compost without bin? + my first organic mix list

[bro54209]

hey guys I'm deciding to go organic anticipating superior quality and simplicity.
I was curious about compost left outside in a wire cage like trough, I've dumped food scraps their for almost a year, haven't mixed it and its been sitting under a tree.
Ive seen fancy ass bins at HD etc for 100 bucks but i figure i could use the cage or even a rubber maid. wouldn't picking up the scraps left on the ground possibly bring in pests/ be "dirty"?

planned organic mix#1 :
1.5cuft ffof
1 cf EWC
1 cf Peat moss
1cf chunky perlite
3 cups azomite
3 cups kelp meal
3 cups neem cakes?
3 cups fish bone meal
2 cups gypsum
1 cups alfalfa
1 cup epsoma plant tone?
1 cup green sand
1 cup local sand
15 TBLS dolomite lime (ffof has oyster)
5 TBLS Epsom salt
Some mychorriza white shark
humic acid?
guano??
rice hulls?(what about brown rice?)
betonite ( not likely to add)
chicken manure??
yucca wetting agent??
other rock dusts like : granite, phosphate, idk

ill mix soak to wrung out towel, then let sit in Rubbermaid for 4 weeks?
maybe a shit load or not idk any suggestions and comments welcomed, Thanks!
edit: anyone know any types of clay ammendments? i think clays make much more sense then blood/bone meal animal products

 

[VTMi'kmaq]

Id suggest you turn your compost once a or twice per season.

 

[VTMi'kmaq]

This guy is fun to watch

 

[Richard Drysift]

Rock dust or soft rock phosphate should be higher in your list. Sand is not needed and don't add in the white shark globally; sprinkle it in the hole directly touching the roots when you transplant. I don't use rice hills either in favor of perlite or pumice but that's just me. 2 cups seems like a lot of gypsum; I probably use about half that amount. I would also go lighter on the lime in favor of oyster flour which works much better in my experience. Pure humic acid is really good stuff and just a tiny bit will be beneficial. Lots of peeps don't like to use blood and bone products but I use them in my mix with success. If you are looking for a good all purpose fert fox farms 5-5-5 happy frog is good to add globally as well. I've never used plant tone or yucca in my mix; vermiculite is a good additive for moisture retention especially if you are growing in fabric sided pots.
Chicken manure is my secret weapon for super fast N boost; plus it doesn't need to be cooked in if its composted already and it's available to your plants very quickly; check out Charlie's compost- you can find it anywhere(Amazon, eBay, etc) & it's cheap too. I put a few tblspn in the bottom layer of my flowering containers along with some bat guano and they stay a nice deep green for 7 weeks.

 

[Kidbruv]

I would discourage you from using peat moss. I love the stuff as an amendment in my alkaline clay soil here, but harvesting peat moss is a real and present environmental threat.

Peat stores/traps a large percentage of the earth's carbon dioxide and it is released when the moss is harvested. The bogs it comes from support diverse and important ecosystems where unique flora and fauna call it their only home. They have been compared to rainforests in this respect. They are also natural filters for the water that flows through them. Bogs are Brita filters for the water we ultimately drink.

Furthemore, the bogs act as a record of history going back thousands of years. Scientists learn a lot about human, climate, and natural history by taking core samples from the material which breaks down very slowly and is very well preserved by the acidity.

The mining of bogs involves drying them out and essentially killing them and their inhabitants in order to take their carcasses to make my tomatoes grow big and plentiful. And the peat takes a long long time to renew - something like 1mm per year. A peat bog isn't ready for harvest until it is 16" deep. I haven't done the math, but its obvious that we can't in good conscience call it a renewable resource.

This is all on top of the energy and pollution costs of transporting peat moss from Canada down to the far end of the continent and beyond.

Obviously there are two sides and a debate to this issue, but all I've read and learned makes it clear to me that we do need to preserve the peat.

Don't take this all as preaching - hell I was practically addicted the stuff until a year ago. Its a problem that deserves more and louder voices though.

 

[MeJuana]

To be sure there's no pests compost a good amount of new raw materials on the compost pile so the temp raises. I'm covering my piles that are directly on the ground with a tarp to retain heat/moisture as ideally I want it steaming. You can make your own EM1 bacterial inoculant using rice and milk or you can buy it premade, this is a bacteria derived from milk called Lactobacillus. This bacteria is referred to as an inoculate because it has evolved to fight competing bacterias off remaining dominant in it's position in the soil food web, i.e. it sterilizes harmful bacteria. It speeds up composting many many times, it's a beneficial bacteria it breaks down organics into nutrients that are eventually delivered to the plant.

 

[MistaRasta]

I would discourage you from using peat moss. I love the stuff as an amendment in my alkaline clay soil here, but harvesting peat moss is a real and present environmental threat.

Most peat bogs are found in the northern hemisphere, including Canada, Russia, parts of northern Europe and the U.S.A. Canada contains vast areas of peat bog wetlands; 294 million acres or approximately 25% of the entire world’s peatlands. The Canadian horticultural peat industry operates on less than 54,363 acres of these peat bogs nationally. The amount of peat moss harvested from Canadian peat bogs every year is nearly 60 times less than the total annual accumulation of new peat moss.

Peat stores/traps a large percentage of the earth's carbon dioxide and it is released when the moss is harvested. The bogs it comes from support diverse and important ecosystems where unique flora and fauna call it their only home. They have been compared to rainforests in this respect. They are also natural filters for the water that flows through them. Bogs are Brita filters for the water we ultimately drink.

Wetlands provide a good amount of Carbon sinks, but ale in comparison to how much C02 is given off and biological degredation by:

Power plants (global emissions total 25-30%)

Residential buildings (global emissions total 11%)

Road transport (global emissions total 10.5%)

Ceramics, Livestock, chemical and petrochemical etc...

Furthemore, the bogs act as a record of history going back thousands of years. Scientists learn a lot about human, climate, and natural history by taking core samples from the material which breaks down very slowly and is very well preserved by the acidity.

The mining of bogs involves drying them out and essentially killing them and their inhabitants in order to take their carcasses to make my tomatoes grow big and plentiful. And the peat takes a long long time to renew - something like 1mm per year. A peat bog isn't ready for harvest until it is 16" deep. I haven't done the math, but its obvious that we can't in good conscience call it a renewable resource.

When Stephanie Boudreau (science coordinator biologist of the Quebec peat moss association and the CSPMA as well as the science coordinator for the canadian peat industry) was asked how long it takes peat bogs to replenish/recover from harvesting with our most up to date harvesting practices.She stated:

“Based on the moss transfer technique developed through the research program, a sphagnum dominated plant cover is re-established within 3-5 years following restoration, biodiversity and hydrology is approaching pre harvest conditions and carbon sequestration should become a net sink within 15-20 years.”

When Paul Short; President, CSPMA was asked how managing peat bogs in a sustainable fashion was being done, his response was:

“Our industry through policy and practice is committed to return post-harvest sites to functioning peatland ecosystems.” “Peatlands (bogs and fens) need to be acknowledged as natural biological resources and managed to ensure their environmental, social and economic values are sustained. The key is responsible management that sets aside areas for protection and conservation and puts in place management practices that ensure the retention of ecosystem goods and services following development."

This is all on top of the energy and pollution costs of transporting peat moss from Canada down to the far end of the continent and beyond.

Im sure most of the items you use on your daily commute were shipped to your state in one way or another. This is no exception, peat comes from one main place, it has to be shipped, just like majority of american objects are shipped half way around the world from China just to save money.

Obviously there are two sides and a debate to this issue, but all I've read and learned makes it clear to me that we do need to preserve the peat.

Don't take this all as preaching - hell I was practically addicted the stuff until a year ago. Its a problem that deserves more and louder voices though.

European Peat bogs were a disaster, but are steadily regrowing. Canada is a completely different story. As you can see above, management practices are drastically different.

 

[iHearAll]

i encourage the use of bokashi (fermented organic solids like spent coffee grinds, beer brewing waste, manure, wheat germ, etc) and fermented liquid probiotics like rice wash mixed with activated EM and then poured in compost.
identify carbon sources and nitrogen sources for a thermophillic reaction.
what you can do to make aerobic compost is layer roughly a square meter and a half of some carbon source like sawdust, leaves, or garden wastes about 6 inches high, distribute a half gallon of homemade bokashi over top, then add another layer of some other carbon source , then another half gallon of bokashi, then a nitrogen source like manure or kitchen garbage, then bokashi again, then carbon again, then bokashi again, then carbon again, then bokashi again.

the pattern is

carbon
bokashi
carbon
bokashi
nitrogen
bokashi
carbon
bokashi
carbon
bokashi
nitrogen
carbon
bokashi
carbon
bokashi
nitrogen
bokashi
etc

its 2 layers of carbon per layer of nitrogen

i like to ferment my kitchen scraps until i get around 10 pails so i can use only food wastes as my nitrogen source in my compost since i am my own livestock and i have no cow. so i make around 2 piles of compost a year

maintain a40-60% moisture

turn the compost once a week by moving it to a few feet away with a shovel and fork

use after 3 weeks, so it should have been turned 3 times

maintain the moisture the entire time. so have it in range of the garden sprinklers or just water it ocassionally

you can sack it up so it doesnt get depleted by rain once it is finished

 

[GreenSanta]

I like the approach of not turning, create a hot compost pile with proper carbon to nitrogen ratio, let it cook, throw worms in there (red wigglers) as it's starts to cool down. Let the worms do the turning. However, if you don't have a lot of time or if you plan to use it for teas for foliar sprays or to grow root crops or low to the ground growing greens, you want to do a proper hot composting method to kill off disease and pathogens , or wait (not sure how long, 2 years??) before using depending on what went into it of course , but assuming the worst, chicken shit.... I often use compost that is unfinished as a mulch/top dress for cannabis... slow release fertilizer! food for the worms!

Another thing I am trying now, is I turn the pile 3-4 times within a month, then that becomes my feed for the outdoor worm farm. That way I do get the pile to heat up really good and get every nooks and crannies to heat up for 2 weeks, so kills off pathogens and diseases. A little more work but I am waiting to see if the worms are going to love it.

 

[MeJuana]

Yeah I like my compost pile to get hot and also I add stuff every two weeks that I save up so that I can hit that 160F number. (not that I checked the temp physically). I don't do that for speed I do it so the bugs leave the soil in favor of the surrounding much more friendly soils.

I tried adding shredded red meat to my compost pile and it fubar'd on me. (190F is too hot just like Google said).. It is composting but it stinks and it isn't breaking down like a normal compost and also I can't turn the pile because the meat is still composting. So if you get the brain storm to bring the temp of your pile up with meat I can tell you for me that was fail.

 

[iHearAll]

^^^you can add nematodes to it when its ripe also

then your compost ahould be in the shade tho

also dont compost arouns.the.trunk of a tree ha itll compost the bark.right off the tree