Reader Kelly is a compost queen and shares some awesome tips with us below:
Hi Mavis,
I live in Michigan on a small farm with one horse and a donkey companion. I am an avid composter. I thought I would share a few tips with you.
1. My favorite tip starts in the kitchen. I found that a compost pail attracted fruit flies and could smell if left out. Instead, I started keeping a brown paper lunch sack in my freezer door. I add all my fruit veggie scraps to the bag and when it’s full I chuck the frozen bag right into my compost pile. No mess, no smells and no container to clean out. The paper bag will compost fine! To be extra green I often use an empty flour or sugar bag or a used paper lunch sack.
2. I create my compost bins using snow fence, t-posts and zip ties and cover it will a camouflaged tarp to control how much moisture gets in.
3. The secret to really nice compost is WORMS! I had a pile here for 2 years with almost no worms in it at all. Then I went to a friend’s farm who had a very old pile of manure out behind her barn that had never been disturbed. It was FULL of worms. I took a coffee can full of them home to transplant onto my pile early in the fall. By the next spring my pile was so full of worms I could hardly believe my eyes. If you live in a mild climate or like mine, if your pile is big enough, the worms will survive the winter. They do an amazing job of turning my manure pile into black gold.
4. Get a compost thermometer to monitor the temperature of the pile. It will give clues as to when to add more water or when it needs to be turned.
5. A healthy compost pile is a living pile. My compost pile is alive with wiggling worms and various insects and many times I flip back the tarp to see a snake enjoying the warmth of the compost pile. Once I even had a momma deer put her fawn on top of my pile on a chilly spring morning. I rolled my wheelbarrow down the hill to my pile and stopped in my tracks when I saw the doe lying at the base of the pile and her baby 3’ up on the top of the pile enjoying the warmth! They stayed there all morning – smart momma!
Composting is fun and easy. I have two piles that are about 6’x10’x4’ high and another pile of finished compost. I’ve never had to remove any manure from my farm and I make lots of great garden soil that I grow my veggies in and place around my trees and flower beds each year. My Polish grandmother always had a compost pile and my mom has one too. It’s a family tradition that I hope continues!
Sincerely,
Kelly
Jean says
This is so awesome! We are a family of 9 and our pathetic tumbler compositor can’t keep up with our needs. We will be setting this up soon. Recently took down the snow fence anyway and will just set it up in different place. One thing we’ve done is to use pet poop biodegradable bags to store compost in (in the house) so there’s no clean up; just fill and drop off in the compost pile.
Kelly F. says
Hi Jean, Regular brown paper lunch sacks will biodegrade nicely and may be cheaper than the bags you’re using.
Happy composting!
Janet says
I feed my horse all the fruit and veggie scraps from the house except for banana peels and egg shells. He also doesn’t like raspberries. I don’t have much food scraps to put in the compost with him. I’m wondering why you don’t feed your animals the fruit and veggie scraps?
Kelly F. says
Hi Janet,
My horse has Cushings disease and I really have to watch what he eats. He’s on a very low-starch diet so fruit and veggie scraps are not the best treats for him. And the donkey, well she’s been watching her weight for a while since donkeys are so prone to insulin resistance. She loves to get brushed more than getting food treats anyway so all my kitchen scraps are fed to the compost pile.
🙂
Gwenn says
I really like the idea of freezing the scraps in a bag and then adding them to the compost pile. Thanks for the tip Kelly!
suzanne says
Horse manure is my favorite but I’ve only owned bunny and llamas! So envious of your life style and thanks for sharing. Didn’t know about compost thermometers. I would imagine equines are like really big, long lived dogs that you don’t have to share the bed with. 🙂
Sonja says
Any way to keep ants out of the compost bin? We seem to lose that battle every year and have no idea what to do!
Kelly F. says
Hi Sonja, I have a few ideas for you. #1. I wonder if your ration of food scraps to woody/brown material is too high? Ants will be attracted to the sugars in fruit scraps for sure. I have more wood shavings and manure in my pile than food scraps so there is very little to attract ants. When I add my bags of food scraps I cover them with a few scoops of manure/wood shavings. #2 Worms will compete for these food scraps so having more worms might mean less ants. #3 Turn your pile more often. Ants that nest in your pile will not be happy when you disturb their home. The more the pile is rotated the less inviting it may be. #4. Is your pile wet enough? The cooking compost should be damp – not dripping wet but wet like clothes that are coming out of the washer that you are putting in the dryer. Ants don’t like to nest in damp places. #5. Is the temperature hot enough? I like my pile to stay around 110-120 degrees. Add a little more manure (horse, chicken, rabbit, etc) and keep your pile moist to ramp up those temperatures. And finally, #6 Ants might be a nuisance but they won’t harm the compost. I hope this helps!
Kelly F. says
Thanks for sharing my tips, Mavis! I forgot to add this helpful tip about aerating the pile. You can buy a simple bulb auger at the hardware store that attaches to a cordless drill and use it to drill holes into the cooking compost pile to help get oxygen into the center of the pile. http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1276423&KPID=951752&kpid=951752&pla=pla_951752
The best part about compost is sharing it! A nice lady who jogs along my dirt road on her lunch hour stopped by yesterday to ask for manure for her garden. I loaded her up with some of my finished compost and she returned today with a bucket full of green onions that I could transplant into my garden! She routinely stops by during the summer and shares veggies with me that she grows in her garden with my compost. Compost is such a cool gift to share!
Happy Composting!
Kelly F.