but that's fine. I'll be too busy with a wheelbarrow and shovel to do much partying anyhow. Lots of animals there, so manure for compost is my goal. Wish me luck, I'm going in... With all the discussion of “killer compost” and “killer manure” in recent days, I have to ask, “Is your friend sure, sure, sure that he hasn’t fed any hay with persistent herbicides in it to his animals? I will wish you luck, though. Good luck! I appreciated your pulling out those quotations from the compost publication. I think the more we come at this seeing the same information in different formats, the better it will stick. I checked my compost bin this morning before and after adding new materials (our scrap bucket needed emptying, and I had seen two more pokeweed plants yesterday that I cut out today when I had some pruning shears with me, as well as pulling horehound from our “way, way back” when my son wanted to go see the neighbor’s horses since their pasture runs along our fence down there). The temperature measured about 125 before I tumbled in the new stuff, but it rose a bit after the tumbling. I don’t think it was a rise from aeration in that case. I just think the bottom of the pile was warmer since it wasn’t exposed to the air, and it flipped to being the top of the pile. Whenever my piles heat up, they don’t seem to retain heat as long as described in the traditional compost publication. I think it’s because I’m working with a smaller volume of material in general, but it could also be that I need more nitrogen. That’s often the case, and it will come as we keep adding kitchen scraps. I don’t always check the temperature in my piles. I’ll do it from time to time, but it’s mostly just how it feels to be when I open the lid. I just figured if I was going to document adding a big load at one time, I’d try to be more thorough about it. The oven thermometer doesn’t reach very far down either, so I’m not sure it’s the best tool, but it’s the best I had available yesterday. I could tell today that the pile wasn’t giving off as much heat as it was yesterday, but I could also tell that it was hotter when I did tumble in the new materials. I didn’t check it this evening because we were having some thunder and rain. Hurray!
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Post by woodeye on Aug 22, 2022 20:29:50 GMT -6
Thank You, Chrysanthemum. I didn't ask about the hay they feed in the winter, I'll check it out more Saturday. When I was there last June they had plenty of pasture at that time and no need for hay, but there hasn't been any substantial rain since that time, so I don't know if they have fed any hay this summer. I hope not, but knowing them they probably have. But I will check with them about the source of the hay they feed in the wintertime. The days of consistently having a good chance for a decent garden every year like we did 50 years ago are days long gone seems like...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 23, 2022 1:25:59 GMT -6
I don't remember having any trouble at all with a garden 50 years ago, except for the weeds. Since I moved here in 2004, we've had three severe droughts, two grasshopper plagues, consitant, heavy squash bug invasions, two wildfires, numerous run-ins with hoards and hoards of blister beetles, two years of heavy Japanese Beetle damage, one year of fig beetle fruit massacre, a full-on armyworm invasion that stripped half my garden on their way to somewhere else, and more deer damage than you can shake a stick at ... and then, the 2,4-D cow manure thing. It's like all the forces of nature and beyond have joined forces to wipe out almost everything I try to do out here.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 23, 2022 6:03:30 GMT -6
I haven't had that many disastrous things happen here, but it seems like new calamities are being added at every turn I make, so unfortunately I'm probably catching up. It definitely is testing my ability to stay optimistic all the time, but I'll admit that it's getting tougher all the time to do so...
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Post by macmex on Aug 23, 2022 6:47:16 GMT -6
We hear so much about global warming but so very little about the wickedness of Mankind and its affect on this world. Biblically we know that Man was created to rule and manage the earth. It is tied to him for good or for evil.
“The earth mourns and fades away, The world languishes and fades away; The haughty people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, Because they have transgressed the laws, Changed the ordinance, Broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4-5
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” Romans 8:20-22
Modern Man and his theories about what's wrong with this world reminds me of an Indian (Asian Indian) anecdote about a man who lost his car keys one dark night. He called his neighbors and they all started combing the grass, looking for them. They were all crawling around unsuccessfully under a street light, looking for those keys. Finally someone asked him, "Are you sure you dropped them here?" To which he replied, "Oh, no, I was over there (points to a dark area of lawn). The neighbor then asked, "Why then, are you looking for them here?" He replied, "I am looking here because it's so much easier to look where it's light."
It's easier to look for the problem in external problems and the fault of fairly anonymous industrialists, etc. than to pin it to the rebelliousness of Man against his Creator.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 23, 2022 22:38:25 GMT -6
Very well said, George. You hit the nail squarely on the head!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 26, 2022 18:12:47 GMT -6
macmex , we have a tool that we bought early on when we moved to Texas called a “Puller Bear.” It’s like a large weed wrench, and it has been very useful to us in dealing with some of our invasive weeds like thistle and horehound to get them out by the roots. At the time that we bought it, the company offered to inscribe something on the shank for free. I believe our has “Romans 8:20-23” or verses that include those inscribed on it (not the verses themselves, just the reference). We thought that the creation being subjected to futility and groaning for redemption would be a good subject for meditation while pulling weeds. Back to compost, I’ve been adding kitchen scraps to my compost bin over the past few days, but today I took a bigger risk. One of my slicing cucumber vines has recently become infested by aphids. (I think they moved in when our weather stopped being over 100 degrees.). I tried one application of neem spray, and I could have tried another, but the aphids were migrating from the one vine to my second, and I wanted just to remove them from the area. I cut out portions of the healthier vine that had been colonized and removed the entire first vine (the on the left in the picture below). The cuttings filled a bucket about a foot high when they were packed in. I didn’t realize that you can’t see the cuttings in the bucket in my picture of the aphids, but they’re there. I chopped the leaves off the vine and cut the vine into smaller pieces with my pruning shears. I didn’t want to add the plant straight to my compost bin without taking steps to make sure that the aphids would not reproduce in there. The temperature has not been as high in recent days. It was measuring 102 today. I decided to see if I could kill two birds with one stone: kill the aphids and increase the temperature again in the pile.
I therefore pulled out my bag of neem meal and added a scoop full to my bucket. I mixed in about three gallons of air conditioner condensation water, stirred it up, poked the greens under the water, covered it up and left it for some hours. When my husband had a chance later in the day, he poured the contents into the compost bin, and I tumbled it and poke the greens into the middle. I’m hoping that it’s out there heating up again. I’ll try to check the temperature tomorrow and report whether there’s a rise or not.
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Compost
Aug 26, 2022 19:18:53 GMT -6
Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 26, 2022 19:18:53 GMT -6
That ough to do it!
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Post by woodeye on Aug 26, 2022 20:39:38 GMT -6
Looks like an excellent method to combat the problem chrysanthemum , and the photos of the steps are a big help...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 27, 2022 14:11:33 GMT -6
Good news and bad news about the compost.
The good news: I measured the temperature at about 120 this morning. I’ve read that that will take care of aphids (if I didn’t already drown them and poison them with neem).
The bad news: My compost is too wet. It’s not the slimy, stinky kind of wet that comes from too much nitrogen. It’s the too much water kind of too wet that comes from my having used three gallons of water to get all the cucumber leaves submerged and then having all that poured into a compost bin that wasn’t too dry to begin with.
Some of the water/neem mix/compost tea drained out yesterday afternoon and overnight. I have a little tiny “pond” liner that we used when we first moved here to raise tadpoles that we recused from an old swimming pool. (I wanted to clean up the swimming pool for my kids but didn’t want to kill the tadpoles, and there were way too many for our little aquarium.). I put that liner under the compost container to catch all that nutritious water that dripped out, and I poured it this morning on the corner of the garden bed where I transplanted a new cucumber and a couple dill plants. I put the liner back underneath but nothing much is dripping anymore. I am leaving the lid open right now to try things out a bit so that it doesn’t turn slimy and stinky.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 27, 2022 18:12:44 GMT -6
Okay, Thanks for the info, Chrysanthemum. I'm sure something similar this will happen to mine someday, so I'll try to remember your experience with it & use less water...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 30, 2022 20:25:16 GMT -6
I’ve been keeping the lid of the composter open to dry things out, and that has been helping. When the top gets dried a bit, I close the lid, tumble the composter a few times, then open it up and let the new top part dry some more. It seems to be helping. The compost is still heating, though I haven’t been measuring the temperature. It isn’t smelling bad, so I think I’ve avoided an anaerobic situation with all the tumbling.
I cut down a big part of my Seminole Pumpkin Vine today (the part that was growing above where a squash vine borer had done some pretty extensive damage). I used my hand pruners to cut the leaves off the stalk and to cut the stalk into smaller chunks, and I tumbled all that into the compost, too. I was going to get pictures, but it started sprinkling, so I closed the lid, tumbled it, and went inside. The sprinkles didn’t last, I’m afraid, but there are still no pictures.
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Compost
Aug 31, 2022 11:36:40 GMT -6
Post by woodeye on Aug 31, 2022 11:36:40 GMT -6
Sounds good. If it passed the smell test, I would think it's fine or at least well on it's way to being fine...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 31, 2022 18:51:08 GMT -6
It passes the smell test. I think it’s breaking down nicely, but it’s not so hot any more. Still noticeably warm, just not hot.
The compost in the other bin is looking good, too. It’s down to ambient temperatures now, not warmer at all. I spent some time poking through it today to pull out the occasional peach pit or bit of wood to toss in the other one. I might try to shovel the compost out into some buckets this weekend so that we can get more new materials into the second composter, too. I’m not sure I’ll get to that, though. We’ve got plenty of room in the one we just “filled,” and I can keep adding to it for some time to come.
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Compost
Sept 3, 2022 18:10:20 GMT -6
Post by chrysanthemum on Sept 3, 2022 18:10:20 GMT -6
This will be a rather lengthy post. Be warned. We emptied our mostly finished compost out of our first compost tumbler today. We’ve used some of it already in garden beds around plants, but we got five buckets full for future use. It could have stayed in the composter longer, but it will be fine in buckets, too, and I wanted the composter cleaned out so that I could put more stuff in it. A few weeks ago our pastor asked me if I could identify some problem weeds/trees that were growing outside our church building. There was a Mimosa that had been spreading by suckers and perhaps by seeds, and it was actually sending really long thick roots into a concrete pit of sorts. I’m not sure what’s down there. There’s some sort of metal cover over part of it, but part of it is open. I told him that I thought my husband and I could tackle the physical removal of the tree and various saplings, and we were able to accomplish that this morning with our “Puller Bear” tool (which has the reference Romans 8:20-25 on it—I checked today) and a good pair of loppers. We disposed of the roots and long woody stalks in the church’s garbage, but we brought home the soft green shoots and lots and lots of foliage in a contractor trash bag that filled a good half of the trunk of our small car. I think Mimosa is a legume, so I just couldn’t send all that nitrogen to the trash. It’s not kudzu, but maybe it will work like it. This afternoon we dumped the trash bag of foliage underneath one of our oak trees where there are a lots of leaves but not a lot of rocks, and my husband used the mower to chop it up. After that we took our trusty “Puller Bear” and our cart around our property and started pulling a weed that we’ve never known exactly what it is, but we’ve been told it’s invasive, and we should get rid of it. We’ve got plenty of work still to do on it, but we started getting some out that was growing right behind our backyard. My husband carried the Puller Bear and pulled the weeds, and I loaded them into the cart. We got a huge load of weeds in just that one small area. We had wanted to do more, but possible storms were rolling in, so we decided not to go back for a second load. We quickly chipped the weeds as best we could and added them to the compost tumbler (along with some more clean cat litter). We tumbled it in and will leave it alone for now since thunder started up.
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