Composting

I figured it was high time I showed in detail what goes into composting around here. Yes, you can have one huge compost bin. Around here, I keep my various composting materials separate.

First, there is the chicken manure compost. I keep this separate deliberately. I make sure these compost bins age for a good 1.5 years before adding this to the bottom layer of my garden beds in the fall. By spring, these manure compost have aged 2 years.

Second, there is the green composting pile. Green compost basically consists of "living" plants. Scraps of vegetables, fruits, grass clippings, leaves, all go into this compost.

Last, there is the brown composting pile. This consists of all the compost of wood ashes, wood shavings, pine needles, cardboard, ect.

I lay a thick a layer of cardboard as my base because I'm too cheap to buy a true compost bin. I allow the yearly rains to soak my composts. If I am not too lazy, I'll turn these composts after a good rain. Because they get a lot of air to them, these composts decompose within 6-8 months.

Location: location is important to me. I prefer the manure composts to be a few feet away from the coops where I clean out the manure. I prefer the vegetable scraps to be by the back door, but this is not possible. I have a dream compost bin when it comes to vegetable scraps, but that will have to wait.