Making compost
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OP is helping his grandpa with a garden, any tips on making good compost?
We've got cows and chickens, so I've got plenty of organic material to work with
pic related
>>750460
You have chickens, that's a great thing for compost!
I like to let the them do most of the composting for me.
Look for a slope. Ideal close to the house and the garden (short ways) and shady (you can also plant some trees there)
Put a fence around and chickens inside
Put your manure + kitchen scrabs + garden waste + carbon rich material (straw, hay, leaves, wood chips...) inside your new chicken run at the top! of the slope and water it
The chickens now will scratch through the material, mixing it and pushing it further downhill
When the material arrives at the bottom of the slope, it should be rich compost, ready for the garden.
Keep the area shady and moist
No turning
No weed seeds
No insects
Free chicken food!
>>750473
I've read that turning and disturbing the pile actually is not beneficial for compost.
Here's why. The core of the compost can reach pretty high temperatures which helps with decay. If disturbed, the thermic process basically has to start from the beginning delaying the time it would take for organic material to decay.
>>750486
You basically have two choices:
>composting fast, hot and have compost faster and have to work more
or
>composting slow, therefore cold and with less work
For hot compost , you build bigger heaps, add more nitrogen and keep it wetter.
Also you HAVE to turn it! because otherwise it will get too hot in the middle and not hot enough at the outside
When you build a good compost and turn every second day, you can have a finished compost within three weeks.
I would not feel comfy shovelling compost for half an hour every second day. Also you need a lot of material all at once. So I usually don't do hot compost.
The chicken compost is basically a form of cold compost. it's not in a big heap, and will therefore not get hot. Also the chickens will mix all the material, so you don't really have to do much. And you can always add material over time in small quantities.
Another great way to compost is vermiculture, composting with worms.
You make a box with a drain (for the garden you can use an old bathtub), add bedding material (leaves, newspaper..), composting worms (Asa foetida), some finished compost and kitchen scrabs. You can also add animal manure, but be careful with that.
The worms will again to the work for you and give you best! compost, worm tea (fertilizer) that drips out of the drain and worms of cause, that you can sell or feed to your chickens.
>>750486
Hot temperatures are a good sign that microbes are doing work, but it's not the hot temperatures that help decay, they're just a product of the chemical reactions taking place. Turning your compost keeps it aerated which helps speed up the reactions. The Berkeley method, which is the fastest I know of requires you to turn every day.
>>750460
Throw a good amount of fresh green yard/garden plant waste. I'd say 1/3 should be green waste for your nitrogen content.
>>750515
cool
>>750460
If there is one nearby, the muck on the edge of a swamp (not actually in it) plus your chicken and cow poop would make god tier soil, especially if you mixed in a bit of hardwood sawdust.
