Found a surprise when I went out to turn my compost today. Apparently my neighbors have started contributing eggshells directly into the compost bin, which is very polite and helpful!
A few months ago I discovered evidence of rats in my compost bin so I removed all the food scraps and resolved to just put paper and garden waste in there.
Today I have been repotting seedlings of bell peppers and tomatoes and totally forgot that the compost may be contaminated. I used the compost from the compost bin.
Have I totally ruined my chances of eating whatever fruit and veg I grow in this stuff?
after 2 years of trying i have finally made compost! ignore the hay and perlite those are from an old soil bag I threw in there relatively recently
So ive been lurking this sub for 3 months now. 1 month before I bought my tumbler and 2 months since.
Ive followed every tip and direction ive seen on here (yes.... including "THAT one") and it seems like my first chamber is ready after only two months. Its hot, spongey and smells like dirt. Was a little too wet and had alot of fruit flies two weeks ago so I added some hardwood smoker pellets to dry it out and broke up the big mud chunks that clumped together while tumbling. I tumbled every 3 days and opened it up today to see the results and it looks good to me. This is my first time ever composting, but after reading this sub I feel like just over 7 weeks isn't nearly long enough.... but maybe its because its such a small batch (maybe 2 cu ft).
Should I keep adding to this? Should I use it? Should I let it sit a little longer and work on the 2nd chamber? All your help and adviceb has gotten me to this point, so im not going to stop using it now!!!
After reading here for a while and getting very excited! I got very lucky that my husband and dad put their heads and hands together and build a space in the garden designated for composting!
My much better half had the idea to build up the front as we fill it up so there is slots to put on more shelfs as we go.
I read about trench composting and would like to try to burry everything I have in my little garden (including fresh material and rabbit manure).
I am in France (near Paris). I would like some advice about what I should know and what I could grow on that (and what I should not).
A friend needed to remotely gather temperature reading of his composting and it was located 15km from any wifi, in rural ireland, so I took on the task. and I've never made anything with an esp 32 before, and bought my first soldering iron etc, and had the most fun ever.
Hardware
Walter ESP32 LTE board
DS18B20 temp sensor(s)
18650 batteries (1S2P)
tp4056 charging
external USB port and a switch
Simbase IoT SIM
3D printed PLA case + silicone seal and painted it with epoxy
Software
I used my cloud flare tunnel and my domain I already had to set up a website and coded it end to end with codex. The Walter wakes every hour and takes a reading and sends it to my website api that I have running on my webserver on a raspberry pi, stored in a small Sql lite Db.
I have all the code on my git hub repo if anyone wants to use it and can give you the stl files also.
I came across so many hurdles in it so if anyone is thinking of doing the same please ask. I settled on the water board because I tried the lilygo A7670G sim board before and it didn't work out.
tomato for scale
The enclosure was made with pla and i covered it ina layer of epoxy to seal it from the rain but it will be kept covered when used anyway
Last spring I cleaned and raked under this Blue Spruce and then spread a wheelbarrow of homemade compost under the canopy. I then added Gaia Green veg powdered fertilizer and covered with about 4” of course mulch. Seems to be doing well.
My question is, I’m thinking of spreading another layer of compost and Gaia Green, and then another layer of mulch. Is that ok, or should I remove the mulch that’s there first, and then add more compost etc and put mulch on top?
Does it still retain its value when it’s this dry and almost chalky? The compost is half paper towels and half food waste across the whole spectrum.
Edit: I should also add that it does smell incredibly earthy.
I shredded some wood and added the chips to my compost pile. It is cold compost, mostly kitchen scraps and a lot of coffee grounds and some leafs. It is very wet and I thought it would be a good idea to turn the chips into it.
As expected, it was very wet and smelled a bit rank. Lots of earthworms, though. About two hours later I came past it and noticed a dozen of strange yellow flies that I had never seen before. Lens indicated they are yellow dungflies, which checks out with photos online.
So, am I in trouble for those flies to confuse my compost for a pile of shit?
Just guessing here, but I don’t think the pile got hot enough to kill the jackolanterns 😂
Hi guys,
Im new
My property was pretty riddled with this tree, ive removed maybe 50% and was going to use it. Still have heaps of plant for bees :)
I sawed off log chunks and heaps of twigs
The leaves went into compost, twigs and logs separated for other use
have i ruined my compost due to poisonus nature? Do i start again?
im getting some 75cm tall garden beds and intended to half fill with the copious amounts of twigs from this plant.... is this not going to be a good idea for a vegetable garden?
is there any way i can make use of the leftover parts of this plant.... ? Taking it to the tip the only thing to be done?
I’ve had a tumbler for 11 years. I even moved it 1/2 way across the US. I spin it about every other week. I’m not gentle with this thing and it had held up very well. Yesterday I went to spin it and it felt off. I can see the plastic is cracked around where the center bar/ pipe is located. I looked for some potential fixes online and didn’t find anything that useful. Most fixes were for other locations or types of bins. Any ideas or good solutions. It basically cracked 2” at the circular plastic section that goes around the pipe.