Turned my compost pile over today…
Lots of eggshells and earthworms.
About this time of year each year… I turn my pile over… and stop adding to it… start a new pile for new scraps…
Let the older pile finish… when it starts to warm up some in the spring… I turn the older pile over 4 or 5 times… and it finishes nicely by April.
TNHunter
Im not about to toss old tomato vines into the compost heap. They might as well be hazmat. I’m not going to bother walking out there to put a couple of eggshells on the heap either.
It’s too cold in my opinion to profitably grow poultry in this location. The effect they have on fertility is undeniable though. When we had chickens as a kid, we inadvertently turned a caliche outcropping into a permaculture jungle.
Every year I get about a yard and a half of wood chips from the transfer station, an hour’s shoveling, put about 10 pounds of Urea fertilizer half dissolved half dry on the otherwise wet pile and call it a day.
I might give up composting. My bottomless compost bin was located up against my house. Rats have dug a tunnel along my foundation to, and into, the compost bin where they dug a tunnel to the top of the pile. I removed all of the compost but I just saw a rat go into the hole. Now I have to figure out how to get rid of them. I would love to poison them but do not want to poison predators that might feed on them.
profitably yes. growing the best meat and knowing whats in it makes it worth the while. cracked corn is cheap and fuels the chicken’s ability to handle - 0 + easily. a couple scoops every morning in winter maintains their weight. all my kitchen scraps go in a bucket under the sink and every couple of days gets fed to them. my birds have weathered -37f in a unheated coop with no damage. keep the wind off them and coop dry they are fine. its gotten to -23f so far and my youngest hens are still pumping out a egg a day with no supplemental light. 
Unfortunately one “remedy” for the wheat waste is to douse the field in Roundup, it causes the mature wheat to dry up so it can be harvested more efficiently in one pass 
My wife collects kitchen scraps and throws them into a pile on the North facing slope near our house and shed. It’s probably mostly feeding mice and raccoons and stuff, but I’m always hoping that something cool will grow from seed or something.
I’m pretty bad about avoiding the landfill, especially if it involves any extra work. When we lived in the suburbs, we experimented with a spherical composter that you’re supposed rotate.
I found it a big pain in the butt. And we didn’t agree about what should go in it - so it seemed counterproductive to me.
It would be easier decisions if we kept chickens.
The orchard floor get reasonably well cleaned out by wildlife.
In my view, any waste of energy, effort, or money is equivalent to food waste. I don’t hold food in special regard in that way since those other resources could also feed people. Collectively we have the capacity to feed everyone.
The Kansas land in my area can produce 40 bushels of soybeans per acre. Imagine how many people that can feed. Same land can produce over 600 pounds of fish or thousands of pounds of pears on a bad year or tons on a good year. My land is much better than I found it! Typically it produces 150+ large round hay bales in addition to my fruit , vegetables, and fish. That is a lot of cows used for beef or milk being fed with that brome! The organic material as you mention is the secret to higher production. The farmers who are stingy with the nutrients they apply to the farm will find the farm is stingy with them. When applied cow manure everyone said it’s unnecessary but what they grow and what I grow are different. Nutrient rich soil is good for orchards. Gmo grains you can grow anywhere which is what most farmers here grow.
I had to laugh when I saw this thread. If you lived in California, you wouldn’t have to ask what to do with that stuff–you put it in the “green waste” bin provided by the garbage company, and it goes to the brand-new anaerobic digestion facility paid for with your tax dollars. It’s now the law (starting yesterday), and I’m sure they will be imposing penalties now if you put your food scraps in the wrong bin.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought California sorted everyones garbage a few years ago making lots of money doing it. It makes sense to make people do it themselves. Trash is ridiculously profitable when you see it as all valuables. On TV the show I saw they recycled 100% of everything and used it. They sold the waste they got for free. The branches and things they turned into wood chips to be used. Other things like foods became compost, glass was melted. Tin was melted, plastic melted , cardboad recycled into cardboard, aluminum melted it was impressive.
My compost pile is out by my flat garden bed… where I grow my veggies… about 50 yards from our house.
We save scraps in a container… holds a gallon… mostly veggie scraps… coffee grounds… eggshells… when it gets full (every 2-3) days usually… I take it out to the pile.
Lots of other garden waste goes in the pile… corn stalks shucks okra stalks any plant material that looks healthy… and in the fall 40 wheelbarrow full of sugar maple leaves… and I often harvest some woods compost and add to the pile.
I dont put blighted tomato plants in the pile or anything that looks sickly.
My pile is very low maint… mostly just pile it up and let it rot. I do normally have to turn it over 5 or 6 times to get it to finish good.
Cant imagine gardening without a compost pile or two. Been doing that since the early 90’s.
Rats are odd there might be none at all in your compost pile or a real problem. In this area voles take advantage of the loose soil in my compost piles but never rats. They are not there to eat they have fields of food and my compost is aged cow manure rather they build nests in it. The wood chips I have never seen voles in on my property for whatever reason. My suspicion is because snakes favor woodchips the rodents leave them alone. My hopes are someday the snakes numbers return to past numbers again and rodents are less successful because of it. The problem is people move here from the city killing snakes out of fear and the increased traffic kills many on the roads. It’s not that I like snakes but I do realize they are part of the system. Kitchen scraps I never put in the same spot twice. Have a tendency to bury scraps under tomatoes or something similar in the summer. Wow decomposing compost makes tomatoes grow! Add a 1/2 gallon of whatever scraps to the bottom of the tomato plant when you first put it in and the results are amazing. Heavy feeders like carmine jewell cherries respond quickly as well. There are times when I put garbage in the same place but I felt I was training the possums to come here. Quit doing that years ago once I realized I was causing problems not fixing them. Coffee grounds are fantastic fertilizer.
@Vlad … my pile is open… literally just a pile.
I have never really worried about what visits it… no doubt lots of critters do… most noticeably armadillo… they churn it up some… who cares… it ends up being awesome stuff.
Here is a pic of my finished pile… and a new pile that I took on March 22 last spring. Looks like I had just turned them over and raked them up. I would estimate 400-500 ibs of finished compost. I probably put 150-×200 lbs on my tomato row each year… grow like crazy… gobs of tomatoes.
Never seen a rat out here in the country… have seen those in town at a factory that I worked at for 6 month when in my early 20s.
We do have plenty of field mice… chip monks squirrels coons possum skunk fox coyote Bobcats deer turkey and armadillo… and they do visit my pile. But it turns out like this… a great finished product. Once finished much less attractive to critters.
They have been making us sort our own for at least 15 years now. We all have 3 waste bins–trash, recyclables, and yard waste. Three or four years ago they gave us little pails to keep on our kitchen countertops and told us to put all our food scraps (including meat) in them, and then dump them in the yard waste container instead of the trash container. I personally don’t like doing this because I frequently use my yard waste container when I am pruning or weeding, and don’t like to have it stinky or crawling with maggots.
As of January 1, it is now the law that you have to separate your food scraps from regular trash and put them in the yard waste container. I believe there are penalties for noncompliance, but I haven’t yet looked into what they are. The rationale for it is that when food scraps are put into the landfill they release carbon into the atmosphere as they decay.
Another objection I have to this system is that anything that goes into the recyclables container that has had food or beverage in it must be washed. We are almost always in a drought and being told to conserve water. (The target water consumption for an individual here is 50 gallons per day.) So I refuse to use up precious water washing out containers that are going in the trash, basically, since China doesn’t want our recyclables anymore.
That’s pretty strict on how things are done. Some cities in Kansas seperate recycle 
items as well. There are people in my area that don’t yet have trash service.
Ours is like that too, here in WA, although out in the country we don’t do the composting. The collection point is 1/4 mile up the private drive.
One container for glass, one container for other recyclables that must be clean, strict about what plastics are allowed, and then the landfill trash.
Most of the customers don’t follow the rules carefully and a huge portion of the recycling resources go towards dealing with the contamination and snarled equipment.
Recyclers were thrown for a big loop when China stopped accepting shipments from the US.
I started a project about 3 years ago with about 400 or so worms that i scavaged from my property, under rocks, logs, flowerbed edges etc.
I watched way too many youtube videos and had these storage bins and then graduated up to a kiddie pool. I fed the worms all of my household waste during the year, then at the end of the season i fed them all of my annual plant tops, then fed them leaves. I didnt flush most of my toilet paper, and i didnt throw away paper towels… i just added it to the worm bins.
400 worms were probably around 50000 at this point… so i decided to just chuck everything in a raised bed kinda deal. Just 4 boards screwed together… about 8ft by 8ft. I harvested the black gold the best that i could and added it to my garden and berry rows.
So as of right now i probably have 500000 who really knows… I divide them and add them to my rows and gardens, i have gotten creative with leaf piles and just keep dividing them. Last year i bought a bagger mower and fed them about 100 wheelbarrows of grass clippings.
The bad thing about adding them to my berry rows is that they devour the compost and woodchips pretty fast… im not sure if im creating more work for myself by doing it this way…
Some fun facts that i think are mostly true-
A small colony of worms will increase itself around 20 fold in 3 months. And once that fold matures… it begins to become incalculable.
As far as i can tell the key to making them go insane with making babies is sweet fruits and vegetables. They love leaves, grass… kinda like whatever a chicken will eat they will eat.
Keeping cardboard boxes on top of the piles and putting cinderblocks or logs to weigh it down is their happy place. They like the darkness and compression for some reason.
I have also found something else kinda neat… yes i have gotten wood roaches and some wierd critters also ants… but lizards and spiders started appearing…then toads. So its like i created a little Ancient Roman Colosseum…
So if you want to make all of your food waste disappear, and all of your household biodegradables… start a worm farm.
If you raise chickens- or want to- I wonder what the math is on turning food waste into worms which can feed chickens… versus feeding the chickens food waste?
1lb of cabbage would probably feed and multiply tens of thousands of worms… ?
Lessons ive learned- You have to add some kind of grit… or else the pile gets too funky. I started by adding sand. I have also added washed wood ashes. It all disappears. I have moved on to adding poor soil… i just find a place on my property where all that grows is weeds or nothing of value and i dig up a bucket of that soil and spread it. That poor soil gets mixed in with the black gold and i harvest it later…
After a year or so it becomes second nature… you start creating buckets of food waste, household perishables… you ask your friends if they will start buckets… you start having a purpose for grass clippings, your raked leaves… so yeah it is a little work… and its another responsibility… but if you want a bunch of worms… get a pile started.
Disclaimer- I do not have rats. I dont really even have mice. So if you do then you will have to deal with those things im sure.
“Fish scraps 10x tomatoes”
Can you explain please? I have plenty of fish scraps and starting to grow tomatoes. Thanks
I keep a container under the sink and dump it in a pile in the woods when it fills up with scraps and coffee grounds, no meat products though.
I’m getting inspired by you guys and need more direction. Guess I need to start researching composting and such. Brother across the highway is getting chickens soon so I can contribute to feeding them.
We have over 100 acres combined, 2 creeks, 1 river and some ponds. Old family dairy farm. I got into fruit trees a couple years ago, still adding all the time. We’re trying to get into more farming, vegetables etc. I’ve thought about getting a legit wood chipper as there’s an endless supply of sticks and limbs.
Do you till leaves into your garden or just cover in the winter?
Just bury the scraps of one or two fish leftover from when you clean them at the bottom of every tomato you plant. Get ready for hravy production. Mulch around the plants to hold the water it will help. What I do is if I have a foot tall tomato plant I bury the fish 1 foot deep then the tomato 10" deep. The tomato turns a very dark green and blooms like crazy. There is a seperate thread on fish emulsions which you might like.
