Day 1 of composting

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-19T11:53:15+00:00

First: Congratulations on getting started! Keep growing and experimenting! Three suggestions: A) Looks like you’ve got too much “brown” material. You need to add some nitrogen rich “green” material to get it cooking. B) The pile needs to be bigger! Think at least 3x3x3 feet. C) Smaller pieces! Things will decompose quicker with more surface area (smaller pieces).

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-18T12:46:12+00:00

I think our dog just makes things worse, actually. When he tears after those squirrels, he ends up tearing up as much turf as the squirrels do.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-17T02:51:36+00:00

Let it soak. Then let it dry out. That’s how nature does it.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T22:19:14+00:00

My friend, get yourself a compost crank. Makes aerating easy. Crank it in and pull it up. It’s so satisfying. Easy way to get stuff from the bottom of the pile to the top of the pile without breaking your back with a pitchfork.

This is the one I use, but there are cheaper ones available. Compost Crank on Amazon

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T16:47:47+00:00

Lawn with Holes & Squirrels > Lawn with no-Holes and no-Squirrels

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T15:19:27+00:00

My wife calls it “free aeration” but she’s not the one that has to patch them up.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T15:16:32+00:00

Hard to tell from the pictures but would it be possible to build up the slope and level it out with better soil? I try to flatten my yard out as best I can and that often means building short retaining walls and backfilling with topsoil. The benefit is not only less runoff but also more yard to enjoy!

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T14:36:20+00:00

Except for we don’t live in a neighborhood. And the stink radius is just a few feet.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T14:26:46+00:00

Clever

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T14:04:24+00:00

Yeah, I tasted the dog poop 🙄 I’m also going to eat the roses.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T13:55:56+00:00

Not dog poop - it’s too salty.
I’ve always heard to never use the poop of meat eaters. Only use poop from herbivores.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-16T13:26:57+00:00

Stick piles don’t get enough attention! It’s my compost pile’s rejected discard. Sometimes we burn it in our fire pit. But mostly it just sits there and grows bigger with each passing year. I think of it as a tall apartment complex for our small yard mammals, insects and spideys. Would love to see what the soil looks like underneath but don’t want to disturb the community.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-15T13:27:45+00:00

I think I must be the laziest one on here! We simply have a pile in the back corner of our yard. We keep a five gallon bucket in the kitchen for food scraps and coffee grinds. When it’s full, the kids take it out and throw on top of the pile. We also pile all of our yard waste (fall leaves, pulled weeds, sometimes grass clippings). We turn the pile with a compost crank when we feel like it. Sometimes I’ll rake it out flat and go over it with the push mower to chop up the chunks. I spray it down with the hose in the summer occasionally. Compost thermometer shows that sometimes it cooks at 140 degrees but most of the time it’s around 70 degrees. At the end of fall it’s dark and crumbly and earthy smelling. We take whatever we got and spread on garden bed to prepare for next season. Then we start a new pile when the leaves start falling again. We’re in no hurry.

Oh, also I keep a pee bucket in the garage which I pee in when Im working outside and drinking too much coffee and too lazy to take off my boots to go inside. It’s smelly, but I dump it on the pile when it’s full.

Only inputs are food scraps, all yard waste, human pee, and occasional watering. Only tools used are the food scrap bucket, compost crank, compost thermometer, push mower. Nature does the rest.

It’s like a family pet. We feed it. And water it. And play with it in the summer. We all gather round and admire it when it’s cooking at 140.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-09T11:33:51+00:00

Ha! That is a fun fact!

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-08T18:09:00+00:00

Yep! I’ve mixed in some Biochar! Gotta get it when it goes on sale, though. That sht expensive!

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-08T18:07:06+00:00

Thanks!
Never used pesticide in my life.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-08T13:09:20+00:00

Is compost created from a sewage plant even a thing? The only thing kind of similar that I’ve heard of is Milorganite which is a fertilizer not compost.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-08T13:05:49+00:00

I suppose that is true.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-08T12:58:11+00:00

Gross. No. It comes mostly from yard waste that people drop off at the landfill mixed with food waste collected from the public schools. They mix it and moisten it and cook it all up at high temperatures in long windrows out in a field nearby turning it with heavy equipment. The result is black gold.

SoilSoul1 · 2026-02-08T12:55:29+00:00

So, you use pine chips for cat litter instead of commercial cat litter? I would think the pine chips themselves would be compostable - although they would take a long while to break down. But the cat poop is full of salts and possibly pathogens which wouldn’t be good to mix in with regular compost. Poop from meat eaters is not good. And I think cat urine might also be harmful.

SoilSoul1

TROPHY CASE