Composting Notes
Jan. 22nd, 2013 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterWhile I wasn't feeling too good over the weekend, I spent some time reading about composting. It all started when I wanted to remember this compost additive I'd heard about, called Bokashi. A cousin of mine was telling me about using it at a community p-patch she'd joined, and said it had really sped up their composting/decomposition rates.
That led me to this website, which is a well-written summary of a whole lot of composting information. It's a bit repetitive, probably because the site author figures readers will just skip to individual sections without reading through the whole thing.
Things I appreciated learning:
Why compost instead of throwing away food waste. In some respects, the answer's obvious to a gardener - so many nutrients that could go into making more productive soil! But on the other hand, my brother likes to put out the argument that throwing away newspapers and food waste is just his special form of "carbon sequestration." Now I have a counterargument. Food and yard waste that's thrown into landfills undergoes anaerobic decomposition, and in doing so, produces a lot of methane, which is a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Composting still produces carbon dioxide, but it also produces a pile of garden-ready nutrients.
Troubleshooting my compost problems - anaerobic composting. Not too long ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scrottie had to dig through a gross, slimy, cockroach-infested mess that had developed in my compost barrel. So, what had happened? What had happened was I hadn't put in the effort to decide which style of composting I wanted to do. My compost barrel has no drainage, which means it could work well as an anaerobic composter. On the other hand, anaerobic compost is kinda gross and smelly. So, it's time to put holes in the barrel - particularly in the bottom, so it can interact with soil microbes. I was happy to learn that it should be large enough to get some real compost heat going. I might give it the occasional roll around the yard, too, for better aeration. I still need to think about that part of the equation. Lastly, I need to put the lid back on it, but with a gap, for some ventilation at the top, but also to keep rainfall down, as the rain will make the pile too soggy and wash out nutrients.
Troubleshooting past compost problems - maggots vs. worms. In Arizona, on multiple occasions I've opened up the worm bin or gone out to the compost heap and observed that the surface was crawling with black maggots. While the worm bin was indoors, I also observed wasp-like flies that would escape from the bin and fly around, annoyingly. I finally learned that these are black soldier fly larvae, which are actually used intentionally in a lot of composting operations, and which *do* make for some nice chicken grubs. I'd also noted that, when the BSFL appeared in the worm bin, the worm bin appeared to undergo a phase transition, away from worms and towards BSFL. From what I read, it sounds like this could be related to the relative proportions of carbon-rich materials to nitrogen-rich materials. Apparently, BSFL are more heat-tolerant, and also prefer something closer to a straight vegetable diet. They're also generally incompatible with the worms, so if I want to keep the worms going, I need to be better about adding more carbon to the worm bin.
This mostly appears to crop up in warmer climates, for the record. I may have initially acquired the BSFL along with the worms, or they could have just shown up and colonized things. Regardless, it's good to know they're flies, not wasps. Also, I feel dumb for only just learning about this. And I call myself an entomologist (actually, I don't).
Also, if one wants to harvest the BSFL the easy way, a simple compost bin modification is in order. When the larvae are ready to pupate, they will climb up to the top of a bin. So, if the bin has an angled ramp built into one side, with a slot at the top and a straight-sided (slippery-sided?) container underneath, one can harvest the BSFL to feed to one's chickens. Without having to pick them out one-by-one.
Compost screens. I'm pretty sure I left my last compost screen in Arizona. It wasn't great, but it did the trick. However, maybe I'll make a nicer screen now, like this one. And maybe I'll even get a wheelbarrow, one of these days.
That led me to this website, which is a well-written summary of a whole lot of composting information. It's a bit repetitive, probably because the site author figures readers will just skip to individual sections without reading through the whole thing.
Things I appreciated learning:
Why compost instead of throwing away food waste. In some respects, the answer's obvious to a gardener - so many nutrients that could go into making more productive soil! But on the other hand, my brother likes to put out the argument that throwing away newspapers and food waste is just his special form of "carbon sequestration." Now I have a counterargument. Food and yard waste that's thrown into landfills undergoes anaerobic decomposition, and in doing so, produces a lot of methane, which is a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Composting still produces carbon dioxide, but it also produces a pile of garden-ready nutrients.
Troubleshooting my compost problems - anaerobic composting. Not too long ago,
scrottie had to dig through a gross, slimy, cockroach-infested mess that had developed in my compost barrel. So, what had happened? What had happened was I hadn't put in the effort to decide which style of composting I wanted to do. My compost barrel has no drainage, which means it could work well as an anaerobic composter. On the other hand, anaerobic compost is kinda gross and smelly. So, it's time to put holes in the barrel - particularly in the bottom, so it can interact with soil microbes. I was happy to learn that it should be large enough to get some real compost heat going. I might give it the occasional roll around the yard, too, for better aeration. I still need to think about that part of the equation. Lastly, I need to put the lid back on it, but with a gap, for some ventilation at the top, but also to keep rainfall down, as the rain will make the pile too soggy and wash out nutrients.Troubleshooting past compost problems - maggots vs. worms. In Arizona, on multiple occasions I've opened up the worm bin or gone out to the compost heap and observed that the surface was crawling with black maggots. While the worm bin was indoors, I also observed wasp-like flies that would escape from the bin and fly around, annoyingly. I finally learned that these are black soldier fly larvae, which are actually used intentionally in a lot of composting operations, and which *do* make for some nice chicken grubs. I'd also noted that, when the BSFL appeared in the worm bin, the worm bin appeared to undergo a phase transition, away from worms and towards BSFL. From what I read, it sounds like this could be related to the relative proportions of carbon-rich materials to nitrogen-rich materials. Apparently, BSFL are more heat-tolerant, and also prefer something closer to a straight vegetable diet. They're also generally incompatible with the worms, so if I want to keep the worms going, I need to be better about adding more carbon to the worm bin.
This mostly appears to crop up in warmer climates, for the record. I may have initially acquired the BSFL along with the worms, or they could have just shown up and colonized things. Regardless, it's good to know they're flies, not wasps. Also, I feel dumb for only just learning about this. And I call myself an entomologist (actually, I don't).
Also, if one wants to harvest the BSFL the easy way, a simple compost bin modification is in order. When the larvae are ready to pupate, they will climb up to the top of a bin. So, if the bin has an angled ramp built into one side, with a slot at the top and a straight-sided (slippery-sided?) container underneath, one can harvest the BSFL to feed to one's chickens. Without having to pick them out one-by-one.
Compost screens. I'm pretty sure I left my last compost screen in Arizona. It wasn't great, but it did the trick. However, maybe I'll make a nicer screen now, like this one. And maybe I'll even get a wheelbarrow, one of these days.
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 01:52 am (UTC)The black fly thing is interesting. It'd be nice if you could get them to fall out of the side right into a bin for chickens.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 02:40 am (UTC)I'd also love to build a composter with that sort of setup. That style can generate compost quickly, and a lot of the composters of that style are mesh-based so the compost that's ready to go just gets sifted out as the composter is turned. At this point, though, I'm not quite in the right situation to work on building one. Ah well.