A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 Composting

weezie I think your meaning a diaper hamper...it has the lil stick up thinggy on lid that holds charchoal.
I can just see your shelfs lined with "zippie compost"

Well now that I'm all caught up..........
I got a question.I read you can use cheap dog food as an additive to get your compost kicking.Whats your thoughts on this.

I would also think could still compost up north in winter with useing black plastic over the pile.the sun would still warm it up

Weezie....whats some"sprouts"that we could crop to add stuff to compost....like clover/barley& alphalpa or however ya spell it1

NjoyNit,

just a quick post while you are waiting for Weezie...

High protein dog food is a very good compost activator.

Njoynit,
You asked;
Picture of Compost Pail with a Charcoal Filter Top

I have never heard of the dog food for the compost (I've heard it for attracting slugs to
kill them) Can you find the info??
Would always LOVE to hear about more ideas!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not a chance!!! Way toooooooooo frozen temps.
I have been reading on stuff, some put piles of bails of straw around it...
#1. for the insulation
#2. for keeping the straw out side killing weed
seeds for using the straw for the following year
instead of the first year you get it....
*because of the germenating of the seeds*
But those organisms that break it down and the good bugs that do that too, it's way to cold for them...
I haven't got a hubby that's willing to get me the amount of straw bails needed to "TRY THIS"
Someday I will!!

And with the amounts of snow that comes down on a regular basis here, I'd have to almost be standing out there all day!!!


I would love to do the vermaculture/worm composting, but I would have to win the lottery
to be able to TELL my husband we will now be
putting worms in the back room!!!


Sometime, I'll figure something out!!!

Weezie

Okay Papito,
Where'd you find the info!!!!!

I would love to know!!!!!

Weezie

Farmers alamic 2001 had the mentioning of dog food for compost,,,they said CHEAP DOGFOOD as an activator also can use soda,beer as liquids to add also(and to think i pour all hubbys wastefullness of coke down the toilet... :p not no more...will be takeing it to compost heaven now

Wow! Lots of info on composting!!! Weezie, I didn't get to read all that you wrote...my brain is just too tired tonight (REALLY bad day today ) Anyways, I wish I would have known about TGH when I was looking for info a few months ago. When we bought the house, I asked the previous owners to leave the compost pile that is behind our garage. Its pretty self functioning. Its made by 5 pallets nailed together and we just take all of our vegetable food scraps up to the pile in the evening...we also have a tupperware container that we keep in the kitchen and fill when it is rainy or too cold to go up every evening (its a pretty good trek if there is too much snow). We don't even have to add water to the pile! The rain keeps it wet enough. ...and no turning either. The dirt in the bottom is sooo great! I think I am going to build a second pile to put leaves and grass in tho...we have sooo many leaves around for the fall! Thanks for the info.

Njoynit,
I will have to remember about the dog food.
I am still curious as to the why's and how come?

I've been putting my hubby's left over Pepsi in there for awhile...(any pop will do!)
And any left over beer or wine coolers goes in there too!!!

I've understood, it's the sugar content that feeds the little guys that get the compost cooking.......
(The Gardener Guy on Paul James on HGTV's,
Gardening by the Yard and Jerry Baker)

Weezie

This one has some info on food waste composting in japan and mentions about dog food.

http://intl-jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/31/3/997

This one is awesome...is Resturant food scrap composting.(I bet weezie would just love to have a computerized dumpster for composting.better have hubby go get a 2nd job)& this one is even in NY :rolleyes:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/96/10.24.96/food_composting.html

Here is composting dog waste.their poop
http://www.compostinfo.com/tutorial/DogWaste.htm

this here is worm composting
http://www.mastercomposter.com/worm/wormcomp.html


By the way.my compost pile don't smell.it has an orangey smell right right now but bought a bag of oranges and of course rinds are great.my neighbor down the hill round the curve uses worms from my pile.says they be fat?& juicey& with all this rain.....my pile is wet! yeah the soil is good undr pile.I moved pile a week ago and used some of the soil under it in the bed where put my lilirope at.
oh yeah I sometimes add cornflakes generic if they are on sale or if in that clearance cart.Jerry Baker says thats GOOD GOLD!

Weezie,

I read the info about dog food in the book "Joy of Gardening" by Dick Raymond, published 1982 by Garden Ways, Inc. ISBN 0-88266-319-4

that dog waste compost was interesting njoynit. i think i will have to try that as i have 3 dogs and now all i have to do is find a source for the saw dust. hmmmm will be thinking about that one.

I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO STRESS THE VERY LAST PART
OF THE "RULES" OF COMPOSTING THAT DOG STUFF

TRUST ME, VERY FEW COMPOSTS' CAN DO THE "CORRECT" JOB OF KILLING ALL THE ICKY STUFF IN DOG POOP!!!

I might, say, it's okay if you follow the rules for your perennials, but NEVER something eaten!!!

My personal 2 cents worth!!
*maybe even a nickel more too!!)

Weezie

Sure, I could do it now. We are under some snow right now...but it is rapidly washing away now that we are getting torrential downpours!!! :p

I can't wait till spring

Well I now add the soada to compost bucket.Guess will make more trips now that my compost scraps float..HEE HeHEEE

My neighbor had some trees cut down his yard(he has to be NUTS!it gets hot in TX so he cuts his shade down so he can mow..He's 92 He don'T NEED to mow.Looks like pulling the string on it would break him.much less live through getting it mowed!) but anyway are oak trees and i'm collecting the ashes(yeah He thinks i'm nuts..he's like your gonna do what with them? why ya wanna do that?) so how many wheel barrels full can I dump on my pile?I'll still take it all but will just pile some in another spot& am starting another compost pile ...when feel better.already sick.don't need to make myself worse.

Njoynit,
I will have to read up on ashes,
I know they are good for a pile,
but you have to watch the "Liming Effect"
from them.... ???? I am not sure of
exact ratio....
I would add to that statement,
that you can add a bit more to the piles/heap
when you use alot of leaves, pine needles, etc.
on the acidity side of things.
To counteract the effects... does that make sense?

But I do know, you don't want to add too much lime to them, because, oh, I can't remember now,
darn BRAIN~DRAIN, BUT something I read on it.....

Weezie

weezie, never any dog poop on anything to be eaten. mostly was thinking about the roses, gardenias, and such. but that would mean that i would have to be willing and have time to get the dog poop thing going not likely this year!!

Jiffy,
The only reason I get so carried away
talking about the dog or cat feces,
is because they carry germs that
humans can get.... and unless you're very proficant in the art of composting...
(I wouldn't even qualify myself into that catagory) to do the dog or cat poop...
That's why I get all funny about it!!!!

Cause I love you guys too much and I don't
want anything yicky happening!!

Weezie

well I collected my 2 wheelbarrels and put 2 scoops on compost pile& turned..luckily b4 rain.and dumped the rest in spot close to pile.He has some more limbs piled up to burn but are all wet now.I've read some on it .it adds nitrogen and farmers use to till it into their soil.
I'm just too burned out on serach engine right now after trying to search for a varsity type jacket that snaps...not leather...not wool...and under 60$$$ I almost did a baseball jacket but coud not decide between yankees/whitesocks/mets.then dog stepped on keyboard and shut every darn search window& had 8 open on that subject alone and didn't know what serch words used to get it.I just can't search and share compt chair with 3 dogs.
I did start 2 more piles yesterday with leaves so will be divideing my scraps now.

That's funny with the dogs, Njoynit!!!
My youngest does that all the time.
Gets behind me in the chair and starts
to tickle me and the oldest comes up and
tickels the other side...
I get to laughing so hard, I'm clicking things
and deleted things left and right!
They think it's funny!

Weezie

I have two composters in my back yard, one filled and stewing, the other 2/3 full, and being added to when raw material becomes available. I got both composters for FREE from my city. I did a little research, and many cities apparently offer this free composter goodie, to encourage recycling, etc...It's not just a touchy-feely California thing!!

Check with your local city council (forestry or Public Works division), to see what sorts of offers they have. It might help. My city also gives away free composting worms to anyone who attends their annual free composting workshop (Weezie, you'd love this city!!).

Another thing you might want to do, if your area requires you to put your trash into separate bins (Black, Blue and Green for trash, recycling and garden waste respectively here): Find out where the garden waste goes, because *guaranteed* it goes to a composting hill owned by the waste company. I have to pay $12 for a small bag of compost at Lowe's, and I pay $12 for nearly 2 TONS of great compost at my waste disposal company's plant, only a 20 minute drive from my house. So I borrow my friend's pickup truck once every other year, and fill it up with 2 crane bucketfulls, use a bunch on my lawn, all over my flower beds, and then add some to my stewing composters, and leave the rest in a corner for future use through the next 2 years.

Wow! Great idea! I wish our area did something with garden waste. We just do trash and recycling (when the hubby remembers to take it down to the street :rolleyes: ) I went up and visited my compost pile yesterday. It looks good...I haven't gotten up there in a while with all the snow that was in our yard. Half of it looks to be really great dirt!

Thinking about worms. I saw once on a TV show about a guy...i think he was in Canada... who raises worms for composting and sells and sends them all over north america. He said that the worms breed like once every week or something. He had zillions of the slimy things! I wonder how easy...or hard...it would be to grow your own worms like that. The compost pile would be turning dirt out really fast if there were lots of worms in it.....wouldn't it???

One thing I do to make composting somewhat more pleasant is that I keep a empty icecream pail in the freezer above my fridge.Whenever I have kitchen scraps I throw them in there right away. We dump it out in the compost whenever it gets full. The nice thing about it is that it never rippens in the kitchen till we get to it.I live in Minnesota and theres a 12 inch pile of snow on my pile, but I still run my frozen bucket out and then in the spring as it thaws it shrinks, I add manure, leaves and stir and we are back where we left off in the fall