We are always looking for
compost fodder and have the rule you have to deliver. We get wood chips when the utilities do tree trim, the tree removal places know we'll take CHIPPED. We take
lawn clippings and leaf vacuuming from the four lawn places in town.
Before us the guy that owned the property we put that stuff on, generally took scrap metal and trash, including tree chunks (he recycled, cut and split, and sold firewood. And would leave the trash branches around, when I bought the shop from him I removed waist high solid mat of branches as he pollarded (awkwardly) all the trees on the property, took the firewood and left the rest--the
city was not amused at a 25'x125' waist high pile built twice and left at the curb for them to remove) I am still chasing people away with poor English (I now speak the language they do) that say the fellow said it's okay to dump their scrap metal there. No it's not, he sold the place to me and he's long gone. Take their picture and the license plate shot of their rig. If I find a bent paperclip I'm giving this to the sheriff. They leave. I will outwait them as they have a tire or trailer problem they need to fix right now, I'm not leaving until they do. They leave.
Locals that were used to being able to dump stuff there instead of the rolloff or haul it somewhere else, also are still being reeducated, you can't dump your general trash into my
compost pile. No. Where are they supposed to get rid of it then? I don't know but not here. (also take the pictures and license plate shot) We don't take general yard trash.
We need horse and cow manure, usually horse, to compost down as well. A few places, when they clean the barns will swing by and drop it off. That's fine. We will help with the unload. The fellow that called us and got massively upset because we didn't want to come scrape out his barns and haul it ourselves... we'd do it for pay, but not for free, just for the fertilizer.. IF he did it and brought it by (his stables are about a mile away, other fringe end of town) we'd take it, but we weren't going to be his free labor. I cleaned barns and paddocks (ours) growing up on the farm, if it's not my critters I'm not doing it unless I'm paid. He still won't give us the time of day at
coffee a year and a half later.
Dead hay and straw, we take if you deliver. We got 18 big round bales late last fall, was beyond
feed quality. It is becoming
mulch this year after we peel a few layers and get to the good core left. The rest will hit the compost windrow. I have a picture of that delivery of round bales to show someone that suggests I buy hay or straw from them, on my phone. Oh.