Compost Making. Utterly Confused!!

[Ed]

Thanks Sherwin. That is very clear advice.

Ed

[JustTom]

Mine go thru the ultimate composters, chickens and pigs. Pity you can't find them for $19.95 on late night tv.

[Omelet]

Heh! I used to take that bucket out to the chicken yard when I had poultry! City ordinances changed over time and made it inconvenient to keep them any more.

No pigs allowed in the city limits.

[AZ Nomad]

No. Only in the drive through lines at fast food restaurants.

[Omelet]

And Wal-mart.

[debnchas]

Composting obviously doesn't have to complex or difficult. That being said, there is an excellent work on composting available on the web at:

[JustTom]

I just scored a copy of the original "Let it rot" in a homesteading lot I bought last week but haven't had a chance to thumb thru it yet.

I need some help with a fairly large vermicomposting bin design to process rabbitry waste, preserve the "liquid gold", and not kill my back.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Omelet]

I was at a rabbit farm once that built the composting "bins" out of wood right under the rabbit cages, and stocked them with worms. The worms did not look that healthy tho', kinda pale and slender.

That might work if it was managed properly to keep it from becoming too acidic.

[JustTom]

I;ve seen those, but I'm redesigning my barn to have the rabbits on the second floor and sliding the waste out of a drain to the bins outside. Most of the acidic urine will be washed out before making it to the bins, and they tend to stay away from the "hot corner" anyway.

I'm kind of thinking of something modular like the "can o worms" thing, only on a much larger scale.

I'd like it to be modular in design so that I could capture all of that lovely "liquid gold" the worm also produce. A little bit of that on the plants and they become very very happy.

I'd also like to easily remove a section of compost without killing my back, and allow stacking new modules as needed, just like the can o worms thing.

I currently basically just use the manure straight or diluted as manure tea, but I'd like the worms to refine it further for me.

[Omelet]

The worm castings are she on top of the soil (I gather them in my yard during the rainy season) in little piles. You can scoop them by hand. :-)

Coffee grounds make worms happy too, as does vegetable compost. :-)

Are there any vermiculture lists? I've not looked. My back yard is full of red worms so I've never had to box or buy them.

[Jan Flora]

Don't do that if you have black bears in the area. They'll find it and dig it up. My MIL could never figure out why she always had a bear in her yard...

I run my kitchen scraps through my hens, then use the end product in the garden.

Jan

[JustTom]

Not that I could find on usenet, but found a few on yahoo groups.

[Billy]

Note to self: check for black bears ;O)

[Billy]

but apparently not zucchini. I can only presume that the pH of the coffee grounds was to low. The zucks wilted in the late morning light.They are recovering now but aren't happy campers. I put the grounds right where the stem comes out of the ground. I've put coffee grounds in the lettuce patch in the past, with no reaction.

[Omelet]

Wow. I checked Giganews listings, and there is nothing specific for that.

I like Yahoo groups. I'm subbed to a few lists there.

[Omelet]

You are supposed to compost the coffee grounds first, preferably thru earthworms.

[Sheldon]

But those zukes will give a good buzz, even without D cells.

[Mike]

Just to see, I put some garbage with a little water into a plastic pail with lid and left it out in the sun. What I wound up with was a pail of rotting garbage that eventually started breeding crop destroying worms!

I finally doused the whole mess with Malathion and dumped it a dumpster.

[Omelet]

Only if cross-bred with San Pedro. ;-)

[Muddymike]

Scientific!!! Nah, I just pile everything in to a wire mesh frame until its over full, leave it until it drops to about half full, spread it on the garden. Works for me see;

one is about 8 ft square and has now been filled way over the top of the frame, and is now well on its way back down again all by itself. The other one is about quarter full, should take another 18 months to completely fill it. the only other thing I do is cover the full one with and old bit of carpet. I lifted a corner last weekend and there were loads of little red worms working away under it.

Yea I know, I even take pictures of the compost heap, if you rummage around you will even find the second one half empty.

Mike