xipe posted:

any compost tips?
how do you make your compost, on a household or community level?

where do you get the stuff for it and what do you do with it?

if you want it fast, just do a search for "bulk compost" in your area, there are places all over the country that will sell it by the cubic yard. don't buy bagged compost from the garden center, it's wayyy too expensive, most of it is pretty subpar, and oftentimes it's full of poorly-composted manure, which can:
1)fill your garden with undigested weed seeds which will sprout and take over, or
2)be full of fungus or other diseases that will kill your plants

bulk stuff is generally fresh and bioactive and much, much cheaper. one yard of compost is enough to topdress a 30x30 plot nicely.

if you want to make your own compost i really can't recommend vermicomposting enough. worm bins like this take a ton of the potentially gross guesswork out of it, your waste gets digested quickly, and you're left with really amazing, thick, dark soil amendment. plus as tsinava said you get the pleasure of having an army of squirming minions in your power

e: plus you can do it indoors and it doesn't take up much space

swampman posted:

You can also put in sawdust, barkdust and fireplace ash but intermix these things to hasten their absorption into the compost.

seriously make sure you mix these in, composting sawdust and wood chips in a deep homogeneous pile can get hot enough to smoke, smoulder and even combust. i've seen it happen.

shriekingviolet posted:

Of course, you also need to be ready for a random frost or snowfall in the middle of July every couple years...

we keep trying to fix this

xipe posted:

what size of critical masses is needed for compost piles to work efficiently?

i was thinking of using 1x1x1m plastic containers for them.

was also thinking of running copper water pipes through them as a heating source.
would these impede the composting process significantly?

Yeah the "critical mass" doesn't need to be huge, a yard of material will work. We always used to make our compost piles by putting four rebar posts in the dirt, circling them with chicken wire. Once the pile was ready to go to the garden, posts and chicken wire were easy to remove. You want the compost to have drainage and be exposed to the air. If you're intermixing enough roughage, the pile won't be super stinky and fly ridden anyway. Heating the pile is not necessary, the pile warms itself as the bacteria break down its molecules. Heat is a sign of healthy decomposition. Idk what the hell your tea question is about, that sounds more disgusting than barf and pee combined

dipshit420 posted:

shriekingviolet posted:

Alas, post deletion is not a mod power

You can edit a post so that it contains nothing, though.

But then it would just look like you posted

xipe posted:

thanks deng and swampman

i would be composting at home with housemates and neighbours but also with community gardens on a bigger scale (which has space for compost piles and has contacts for horseshit, woodchip, restaurant scraps etc)

what size of critical masses is needed for compost piles to work efficiently?

i was thinking of using 1x1x1m plastic containers for them.
was also thinking of running copper water pipes through them as a heating source.
would these impede the composting process significantly?

is compost a good starter for making compost tea?
if i understand it needs to be aerated as anaerobic microbes are pathogenic to the soil (what do you do with rotten soil -- is there some way of remediating it?)

i have a source of biochar and believe its chemical structures is a good place for bacteria or myceliums to grow -- would just plonking some as the the tea brews be the way to innoculate it?

here's a good place for all your composting questions: http://ccetompkins.org/gardening/composting/compost-resources

the most important thing to remember abt composting is to manage moisture and air. composting is an aerobic process, so if you have too little air in your pile you'll wind up with anearobic bacteria predominating, which is slow, smelly and disgusting, and produces toxic byproducts that hurt plants. too much water can make your pile swampy and prevent good air penetration, but too little will limit bacterial growth. this is why mixing in things like dead leaves (my favorite), grass clippings, straw, sawdust, etc is important because it absorbs excess water but still stays relatively loose and allows air in.

i wouldn't use a plastic bin for composting,because it would limit air to the compost. do what swampman said and make a pile with some sort of wire fencing around it to keep it contained. one other thing you could do is get a 3ft length of perforated french drain or other wide pipe with holes in it and put it in the center of your cage so it rises thru the middle of your pile for extra air. don't bother with heating the compost with copper pipes, the bacterial action creates plenty of heat on its own, just heating it up passively wouldn't do much.

if you're gonna make compost tea, use well-seasoned compost (at least a year old) that is black, loose and friable, and isn't too dried out. some people add molasses or other sugar but i skip it. people in the permaculture world sing the praises of aerating it for 24hr with an aquarium pump and say it encourages bacterial proliferation but i just see it as a quicker way than topdressing to get compost to the roots of established plants. im lazy and just mix it vigorously with water and water the plants with it right away, but ymmv.

and i really know very little about biochar, never messed with it. i'd assume you'd want to work it into your soil rather than topdressing plants with it. as far as inoculating it with compost tea, i'm sure it wouldn't hurt. but if you've got good soil in the first place the resident bacteria will colonize it pretty quick

tpaine posted:

oh my god you guys this is so inspiring about you all and your awesome successes with gardens. i am beaming over here.