Greasemonkey's Compost Pile

greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
MustangStudFarm said:
I feel silly that I had to google legumes!... I put a couple of bags of dried beans into my worm bin last week, and they started sprouting like crazy!
View attachment 3643801

Right, I gotcha about being outdoor.
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google nitrogen fixing legumes for a mindblowing explanation..
when I first heard about legumes fixing nitrogen from the AIR I thought that was total bullshit
 
MustangStudFarm

MustangStudFarm

Well-Known Member
greasemonkeymann said:
google nitrogen fixing legumes for a mindblowing explanation..
when I first heard about legumes fixing nitrogen from the AIR I thought that was total bullshit
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Here is a little read that I found. I didnt know that alfalfa fell into this category!

Some legumes are better at fixing nitrogen than others. Common beans are poor fixers (less than 50 lb N per acre) and fix less than their nitrogen needs.

Perennial and forage legumes, such as alfalfa, sweet clover, true clovers, and vetches, may fix 250–500 lb of nitrogen per acre. Like the grain legumes previously discussed, they are not normally fertilized with nitrogen.

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/A129/
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
MustangStudFarm said:
How long does it take for the compost to finish? I think that I started mine at the same time that you did and we are the same latitude, 85F for the last couple of days now...
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heh... well...
my pile is FUCKED... I rebuilt it, so to speak, but the HUGE CA storms totally soaked the bottom of my pile, had a big mudslid that slid into it, I turned the entire pile all the way down to the bottom and the bottom layer of leaves were SOAKED and not composted in the slightest, I fact they still had color, to put that in perspective, the top half of the leaf pile is 70% don, just the lignin in the leaf stems are left.
but the bottom?
they look as new as the day I collected them.
added alfalfa, added treelog chunks, added manure
got it toasty steamin again
annnnd it gonns fuckin rain again this week... and right now it's damn near 90deg out
 
Yodaweed

Yodaweed

Well-Known Member
greasemonkeymann said:
heh... well...
my pile is FUCKED... I rebuilt it, so to speak, but the HUGE CA storms totally soaked the bottom of my pile, had a big mudslid that slid into it, I turned the entire pile all the way down to the bottom and the bottom layer of leaves were SOAKED and not composted in the slightest, I fact they still had color, to put that in perspective, the top half of the leaf pile is 70% don, just the lignin in the leaf stems are left.
but the bottom?
they look as new as the day I collected them.
added alfalfa, added treelog chunks, added manure
got it toasty steamin again
annnnd it gonns fuckin rain again this week... and right now it's damn near 90deg out
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At least you get rain, we just had a freaking dust storm here, I might got eye damage from getting dust on my eyes all day outside yesterday. Colorado weather SUCKS my compost pile keeps drying out.
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
Yodaweed said:
At least you get rain, we just had a freaking dust storm here, I might got eye damage from getting dust on my eyes all day outside yesterday. Colorado weather SUCKS my compost pile keeps drying out.
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add those wood chunks to it, tarp it, and chuck five rocks on it, one at each corner and one in the middle.
we get 100+ temps in the summer here, and that will keep the pile nice and moist
 
MustangStudFarm

MustangStudFarm

Well-Known Member
Yodaweed said:
At least you get rain, we just had a freaking dust storm here, I might got eye damage from getting dust on my eyes all day outside yesterday. Colorado weather SUCKS my compost pile keeps drying out.
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I have the same problem, it keeps drying out! I have been collecting my R/O runoff in a kiddie pool and I have been using it to water my outdoor stuff. Hell, I have been mixing half R/O runoff to clean R/O for my indoor. I hope that it dont F anything up by using it???
 
shaft09

shaft09

Well-Known Member
I think I finally got the worm bin dialed in. Had been wanting to see a mass of worms feeding like I've seen in some videos and finally got to see for myself today.

I did the bin over Saturday. Took everything out and laid a bed of coir down since I had some that I was separating from some perlite after soaking. Just let it set in a container until it settled to the bottom after a couple days. Scooped out the perlite and drained the coir through two strainers, one fine and the second finer still.

Put more drainage holes in the bottom of the worm bin and enlarged all the air holes that were already there around the sides and the top cover. Took the bin back inside and put the castings and worms back. Castings were too wet to try and harvest for me, so it all went back in. Couldn't believe how many baby bags ( cocoons)were in there. Didn't give anymore food until last night, then I covered it with a shoe box top opened up.

Checked it about 30 minutes ago and those little sum botches were having a feeding frenzy!

Thanks to greasemonkeyman and MustangStudFarm for the tips on contsruction and feeding, really helped out a lot.

Now if I could just get this compost bin the way I want it....... Lol.
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
shaft09 said:
When you add grass clippings to yer pile do you let them dry out first or freshy?
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yea sorry, I didn't know you were asking me a question, and as you probably have found out, fresh is better.
fresh is better for all the compost stuff in fact, leaves (higher in NPK when composted fresh), alfalfa, grass, etc.
also works out because it's already somewhat moist too
grass clipping are really effective to use as a "green" in between the leaves
 
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