posted 11 years ago
Compost is not that complicated. The best compost I have ever seen and used, was created using simple chicken wire around a compost pile. That's it, it's not that complicated. No turning, etc. HE (Ernie Pisano), threw anything/everything organic into the area, and egg shells. Food scraps, fall Leaves. He also added some lime, and let it overwinter. He might throw a tarp over it to keep the fruit flys down, but not always. HE had two of these bins. After his death, I pulled the wire, and used his compost. Whoa. I had bags and bags of food from my garden, and ended up throwing way too much of it away (I could not get rid of it fast enough). The bulbs from the flowers, quadroupled and started chocking each other out. (So, I needed to dig then out and split/thin the bulbs). He had more leaves then food scraps in the bins.
I have also had good luck using freshwater seaweed under tomatoes, but the plants get huge, perhaps too big, although the crop was nice, the plants were six feet tall. Also had good luck using fish poop water. (Throw a dozen feeder fish in a tiny $35 lowes fish pond, and you have green fish poop water every few days.). Not a complete fertilizer, but it could not be simpler. This is what I use until the compost finishes it's yearly wait.