My pile is made up of kitchen waste and yard clippings. I haul my kitchen waste to the pile once a week in a 5 gallon bucket (kept just outside the back door). I put grass clippings on the pile whenever I use the push mower (with bag attachment). I've been getting lazy and using a riding mower more often.

I would like to see pictures of other peoples compost piles. (sounds a bit naughty, doesn't it?)

__
my little monster (compost pile) sitting outside my garden area.

I wish I could get some "garden helpers". My grandmother is afraid they will stink plus my city "outlawed" them :-(

Compost being removed - the outer border is not ready, so it gets tossed into the bottom of the new bin, as does any large lump of compost that makes it through the sifter.

and compost sifter, Three scrap bicycle rims, some scrap lumber, and about 6 feet of 1/2 inch hardware cloth, and some teensy wheels.

OH ... I grow stuff in them too.

I also like how your growing in the actual compost pile. I had a couple of "volunteer" tomato plants grow out of my compost pile this year and I decided to let one of them grow. It's outside my fenced garden area, so my little dogs will probably eat all the tomatoes.

Management:


Show more

Life is so much easier with a front end loader!

I compost horse manure and pine stall bedding. Stall leavings are dumped from a wheelbarrow into a small utility trailer beside the barn, then once a week I move the trailer to a big pile in my composting area. Every few months I start a new pile.

I know I should have included something to give scale to the pile, the fence behind is six feet tall, the pile is five feet tall, freshly turned.

That's one reason I'm considering some sort of containment. I guess all the good nutrients oozing out of the compost pile is encouraging growth around the edges.

I'm thinking either a "panel bin" (as pictured above by lazygardens or a couple of pallet bins (no pictures of one of those yet.)

Stuff does fall out of the sides, especially if the thrashers and towhees and quail start digging, but I rake it up and toss it back on top. If you wanted to have a tidier bin, an outer wrap of chickenwire would work.

The tomatoes are growing in a layer of 50/50 garden dirt and compost from another bin. I made a shallow saucer, lined it with newspaper and filled it with the mix, then planted tomatoes. A 1/4 in soaker line looped into the planters to keep the plants happy, and the water also speeds up the composting process.

After the tomatoes freeze in the fall, I either rip the heap apart or toss a bunch more stuff on it ... depends on how much is sank over the summer.

The heaps are casual - I toss all the kitchen scraps, occasional dead pigeons, dry leaves, weeds, and what little grass clippings we produce. Old plants too ... the bean vines, queen's wreath, etc. If we're shredding stuff, it usually ends up as mulch, not compost.

I love your harvester...and the fact that it's made from reclaimed materials. Is it possible for a compost harvester to be sexy? Clearly, the answer is yes.

Piles #2 and 3 by the garage

I think your sifter is brilliant.

I also like your general approach I'm picking up on. If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is the father.

thanks
..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6PfMUzAGyU

Rob

thanks
..

I sift to get out the big chunks of things that aren't decomposed yet: pine cones, twigs, etc.

What I use in the garden is about half-done because it lasts longer in our climate. And I'm not intimidated by the rules of compost making.

Tropical thought, do the cats help the compost process? I find they only think they help.
..

Here's a closeup of the bins, and their contents:

And here's the garden, almost in its entirety, with the bins off to the left:

Lloyd

nice instructions Lazygardens! I hadn't screened my compost before, maybe that explains why I have so many volunteer tomato and watermelon plants this year :)
========================

Maybe, but I suspect your pile isn't getting hot enough to kill the seeds (most seeds will find their way through all but the smallest sifters).

FWIW, every year I get some volunteer plants. I often will let them go. Guess I have a soft spot.

Lloyd

Haven't posted pics because I think darn near everyone has seen my pics already. :-)

Lloyd

I'd post a pic but I'm too lazy to figure out how to post a pic using this 1970's-era sire :-)

Then if you're really bored, these.

Lloyd

Lloyd - it could actually be the squirrels chewing the holes through my bins, right? And not anything else, right? It is squirrels, right? Please tell me that it is only squirrels that are going after my compost.

I grow wheat. If it ain't wheat it's a weed. :-(

I take anywhere between 350-500 metric tonnes of yard trimmings each year and rotate the application between three fields. Some I use to make actual compost but 80-90% is applied directly to a fallow field.

Carrie...I had a squirrel chew a really nice hole in a large rubbermaid container I had bird feed in. It was an incredibly perfect round hole up near the top of a three foot container. How the heck he hung over the edge of the lid to do it is beyond me. I hate squirrels almost as much as I hate rats.

Lloyd

I don't worry about killing weed seeds with a hot compost pile. I just run a scuffle hoe over them after they sprout.

Older pile that I ran over with the lawn mower a few times and turned:

The straw was free after Halloween from craigslist.

Heres mine. Just a box now in the back of the yard.