composting questions

[Warren Lake]

Its time to stop cleaning up and sending stuff away and do composting here. I want more garden areas and it can add to my blend of triple mix, animal compost and peat moss. Tons of leaves every year i used to fill the 16 foot car trailer 2 foot high sides the pile in the middle would be over four feet tall and taper to the sides till tarped and pulled down., This year at this time there are a gazzilion maple keys. Do I just ignore them all or is it not ideal to dump them in the compost pile?

I asked at the transfer station and they said they make the compost, they do treatments to it and didnt know what they were and that they tell people its not soil its a soil amendment. It looks fine and dark and clean. With all I have here it makes sense to be doing my own stuff. Triple mix is 58.00 a yard two yard min and 100.00 delivery. past brought a yard home in the pickup but its too old and needs new leaf springs for that type of weight.

Ride on mower mulches and works well, bag attachment for it I dont have is big bucks. Push mower with the bag works well and makes sense as the clippings get hot very quickly and would help compost.

[Bill Dufour]

In the fall I run the mower over the leaves no bagging just rechopping them. Them re-mow with bagging. That reduces volume by 90% or so. For leaves add green waste and maybe throw some nitrogen in the mix.
BilLD

[Jim Koepke]

This year at this time there are a gazzilion maple keys.

Maple keys, that term isn't familiar to me.

Looks like the frugal answer for you Warren is to go over it with the riding mower and then take a second run with the push mower to bag it up.

Just be careful to turn it a bit in with other things in the pile.

Hot composting vegetation can quickly become hot burning vegetation.

jtk

[Brian Runau]

I always cut leaves 1st, then bag in 2nd pass. I do small composting. Do layers, leaves dirt leaves dirt. I heard of people adding yeast or beer to get it to compost quicker? Do 2 or 3 piles, 1 per year, in 2 to 3 years you have compost in the 1st pile. Even seen people build 3 sided open sided bins to dump into.

[Tom M King]

It will compost just from piling it up, but it takes longer. I have a place I've let about 100 lake lots with houses dump leaves for 40 years. It's full of worms, and before I had a big excavator pile some of it up, would grow grass three feet tall between times I could get around to cutting it. Now I need a dirt screen. More stuff than leaves was dumped there. There is much more under the piles than is seen in this picture, and a couple of more piles to the right out of the picture.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Warren, we compost at home for some yard waste, however all our food scraps go out in the green bin and a lot of yard waste goes out for pickup.

I’m a Toronto Recycling Ambassador and had a tour of a composting facility. The compost is done under ideal humidity, temperature and aeration so they produce perfect compost far faster than I can at home.

For that reason I let the city do the majority of it, and I then pick up the compost for free……Regards, Rod

[Warren Lake]

Hi Rod
well that is another aspect I forgot to mention. For some reason I stopped putting vegetable stuff out for compost and instead into a rubber maid container. So its full weighs a ton and likely stinks I had this vision I could just dump it on leaves and run the much mower over it 10 times. Maybe wrong. Meat stuff say skin and bones left from the soup I made go to the freezer then the compost pick up.

The ride on mower i was given its old and ive done work but its excellent. When I did look up the bag think it was 800.00 or more which seemed a bit steep. Even now with dull blades and the wrong size it works stellar. It leaves the lawn clean clippings from it drop down into the grass. ILl attach maple keys to see the level that arrives. My thought was since im saving grass and leaves do i really want to put maple keys in and have them sprouting.

The compost I looked at other day at the dump looks great but the lady said they tell people its not soil its a soil ammendmant? said its treated in different ways but had no idea how. Ill have to call Simcoe County and ask some questions. I have a lawn id like to flatten out as well as garden stuff but for now this is just that i want more garden areas plus the logic of this lot producing so many leaves and clippings.





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[Mel Fulks]

There are commercial additives that speed up the process, and old home made recipes for break-down. They need to make one ,
called “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” ! Horses and cattle compete in the manufacture .