|
| Yesterday I used a new leaf blower/shredder that I just bought to totally fill both sides of my Mantis Compost-Twin with leaves. I added some high-nitrogen lawn fertilizer, and some used coffee grounds from StarBucks.
I measured the concrete and the tumbler contents temperature, as a baseline, with an IR thermometer. Today I measured the concrete in the 60s and the tumbler contents after cranking it around a few times in the 90s! It was very encouraging to have such a rapid temperature rise. Is this typical? I'm going to try to remember to check and record the temperatures daily to see how this goes. Any suggestions or whatever? Jim |
Follow-Up Postings:
|
- Posted by mustard_seeds 4 -Onalaska Wisconsi (My Page) on Wed, Nov 9, 11 at 20:25
| Did you add any water? Leaves and UCG are great. Probably do not need lawn fertilizer - there can be a lot of chemicals in those and when you wet it you may leach out a lot of the nitrogen to the area below your bin. Plenty of greens from kitchen and garden that can provide nitrogen I would bet. Sounds like you are on your way! |
|
| Any high Nitrogen fertilizer is going to be a synthetic, and therefore chemical, which is not necessarily a bad thing since even organic fertilizers are chemicals. How quickly any compost mix gets a rise in temperature depends on the C:N ratio, the moisture content, and the amount of air, since those aerobic bacteria need air to function. Too much moisture dispaces air and can cause the mix to not heat up. I would think that you have a good C:N ratio with about enough moisture and you should see the temperatures in that reach 135 to 145 in a couple of days. |
|
- Posted by JamesMarconnet 7 (My Page) on Thu, Nov 10, 11 at 7:17
| Thanks for those inputs and observations. This AM, after a cold night for sure, the concrete read 45 degrees and the compost read 75 degrees. I've been to StarBucks twice now. Once a walk-in in the evening. They dumped the several coffee pot used grounds into a bag. I'm guessing I got about 5 pounds. I asked them to save the grounds for me the next day. When I went in at 9 AM, they had about a half an office wastebasket of used grounds. I could comfortably carry it. I have no idea what it weighed. For some odd reason, this AM my compost tumbler smells like coffee grounds. In my case, I'm most interested in reaching maximum result with minimum effort and minimum expense. Going to StarBucks is great. But if I can use some of the lawn fertilizer that I bought an 18 pound bag of and save the gas and wear and tear on my pickup, then currently I'll vote with my feet for the fertilizer. I don't particularly care if some nitrogen escapes. I want the resultant compost for my vegetable and flower beds. In terms of the water, my tumbler seems to drain mostly from the middle where the two sides are joined together at the dividing wall. I keep a 50 pound laundry soap bucket on the ground under the middle. What drips out, I throw back in the tumbler. Or if there's lots dripped out, then this dark brown leachate goes into a flower bed. I'm encouraged to see a temperature rise above ambient and think that temperature difference, for now, is a meaningful data to collect to have a handle on whether my mixture is reasonable, etc. The next few days may tell me if more fertilizer is needed. Jim |
|
- Posted by tn_gardening (My Page) on Thu, Nov 10, 11 at 7:23
| I too have discovered that using coffee grounds is a great way to generate quick, heat in a compost pile. As far as using lawn fertilizer...guess I never thought of that. I simply put my grass clippings in there and toss in a few shovelfuls of some of the hot compost to serve as a starter for my new piles. |
|
- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Thu, Nov 10, 11 at 11:14
| If you are getting enough coffee grounds you may find you don't need the extra N from the fertilizer. The fertilizer shouldn't be a problem though. If it starts getting stinky it's telling you it is either too wet or has too much nitrogen. Other than that, rock on! |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Soil Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.