Jesse Kelsch

Thanks for this post. I have four 4x4x4ft open-at-the-top-and-front cinderblock bins which work very well, but I'm looking at a tumbler JUST for kitchen waste. With the four large open compartments I already use, I have the luxury of time to consistently make nice, usable compost out of everything: humanure, yard waste, kitchen waste, dog hair, human hair, dead small animals I find, etcetera....  Depending on the season, weather, and activities it takes between 9 months to a year and a half to fill one, and so the others each sit for about three to four years doing their biochemical stuff before I empty that bin and use that compost.  BUT I am also maintaining a healthy rat population by including kitchen waste, and I want to stop helping those critters, as they of course expand to areas where they destroy our man-made stuff.

My question about the tumbler: How do you deal with the continual production of kitchen waste? (e.g., is there a "holding" bin waiting to tumble?) How long does it take to make compost, allowing you to start filling it again? Is it worth getting the two-compartment bins?   What are the pros and cons of the different sizes?

Thanks for your input!

This doesn't answer the OP's question about growing something, but since some reading this thread might be looking for something to buy I'll share what I use. Etee brand floss is made from mulberry silk and is sold in spools that you pop into a tiny glass jar with a screw-on metal lid with just the right holes to dispense and cut (you buy the jar once, the first time.)  The refill spools come in a paperboard box. I have a few tight spaces between teeth and it mostly does not fray on those (I just have to use a fresh segment in those spaces and it's fine, no fraying.) Since I floss in the bathroom, when I'm done it goes into the compost toilet.

Hans, take heart. You WILL have to get ahead of them every year, but after your initial big effort they are unlikely to ever be as bad as they are now.  You also want to look at drainage.... do you have uphill neighbors they may regularly come from? If so, can you build any kind of collection, like a berm that will contain them in an uphill swale, so your effort will be restricted there? Since even they do compete with each other for space, it's not so much a matter of how many seeds are out there but how much area they might take over, and if you can minimize that total area, your work will be less in the future. (This attention is more for after you get after them this year, but you might be thinking about it as you're pulling, since you have the mental time.)

Also... seeing that all roommates (including furry ones) remove them from their feet before entering will make for grateful indoor bare feet. I have a stroke-recovering spouse who does not do that well because he's not flexible, and ouch! those surprises.... worse than a Lego.

Good idea to walk on it, especially while we're having rain and it's muddy. I think I'll spread seed, walk on all of it, then lay jute fabric to keep that dirt in place.  

Lots of experience with goatheads! I've been on 20 acres for 16 years, which was raw/ relatively undisturbed when we bought it. The goatheads showed up in year three when we had a load of gravel delivered, and they have never gone away. They also come in on tires. BUT every single summer when they first show up it's part of my routine to take a 5 gal bucket or molasses tub around to collect them. Just a bit every day or so, especially when wet, and they don't get out of control. That's with them not having been here to start.  In contrast, a friend bought 1 acre in town covered in goatheads, and he combo pulled some and burned some, AND THEN walked his whole property bits at a time with dollar store flip flops and a bucket, in baby steps to collect the seeds on the soles and scrape them into the bucket. Repeat a thousand times.  

I've also known people to drag carpet that is intended to be thrown away, to pick up the seeds.... this is still after pulling or burning.

They are so ubiquitous, by the way, that our local pickup ultimate frisbee team is named the Goatheads, as the field they play on is (like most grassy areas in my small town) host to them.

I wish you the best.

I have lots of disturbed dirt I want to return to native grassland. I have a grass seed mix native to my area (Trans-Pecos Texas), but I've watched harvester ants walk off with my well spread seed, even with jute and with tackifier (separately).  I'm now looking at those aspen-wood erosion-control blankets. Online promotional stuff says they do let grass seed grow up through it nicely, but I'm wondering if I'm just making an ant pergola with another buffet for them.  Part of my wanting them is also erosion control... I'm helpless watching lots of silt and mud and sand move downslope from the recently disturbed areas, with our recent rain, and bury the native grass... In past years I've seen this kill the grass.

It's been raining so much here, anomalously, allowing me to pull goatheads, tumbleweeds, and amaranth so easily, and while I'm doing that I've been poking my fingers into the mud (which is rarely so wet,) dropping a few individual grass seeds, and smooshing the mud over the hole. And even watched an ant go for one before I buried the seed! But boy do I not have time or energy to do that for the ~1/2 acre I need to.  I could certainly zen out on that in half hour breaks over the next week while we still have this tropical storm system, but I'm still watching a lot more dirt move than I want to move, so i still need an erosion solution, and am hoping to grow grass from seed while I stop the dirt movement.

Does anyone have experience with these things?  

If the sprouts have developed a fuzz, are they still fine to plant?  I too have done this only by accident having left them on the countertop too long (only buy organic potatoes, and you have some to plant!) but I've been worried about the ones with fuzz, or the potatoes themselves with slime on them, so those ones I have composted instead of planted, concerned about bringing a disease to the potato bed.  Could I have planted either of those sprouts?

I'm just commenting on the beautiful photos... First email I open in the morning while the house is quiet... after a nice dream that's still lingering... and here are some potatoes appearing to float in space, demonstrating that they are ready for planting.    

Good to hear! This one has a much nicer price than others I've looked at. Is it OK for indoor? (I suppose that's the vent at the top, to be vented through the roof.)

Does it have a pilot that stays on, and if so is that pilot sturdy? (i.e. do you have to relight it often)

Sorry for the basic questions. Our frozen-&-burst one was a Bosch indoor propane tankless and we had it vented through the roof, so that space exists indoors but with the only access from an exterior panel. It was a pain to access to relight when air flow would blow it out or a guest would tinker with the hot valve on the shower, varying the flow rate across it.  The access situation would be the same, so I'm hoping little regular access is needed. My husband had installed it, but he has since had a stroke and is "leaving everything to" me.

Aaron Yarbrough wrote:As a result the recent Texas winterpocalypse and my poorly insulated enclosure housing my water heater I have the the opportunity to revisit finding a tankless propane water heater that works under low flow conditions. I found the following post on the Green Building Advisor website. The following paragraph from the post sums up to solution:

The key to providing hot water at low flow rates with tankless water heaters is to match the combination of flow rate and temperature rise to fall within the range of the water heater's capacity. The other way is to have some amount of stored hot water (generally called a tank!) that can be used to accomodate low flow rates as well as provide for some amount of peaking capacity (which depends on the stored volume.)

I'm going to try out the Marey GAS 5L – 1.89GPM Liquid Propane Tankless Water Heater to see if the small unit works better for our needs.

Hello Aaron, I too lost my Bosch propane indoor tankless water heater in the Texas winterpocalypse of 2021, in Alpine TX. It's in a small guest house that we're about to rent, so I'm only now replacing it.  What was your solution?  We have low flow and a tiny space built just for tankless heaters, so I can't go the tank-heater route.