Quote:
Originally Posted by 709
Do you just pile them or have the roller thingy? I've been looking at getting a small roller for my veggie waste and egg shell whatnots, just enough to feed the trees/beds on my city lot and the plants inside.
Growing up, my grandpa would always make me flip the leaf piles for his gardens... so gross.  There was every number of creepy and oozy in that shit, but flipped it was. |
I put them in a "holding pile" for the winter (a space about 8' x 14'. Then, come spring, I begin adding them to my 3-bin compost. Working pile, resting pile, and finished pile. The finished pile gets screened (1/2" screen) and then put into a storage bin or directly into the garden.
The roller things can get really messy, especially with wet ingredients. They're fine for small spaces. Just make sure you add dry ingredients. A well maintained compost "decomposes", it does not "rot". Rotting makes a tremendous stink. Composting smells "earthy".
The likely reason your grandpa's pile was "oozy" and "creepy" is that it was too wet, which causes rot and attracts the wrong kind of critters. A good pile should be like a damp sponge (not a wet sponge). Kitchen waste should be stirred into the pile, not just dumped on top to rot. Lots of leaves, add some grass clippings, and keep the pile moving. Always stir in wet materials, and only stir the top 6" or so. If you have the right moisture level, the deeper stuff will cook and steam and you want that. Once the working pile is full, I rotate it into the resting pile, add some water, and stir it up good. It will heat up and finish the process. Once that is done, I rotate it over to the finished pile. Add no water, but break it up and fluff it good. Then let it sit for a few weeks before screening it.