My compost mound

I started composting a few years ago. I'm not as proactive as I should be when it comes to turning the mounds over, but they still get the job done.
They come in handy during spring planting season and they take some of the guilt out of throwing away bad food not to mention that the trash doesn't stink nearly as quickly.
I just keep a 1/2 gallon plastic container with a lid on my counter top. All items get sealed in there until it's full then out to the piles with it.

No question kitchen scraps make the best veggie garden supplement but I would point out that this swamp yankee also saves the leaves from all the trees in the yard in a single pile created by four used sections of stockade fence.
Though I fill it to overflowing every year, there is always room for next years leaves.

When I started a new veggie garden, the then 12 (or more) year old pile contributed a great many wheel barrows of organic matter to mix with the pure sand my Cape Cod yard is composed of.

Since sand is a good component of garden soil up to about 50%, it took a vast amount of imported matter to create the new large bed.
Much more came from the very composted end of a horse manure pile, and of course the ancient fertilizer; green manure, but without the leaf mold I wouldn't be very far along.

I started one a couple years ago with the leaves from my yard, and then stared adding kitchen scraps. It took over a year to really start going, but now I've got some decent soil in there. Although I stopped collecting kitchen scraps when a fruit fly problem showed up and my wife got a little upset with my "project". I probably should have used a container with a lid on the kitchen counter....

Its funny how so much of the stuff we put in our pile disappears overnight.
It might explain the fat raccoons and skunks around here.

bassJAM said:

I probably should have used a container with a lid on the kitchen counter....

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We have a friend that stores their kitchen scraps in the freezer to keep them from attracting flies and getting stinky.

semipro said:

We have a friend that stores their kitchen scraps in the freezer to keep them from attracting flies and getting stinky.

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Not a bad idea, bur freezer in the kitchen is already overflowing, and the deep freeze is in the basement, and I'm just too lazy to make the trip!

My wife did agree over the weekend to put kitchen scraps in a 5 gal bucket if I put a lid on it and leave it on the back porch. Which is good, the 2 cups of coffee we make a day makes saving the grounds and paper filters worth it alone!

vinny11950 said:

that's pretty amazing that you compost all your leaves. I was thinking of doing this but using a leaf shredder to make compost and leaf mold. But it seems like a lot of work.

Don't really get your friend saving the scraps in the freezer. Sort of defeats the purpose of letting it decompose. Am I missing something?

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I raked and put all of my leaves in a pile the first year I was at my house to compost them but it was a TON or work. So now I take off the mower deck chute and built a block-off plate and mulch them up with the mower. It takes about 2 passes and they are are chopped to dust to fingernail size. Last year I used the mower to blow them all the shredded leaves into the center of my yard where grass wasn't growing very well. After all that natural mulch, I had the mow that area of the yard twice as often this past summer. I wouldn't dare remove leaves from my yard anymore, after breaking them down a little they are really good for the lawn!

vinny11950 said:

Don't really get your friend saving the scraps in the freezer. Sort of defeats the purpose of letting it decompose. Am I missing something?

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It keeps things "preserved" and nuisance-free until you dump them on the compost pile.

bassJAM said:

Which is good, the 2 cups of coffee we make a day makes saving the grounds and paper filters worth it alone!

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We've been surprised to find that some filters are plastic rather than paper.

Coffee shops frequently give away coffee grounds.

Nice. I have 3 bins made from pallets stood up on end to hold kitchen scraps, my leaves, and my garden left overs as well. I keep it on a 3-year moving average. In the spring, i take the dirt from the 3 year old bin into the garden. I move year 2 into year 3 bin, turning it and stop adding new material to it. and so on down the line. year 1 gets all the kitchen scraps. year 1 and 2 gets kitchen and leaves. year 3 is static.

We bought some stainless counter top bins from Amazon. They come with charcoal filters and keep the smell down. We primarily use them for coffee grounds. They clean up really nice with just some water.

I fill two bins a year and they compost down to an overflowing one in a year. I don't turn them over as often as recommended but I'm now 2+ years behind using it so it doesn't matter so much.
I have a garbage can with handle lock lid for things like bread and big seed items that attract squirrels.
Also do the re-use plastic container with cover by the sink.

We just use a one gallon plastic bucket with a lid for our kitchen scraps and just make sure we empty it before it starts to stink.
Been composting steady for 20+ years.
In the last place we lived we had some acreage and did it in a big way. I use to pick up compressed grass and leaves from a nearby golf course and made some very large compost piles, but it wasn't enough for my needs so when a tree and bush trimming outfit came though I asked them what they did with their trimmings after they went through their mulcher, they said "why do you want some", and I ended up with about 5 big truck loads of compressed mulch that was already steaming hot from the composting process by the time it came out of the back of the truck. We had a huge garden at that place.
The property where we live now is just a small city sized lot, so we have to do things on a smaller scale, but we still managed to turn an area that was mostly just gravel and rocks into a loam rich, earth worm paradise, vegetable garden in just a few years.
I think I'd find it pretty hard to adjust if I lived in an apartment building or something and had to throw all kitchen scraps into the garbage can.

vinny11950 said:

I like those bins. I was thinking of building something similar. The beauty of the compost piles is that even if you don't care for them they still compost over longer time.

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They are just 25 feet of 3 foot fence, around in a circle and overlapping just a little bit.
There's a little bit of slope there and they sometimes start to lean downhill after a bit so a T-post on the low side helps stop that.
Mostly lawn clippings with some brown leaves mixed in 3 to 1 so it doesn't smell. 100% lawn clippings can get ripe and smelling pretty bad.
I don't use any chemicals on the lawn so the lawn clippings are clean.

I did the first round of leaves this weekend. I have 3 bins, and they are stuffed now. All 3 are half filled with good soil. I'll pull the top off the first bin in the spring and use the bottom generation in the garden.

My other pallets are holding my 'cord' wood, which is basically all gone now after having a lot of fires outside this summer. I don't burn wood inside as I have an insert.

I use a wire bin like Bill. No need for activator- save your money. I make a few yards of it a year, plus composting "in place". It gets to over 160F in the middle with the right mix- I have composted whole groundhogs, remains of a deer I butchered, squirrels... a hot pile eats it all

Adios Pantalones said:

I use a wire bin like Bill. No need for activator- save your money. I make a few yards of it a year, plus composting "in place". It gets to over 160F in the middle with the right mix- I have composted whole groundhogs, remains of a deer I butchered, squirrels... a hot pile eats it all

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Our state DOT actually composts the road kill it collects.

vinny11950 said:

that's pretty amazing that you compost all your leaves. I was thinking of doing this but using a leaf shredder to make compost and leaf mold. But it seems like a lot of work.

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Pretty sure your method is more work than mine. I just dump mine in the same bin year after year. What do you do with yours?

I use an empty coffee can with holes in the lid for all the kitchen scraps. When the fruit flies are abundant, the first thing I do in the morning is I place a paper towel over the cover to block all the holes, then I walk out to the deck and I just open up the coffee can. The fruit flies blow away in the wind.

Composting is fun!