Diane Germain

Update- you were all right that said there was too much carbon. This pile did take many years to compost. The plus is that the soil there is now fantastic 9 years later. We use the sawdust in the paths now only and recycle the paths into the garden soil every few years. We dont' have anymore grass so that's nice.

Long time lurker, first time posting. I'm putting my garden back into shape after a long time of neglect and I'm looking for sources for perennial root vegetables, especially yacon and skirret.  They are nowhere to be found,  out of stock or those seed companies are long gone. Any suggestions are appreciated! Thank you!

You should definitely visit and get a feel for the terrain. Almost everyone has a view, but what you get, as always, depends on what you have in the money department. The view lots are south of town, btw. North of town is the bay. South of town is the national park. There is something available for you but you should come and look around! Its lovely, really. The park and the water make everything here very nice. Its cooler but there is not any more rain here than elsewhere in western Washington. Good luck!

I love it out here. There is good and bad land for growing so it pays to do your homework. PT is fine but you'll get more bang for your buck in Sequim or Port Angeles, and its nice out here too.

Great advice everyone! We made another pile with a higher grass clipping ration this time, added huge amounts of vegi waste and much less sawdust (but some) and now have a GREAT pile- one week into it its 1/2 the size and very hot. I've made deep paths throughout my garden with the sawdust now. When I had a community garden plot in Seattle we used sawdust in the paths. There, the sawdust can decompose slowly and suppress weeds. Every other year, once the sawdust was nice and aged and full of worms, we'd add it to the beds and start over with new sawdust. Its still a nice carbon for the compost but much less than we put in last years compost is good. I don't have a photo of my compost but it pretty much looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Zz-GRPAzA

I completely agree with not adding more sawdust/ grass clippings to the old pile, but we've "merged" them into a pile where the old and new are back to back, if that makes any sense. Our logic for making a "line" of compost is that we can turn it more easily. We made it Saturday, soaked it, and this morning I got a nice warm feeling off all parts of it so definitely we have something this time. In addition to mixing more we also stomped down the mix so it wasn't so fluffy, added kelp meal and some manure, and again, watered it as we went.

Who else here is doing permaculture work? Lets meet.

also- we do not need this compost soon, but I'd like it for next year or the year after.

Wow! Thank you all so much for all the great advice. Pee- well- I'll see what we can do! That would be a lot of pee! With last years uncomposted mix and this new mix we have a HUGE pile that we are making into a 4' row along the back of our garden. We're mixing in some donated manure, a garbage can of kitchen waste, and this time I will keep it much more moist. The clippings don't get into the pile until they are a few days (or more) old and they were bagged so we were more careful about breaking up mats this time around, and we've kept the sawdust to a minimum. We have added leaves and more soil. Mushrooms are a good idea too. I'm generally a lazy composter and prefer to wait years rather than turn, but this time we are committed to turning this monster! The sawdust is very finely ground already. I will keep you posted. It looks like this 4' pile might very long!