Compost

Compost / Premies Group

I have a question.  I have a compost area that I have never taken care of.  Just to many things going on in life and have not delt with it that until now.
My compost area is divided into 2 sections.  I just dump everything from one year in the first section. Chicken poop from the coops, goat poop from the barns. Old hay. Very little food scraps..as our animals get them. And we just leave it.
Then the next year we do the same thing in the 2nd section. We dump everything from the 2nd year in the second pile. We don’t touch pile 1 till middle of 2nd year.
There is no cover over the compost area, so it gets all weather that comes through the homestead.
My question is, is my compost still viable and usable? Is it still good rich soil? Thank you for your help in advance.

Slow composting works just fine. That's how nature does it.

With the mix you have, the stuff at the bottom should be beautiful. And the half-done stuff will be perfect for squash piles.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Slow composting works just fine. That's how nature does it.

With the mix you have, the stuff at the bottom should be beautiful. And the half-done stuff will be perfect for squash piles.

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Should I cover my compost area to keep out of the weather?

It's a balancing act.

Compost needs some moisture to work properly, otherwise it will just be a moldy mess. If it's too wet, it will be a stinky anaerobic soup, which is not ideal either.

In any case, rainfall will leach nutrients into the soil below. I have used old tarps to hold moisture, but it also helps hold nutrients at the bottom of the pile.

I discovered accidentally that the best location for a composter, fast or slow, is over top of soil that you intend to plant a year or two from now. That weird leached compost liquor is stinky gold.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:It's a balancing act.

Compost needs some moisture to work properly, otherwise it will just be a moldy mess. If it's too wet, it will be a stinky anaerobic soup, which is not ideal either.

In any case, rainfall will leach nutrients into the soil below. I have used old tarps to hold moisture, but it also helps hold nutrients at the bottom of the pile.

I discovered accidentally that the best location for a composter, fast or slow, is over top of soil that you intend to plant a year or two from now. That weird leached compost liquor is stinky gold.

I have raised beds, about 2 feet above
ground so we don’t have to bend over as we age. I do use hugekultur method in the raised beds.  The compost I plan to use is to help the soil at the beginning of the growing season. I like the idea of putting the compost pile where I’d plan to plant.
Could I use galvanized tin under the compost pile instead of a tarp?

I only use a tarp because I'm in a dry climate, so holding moisture in the pile is difficult. I don't think I would use galvanized tin, since there are better uses for that.

You may find that some of the enriched soil under your compost is worth digging out and using elsewhere.

I do a similar thing but I don't ever use it elsewhere. I just then grow in the piles and move onto new piles elsewhere. My property is all sloped so I create piles where I would like to increase the height of the ground and move around like that.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I only use a tarp because I'm in a dry climate, so holding moisture in the pile is difficult. I don't think I would use galvanized tin, since there are better uses for that.

You may find that some of the enriched soil under your compost is worth digging out and using elsewhere.

What is the top of the pile good for? If all the really good dirt is under my pile.

Stacy Witscher wrote:I do a similar thing but I don't ever use it elsewhere. I just then grow in the piles and move onto new piles elsewhere. My property is all sloped so I create piles where I would like to increase the height of the ground and move around like that.

Thank you for that idea. I too live on a somewhat slopped hill. And so rocky. This has me thinking now, how this could help in other areas of the property that I’d not considered before.

I love these older threads.

To me compost is what you make of it.  Lot of work by adding lots of organic material and turning it a lot to ge t air into the compost pile ...

Or do nothing, just add lots of organic material and let Mother Nature do her thing.

Your choice ...