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08-28-2010, 07:31 PM
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liar in wolf's clothing
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Frequently about
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Compost confessions
I know at least some you have compost bins/piles, so spill.
A few months ago I started a compost bin for my roomie and I. Partly because I had been meaning to start one for a long time, and partly because I had a little bit of yard waste after tearing up the fucking English ivy that had been growing out of control for a decade or so. (And I know that shit is going to come back next year. I'll be waiting.)
Anyway, I read about all different kinds of bins, and, being unwilling to pay $100+ a plastic bin for kitchen wastes to rot in, I decided to pay $12 for a 32-gallon trash can with a locking lid and drill it full of holes. And it works fine. I put in the ivy remnants, emptied out some dead plants and dirt into it, and started throwing kitchen waste in there. Every once in a while I turn it on its side and roll it around. I also started reading about composting, and was not surprised to find a huge amount of information online.
Composting, like cooking and homebrewing, seems to be one of those process-intensive things about which it can be very difficult to convey information in abstract writing. There are lots of people who know a lot of stuff, but it's hard to get a straight answer because there is so much information. I read about the greens and the browns. When I noticed some ants in the compost, stealing my nutrients, I threw a little water in there because the internet told me so, and the next day the ants were gone.
This morning I threw some egg shells in and noticed some big fucking black maggots writhing around in some banana peels and avocado shells. I guess humans have a built-in revulsion response to maggots, because of filth. Anyway, I referred to the compost corpus online and found that they are in fact soldier fly larvae and they are really very good for compost. It has been hot and humid here, with regular cloudbursts to keep the compost damp, which is the perfect environment for them.
So my compost is a little too wet (probably needs moar browns, but I'm going to wait until the larvae finish their bidness) and I probably need to turn it more often, but I am doing my best to just relax and let the stuff rot. Turns out rotting plant matter does not care about my emotional state at all.
Also, compost tip: Starbucks will give you free used coffee grounds.
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08-28-2010, 10:54 PM
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Not as smart as Adam
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Queensland
Gender: Male
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Re: Compost confessions
I opened the thread expecting to finally hear where the bodies are buried.
__________________
Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church.
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08-29-2010, 12:05 AM
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Admin of THIEVES and SLUGABEDS
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Re: Compost confessions
This is why I've been too chickenshit to start my own compost pile. Large black maggots are just not something I'm ever going to be able to cope with easily, despite their circle-of-life usefulness.
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08-29-2010, 12:23 AM
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professional left-winger
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Re: Compost confessions
I pretty much just put my grass clippings and leaves and dead plants in one of two contained piles I have out of the way. I only bother to turn it a few times a year, but there's some nice stuff in there. And worms. Tons of earthworms.
The noxious weeds (like the English ivy) and most kitchen waste would goes in a yard waste recycling bin that is collected every two weeks by Waste Mgmt. because it's something our county offers.
__________________
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08-29-2010, 12:39 AM
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liar in wolf's clothing
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Frequently about
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Re: Compost confessions
I was surprised to find out that my shitty little condo community thing has no facilities at all for yard waste collection. The city has weekly yard waste pickup, but it doesn't serve apartment complexes or anything, so I would have had to haul it to the place myself. That is one of the reasons the ivy wound up going in the compost, even if it is going to take a year to break down.
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08-29-2010, 12:43 AM
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Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short
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Re: Compost confessions
We have the exact same model of composter that you do, except I didn't buy a whole new trashcan for it because I'm not a wastrel like you.
I don't even bother to roll it around much anymore. We just put all our stuff in it, then when it's full, some guy rolls it over to the garden area and dumps it there (so the fresher garbage is at the bottom), and it finishes composting there.
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08-29-2010, 01:42 AM
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you're next
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Gender: Bender
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Re: Compost confessions
we just dip a bucket in the latrine.
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paranoid fringe dweller
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08-29-2010, 03:49 AM
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Dogehlaugher -Scrutari
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Northwest
Gender: Female
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Re: Compost confessions
I have two of the black plastic vented bins that the city was selling for cheap years ago. Now people who have given up on compost leave them on corners, so win/win for me.
I also am happy to have the black flies, the maggots are gross, and they leave husks that some people find objectionable. They do cook down the compost like crazy though.
If you keep your compost so that it can keep warm, that keeps it cooking and keeps the smell reduced.
On the farm we used to just nail pallets together and dump everything in there.
I don't turn my compost, as there is a vented door in the bottom of my bin, but I do layer brown (dried grass clippings) over the green or moist compost.
Almost any espresso place is happy to have you take their coffee grounds.
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08-29-2010, 03:03 PM
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liar in wolf's clothing
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Frequently about
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Re: Compost confessions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Qingdai
I don't turn my compost, as there is a vented door in the bottom of my bin
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Thanks, from:
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Adam (08-30-2010), chunksmediocrites (08-29-2010), Clutch Munny (08-29-2010), curses (08-29-2010), Demimonde (08-30-2010), Ensign Steve (08-29-2010), Leesifer (08-29-2010), lisarea (08-29-2010), livius drusus (08-29-2010), Qingdai (08-30-2010), slimshady2357 (08-30-2010), Stormlight (09-02-2010)
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08-29-2010, 05:34 PM
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A fellow sophisticate
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Cowtown, Kansas
Gender: Male
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Re: Compost confessions
What a bunch of shit.
__________________
Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
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08-29-2010, 09:39 PM
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Clutchenheimer
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Canada
Gender: Male
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Re: Compost confessions
We have a couple of compost bins hiding beneath vines in the back yard, which have been bulging with undistributed crap for ages now. But the city has implemented a kitchen waste "greenbin" recycling program to go along with the blue box program, so all our slop waste (and paper towels, etc) just goes out to curb once a week. Our own composters are basically forgotten now.
__________________
Your very presence is making me itchy.
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08-29-2010, 10:17 PM
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improperly uses ellipses....... with panache
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: south shore of the upper lake
Gender: Female
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Re: Compost confessions
in spite of fastidiously keeping our kitchen
compost protein free.... the frikkin bears
around here thought our bin was a take
out buffet, in that they took it out 5 times
so i said "fudge this ship" and now we just
heap yard waste in the ravine, or under a
tarp if i want it for gardening..... it works
amazingly well
i just didnt like the idea of feeding bears
in the same yard where my kids played and
drank their froot joos boxes...
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proudly holding to the party line of willfully ignorant self-interest
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08-29-2010, 10:19 PM
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liar in wolf's clothing
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Frequently about
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Re: Compost confessions
I'm impressed by and jealous of that level of municipal support for recycling/composting. My town and county are excellent relative to the region, but nothing that cool. They do compost yard waste, and there is a community compost pile in the park down the road, but it seems like it is mainly for use by people who live right next to the park. It's not accessible otherwise. Well, the trail where I run goes right by it, but I think running with a gallon of food scraps would cramp my style a little bit.
I am totally enamored of this black soldier fly larva discovery. What miracle maggots! They can reduce all kinds of food scraps, including meat and dairy, as well as dog poop and other animal wastes, and they can do it in just a few days. Then you can feed them to the chickens because they are mostly protein. I don't think my household produces enough waste to sustain a population of them, but it seems like it would be perfect for a neighborhood compost kind of thing.
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08-31-2010, 06:35 PM
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Clutchenheimer
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Canada
Gender: Male
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Re: Compost confessions
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChuckF
I'm impressed by and jealous of that level of municipal support for recycling/composting.
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The downside, of course, is the communist dictatorship.
:shakecanada:
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Your very presence is making me itchy.
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09-10-2012, 07:53 PM
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liar in wolf's clothing
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Frequently about
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Re: Compost confessions
Speaking of that two years ago, here's an article about why your city doesn't have curbside composting. My new city has good weekly curbside yard waste collection, which is then mulched or composted. They use it for city landscaping and dog parks etc. But we don't have food waste composting. Even if we did, I wouldn't use it because I am so greedy about compost materials now, but it would be nice to have the option.
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09-11-2012, 02:45 PM
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Bow down before me ... or not.
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Nebraska
Gender: Male
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Re: Compost confessions
When we moved here our garbage guy gave us a standard issue bigass garbage can, leaving me with 2 non standard issue smallass garbage cans that I drilled into composty bins. I'd long lost the lids to them, so they sit lidless which lets in rain and snow and stuff on top. I pile things in occasionally when the top drops down, but no kitcheny waste, just yard stuff. Drill holes in the bottom and bury the bottom 2 inches into the mulch and the worms will come up into them whenever the temp is above too cold for worms.
I stopped bagging the grass and cut it more often, mulchifying it into the yard. I don't fertilize as much or water as much and that cuts mowing down significantly.
At the end of the growing season, I go on a mowing spree, running over everything in our perrenial flower beds and clipping them down to little stumpy things covered in chopped up flower parts.
After the trees drop thier leaves, I mow those into the grass. If they are too thick I rake them into the flower beds. By spring the worms have made them dissaper.
So I don't get much compost anymore as it's basically spread out everywhere. About two 30 gallon trash cans every 3 years or so.
__________________
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
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04-07-2013, 03:39 AM
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liar in wolf's clothing
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Frequently about
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Re: Compost confessions
COMPOST UPDATE, MUST CREDIT
Since moving out of the apartment and in to the house, I ditched the garbage bins and built a two-compartment compost bin out of tobacco stakes and chicken wire. One compartment is for ready-to-use, and other is for ripening. We also have a plastic compost ball thinger that is really not that great.
The chicken wire allows for good aeration, and I try to turn it at least once a week. We get chicken poop now, which is full of nitrogen and is a great compost additive. Most of the mass is fine wood shavings from the chicken coop, and the rest is kitchen waste. The pile has stayed a good temperature throughout the winter, and this is that good time of year when on cool mornings I can go outside, turn the compost, and see the steam rising off of it. The earthworms love it, and there are hundreds of them in there, leaving behind good worm casings. It kinds of makes me want to try vermiform composting, but I don't know if we produce enough vegetable matter for that.
Since it's been so unseasonably cool, and I have been so unseasonably lazy, we haven't planted the raised beds yet. I built and dug another one this year. I went ahead and mixed a good amount of compost, which the girls promptly attacked and kicked out into the yard. They were going after those quality earthworms, I think. Every once in a while I will find a bigass maggot in the pile, and it's pretty hilarious to throw it into the middle of the coop and watch the ensuing shitstorm.
Anyway, y'all can be jellis of my compost now.
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04-07-2013, 03:42 AM
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Admin of THIEVES and SLUGABEDS
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Re: Compost confessions
FILTHY LIFESTYLE
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11-14-2014, 12:43 AM
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A Very Gentle Bort
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Bortlandia
Gender: Male
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Re: Compost confessions
I thought maybe somebody would find this interesting if not useful.
__________________
\V/_ I COVLD TEACh YOV BVT I MVST LEVY A FEE
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11-14-2014, 09:04 AM
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Solipsist
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Kolmannessa kerroksessa
Gender: Male
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Re: Compost confessions
[thanked] to view later
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