Simple 18 Day Hot Compost (Video 2 of 3)
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- Опубліковано 28 сер 2019
- In this video, we will be showing day 8, 10 and 12 of a hot compost pile. The pile was built in the "18" day Berkley hot composting method. The compost pile is really beginning to change compared to the first video.
The first video in this series: • Simple 18 Day Hot Comp...
Learn How To Make Compost With Chickens Playlist: • Chicken Composting System
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Learn How To Make Compost With Chickens Playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PLjkG_48eh6T8pFxA1NmOg47Jcfrppx-Du.html
The reason your having trouble is the dried grass clippings is considered a green. As your pile composts it is supost to get smaller. You need to use leaves for your brown. Also unless it looks like rain don't cover the pile. I have been composting for 50 yrs. And I get compost in 14 days. I turn the pile every 3rd day. Don't add to pile if you have to start a need pile. The reason it is matting togeather. Is your using just grass clipping
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Wayne Burks, I agree with your comment, but, I’m curious as to why you would be watching a video on how to make a compost pile when you have mastered the process over the past 50 years. I have a question for you, I have limited space, and have a ton of new things to compost, but my pile is just about finished, and just learned I need to let the compost finish before adding new material.
Thanks, Anita
@@anitaevers2119 I like to watch people making compost you never know when you learn something new. If you keep adding to the pile it never gets finished. I just start another one. I use a lot of compost. There are many ways to make compost I need it as quickly as possible. Sheet compost is easy and takes hardly any work. In that you do just keep adding materials on the ground and let nature do it's thing.
@@anitaevers2119 ok I am sorry I didn't answer your question. I have 6 bins right next to each other. I start a pile after 3 days I turn the pile into the next bin then the 1st bin is empty ready for a new pile and so on all thru the growing season.
Wayne Burks, thank you for responding. I am so jealous of your space! I ❤️❤️to turn compost, some would think I was crazy, but I find it so relaxing and rewarding to contemplate the miracle of nature. I always think I have stored enough leaves for browns, but it seems I’m always low on leaves come summertime. I’ve been composting for 5 years, still learning, not sure I like the black plastic bins I purchased that well, getting compost put of the bottom is a pain in the back, taking it from the top is not that convenient either. They are aesthetically pleasing for a city yard, and that is the only benefit I see. Thanks again!
Wetness is OK.Actually I love it.
Lots of nuggets in this series
😂nuggets, chickens!
A long thermometer comes in really handy, especially for bigger piles. Once I get a good pile of compost, I keep adding more grass clippings to keep it hot. After 60 days or so, it won't stay hot anymore - even with new N - and then it's time to let that pile cook down for the rest of the season and start a new one. I don't rake my leaves in the fall, so I have a good source all summer long to run over with the mower and keep adding to existing or starting new piles. I have it down to a science.
Something that you can do to add oxygen is use a paint stirrer. The type that you attach to a drill. It mixes it up and adds air to it.
It may work. 🤷♂️
Smashed the like. Commenting. Cause this is good stuff. I really appreciate you taking the time to walk through the whole process.
Thanks for taking the time to watch!
Thank you for taking us along. I've learned so much from the various stages of this compost series and look forward to more videos.
Thank you for watching and commenting Kim. I'm glad you enjoy it and soaked up a bit of information here and there.
Hey Bill, just stumbled across your channel. Digging your homestead. The ‘mold’ is mycelium and it’s that good good. Keep up that hard work.
Thank you! 👍👍
Freshly dried grass clippings are still green not browns. You need to add some carbon to it to cut the smell back. You are making cow manure basically.
Thanks for watching and for your input! I've got a question. Hay is considered a Brown or a carbon. Hay is nothing but dried grass clippings. At what point or what is the timeframe to let the grass clippings AKA Hay sit?
For the initial build I let the Hey sit 6 days until there was no more green left in the clippings for the hay that I added to the compost pile in this video it was about 16 days old.
@@HonestOpenPermaculture I've always considered hay as green material.
i totally agree with Donnie. to say something is green or brown you look at its carbon/nitrogen ratio. if it's below 30:1 you say it's green , if above 30:1 you say it's brown. in grass clippings case it has about 17:1 c/n ratio when it's fresh and when it dries out it has about 25:1 c/n ratio which is still considered green. you can add dried leaves c/n ratio of 60:1 or shredded cardboard c/n ratio of 175:1 or sawdust c/n ratio of 300:1. the numbers might not be exact but they are around that. and i want to mention that you need more variety in your compost for it to be rich. by using only grass ; you are basically making cow manure as Donnie said.
@@soulsaw666 thanks for your input!
This wasn't meant to be a highly complex compost pile my friend. It was simply showing people that anyone can build a compost pile and all you need is one material that anyone can get there hands on. When you start throwing out ratios and talking about how complex a compost pile can be you going to lose 99% of people.
My goal was to get someone that has never built a compost pile before to build a compost pile. So I tried to make it as simple as possible. For example if you run across somebody that has never done math before you probly want to start with addition and subtraction and not go straight in to calculus.
@@soulsaw666 Also I'm really curious on where you got your numbers as far as the ratios on the carbon to nitrogen? I can find multiple sources that say dried grass clippings are 50-1. Here's one of the links. www.compostjunkie.com/compost-ingredients.html
You can really see the steam today 👍
covering the pile this way prevent good air flow and thus promote anaerobic condition it's better to set a higher up roof or nothing at all better to be too wet than without air, a bigger thermometer would be better too to insure the middle don't go higher than 165. Also i believe the white mold indicate a lack of air.
Great video thought really enjoyed watching and cant wait to see the end result :)
Thank you!👍
Water displaces air therefore it will go anaerobic if it is too wet
I like that you only used the grass clippings. I’m trying one myself. They look similar with your 14 day’s results. It stopped heating up for some reason 🤷🏻♀️ Your video definitely helped! Thank you!
Awesome! Glad it helped!
I just started winter composting. I do not have access to grass clippings. Can I substitute with leafy greens. My produce store gave me a ton of rejected swisschard and bokchoy.
Very useful
all of that white stuff towards the end is probably not fungus, but the dead bodies of all the thermophilic bacteria accumulating
thanks much ,from eastern n.c.
Welcome. We uses to like in Greenville for a while. My wife's family is out there.
Good stuff
Thanks
Honest Open Permaculture you bet I know Idea you could create compost that way. Your videos are very informative and funny. I enjoy them
Did this same method but let my grass clippings set for 2 days so it was half dead half green. Added black compost food scraps egg shells coffee grounds and wood chips.
Nice! I bet it worked well!
I'm so excited about this method! I'm on day 12 and it seems to be going really well. It's really different using coconut husks, though.
Nice! I would like to try it with coconut husks one time.
@@HonestOpenPermaculture I live in Brazil, so I can see coconuts on the street all the time.
If it feels wet don't add water. By you next to last turn it should be getting cooler by the last time there should be no heat. If it sticks together it's to wet.
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Wayne Burks Please make videos.
Adding dried grass might or might not help you rebalance your pile, I might be wrong but adding sawdust might help you more than the dried out grass you are adding at the start of the film
Thanks for your videos and explanations !
You're absolutely right sawdust would be a great carbon product. I realized that I didn't say it when I was editing the video. I was trying to keep this pile just to one type of material. Only grass clippings. But you're right I think saw this would be a great additive to this pile.
Missed the bit where you explain your objective (it’s in part 1) of mixing fresh and dried out grass clippings %-), next time I ll watch part 1 first and the part 2. Composting videos don’t work like Star Wars movies...
Anyway I too have a pile with fresh and dry clippings but I found that it was shrinking too quickly so added more materials that had been drying out since the spring. Saw dust worked wonders with clippings in a previous pile. But your experiment is good cause summer piles are by nature quite green so I am curious about your end result.
What about using a scoop of yogurt to speed it up?
Question, I'm also having the grass clippings mat together. Until now I didn't know that was a bad thing. What if I spread the pile and then ran through it a few times to break up the matting with my tiller? With my tilling set on high or the first notch it won't dig up any dirt.just mix the matted material. Then go back like you did using the material from the pile and adding more brown. I traded an old not working golf cart for an old Gaint-Vac last summer. I love it. I now 3 acres and vac up the clippings as I go. I originally wanted the clippings for the chicken coop. Way more than the coop could handle. So I started composting them like you do,mainly using just grass clippings. Mine break down really well. I believe because the are chopped up in the mower and again going through the impeller on the vac. Thanks for what you are doing. Yours is one of the most useful channels on UA-cam. No Bull Schiff, just good useful information!
Appreciate the compliment Will! Yeah but the tiller idea would work. If you try it let me know. Also about the vac, that's what my wife keeps telling me is that I need something to suck up all the grass clipping instead of have to rake for hours.
@@HonestOpenPermaculture the vac was a game changer for me. I'm to old to work as hard as you do. I wouldn't buy new. I see them a lot on Facebook marketplace. I wish I had held out for a lighter one.
Grass is full of silica and isn't ideal for compost due to it's toughness (nothing really digests silica). If you have a lot of grass clippings to process then mix it thoroughly it with an equal amount of dried autumn leaves in a pile and it won't mat so much. It will take a little while though.
I have limited space, that's why I use plastic buckets/ barrels for my compost. I turn it twice a day. My guess is, that even if you turn the compost twice a day, the oxygen level will drop too low between the turns.
Does anyone know a great method to make sure the optimal/ good oxygen level is present in the compost?
Intresting video however I was always under the impression grass is grass and cant be considered a carbon (straw maybe) ? Have you done any tests after to find your ph and nutrients values ?? I guess that would be the true test.
Nope hadn't tested it.
Why not use a clear tarp where you should be able to actually speed up drastically? More heat more moisture through condensation and faster turn over?
Because more isn't always better. More heat is not good for the pile nether is more moisture
If the compost pile does go over the 165 degree, can it still be salvaged?
It's a self-solving problem - pile heats up too much, the bacteria and fungus dies, the process slows so the heat drops, then bacteria and fungi multiply again.
Yes. As soon as you see it getting too hot, immediately turn the pile and hose it down. If you let it cool down on its own, you will kill all of the bacteria. This way, you can salvage most of it. Let it sit for a few days, and when it drops down into the green, recharge it. You'll only lose a week or so.
Why do this on the ground? Don't you lose a lot of nutrients INTO the ground when you do this? And does it kill the grass it's on (by suffocating or burning or consuming it, along with the green grass mixed into the pile)?
Compost isnt really the same as chemical fertilizer, most of the nutrients are to feed soil microbiology, not the plants directly as many are not water soluble. It's the biological organisms that make it bioavaliable.
Also worms, bugs and such add to a living soil.
anyone can make? hope don't have a lawn or lawn mower.
You can get grass clippings on the side of the road, but don't get it from high end neighborhoods sprayed with chemicals like Weed "n" Feed. It will damage whatever you plant in it. Cheap neighborhoods don't generally use lawn services and weedy yards are a great sign that you can use their grass. Leaves are leaves.
something I've always been curious about. why put clippings into a pile? doesn't it do the same thing if you leave it in place where it lays? so what does piling it up accomplish? I notice even with it piled up, you keep going back and adding more clippings, turning, watering...seems like if you want it loose just keep it laying all over and add water in place like in nature.
I guess it takes longer than 18 days that way and we are able to selectively repair our soil by combining different things in a way that mimicks what happens over a much longer timeframe in nature. Also, since we have ruined the soil with modern practices we have to intercede on behalf of nature to repair the soil that is now depleted or just wait a hundred years or more to grow a garden haha
I put grass clippings in a pile to make compost. Then I take the compost and feed the plants in my garden with it. If I just leave the grass clippings where they lay They will eventually compost down and go back into the ground. But that's not what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm trying to accomplish fertilizer for my garden with the grass clippings. The reason I turn it and water it every 2 days is because the micro organisms and bacteria need oxygen and water to break down the compost pile quickly. With a lack of oxygen or water in the pile and will take a lot longer to break down. I am building a compost pile that will be done in less than 20 days. If you just piled grass clippings up in a pile it would take months before they would actually compost down by themselves. Also by putting the grass clippings in a pile and turning it every 2 days it heats the pile up over a 150ﾟ and fries out all the weed seeds. If I let nature do it, it would be chock full of weed seeds. I don't want that in my garden area. Lol
@@HonestOpenPermaculture Yeah, that was my conclusion. Sure, over time the grass clippings would eventually fertilize the ground and then you might have the conditions to plant a garden, but leaving it where it lays would mean less fertilizer in any given location and a longer period of time to concentrate enough of that "natural fertilizer" and as you point out, piling it up and turning and watering it is speeding up the process of nature and then allowing you to put a concentrated amount of that "fast fertilizer" in the location you want it. Otherwise your whole acreage would have to be your garden and you might get one plant here and one plant there along with a great deal of weeds and other unwanted plants choking out the desired plants. It's fascinating how we can manipulate nature to actually get a natural result in an unnatural amount of time and without unnatural additions like chemicals and gmo. Love your channel. I learn alot here. Thank you
@@creativehomesinstlouis-sel4256 Thank you for watching and interacting! I did worry a little bit about taking grass clippings from the fields Because it would be draining nutrients If all I did was take. That is one reason I run my chickens in the fields. To replenish the nutrients I am taking to make compost.
@@HonestOpenPermaculture sure, and maybe one of us will eventually get a chance to talk about other permaculture practices that enable you to put some of those borrowed nutrients back in. I am getting ready to start my homestead next week as I recently bout 8 1/2 acres. I will try to put up videos as well. But right now I am learning a lot more than I can teach and I owe that to guys like you that have been ahead of me on this road.
Kitchen scraps without dairy, meat, grease
A hot pile let's you compost all of that down. I routinely compost old food, rancid food, gravy, sour milk; even small amounts of poison ivy, as the urushiol is an oil and will break down with heat. What you don't want to compost is grass that has been sprayed with Weed "n" Feed, as it will kill anything you plant in it, except corn. Stay away from manures of unknown origin for the same reason. Grazon is used in a lot of hay fields, and the cow's stomach will not break it down.
the white stuff is b/c that is anaerobic bacteria and you want aerobic bacteria.
AAA+++
Why do everyone wants to speed up everything? I'm pretty sure nature doesn't work that way. I mean it's great you're experimenting and so but I think the resulting compost you'll get will be still too raw even if it looks black black it won't be enough stabilized. I know is just my opinion, but great work with the following up process idea
There is multiple reasons to do it fast. When you do it fast it heats up enough to kill off weed seeds. When doing it slow it doesn't and your putting weed seeds in your garden. Nature doesn't discriminate against plants and will put any type of plant your garden it doesn't understand we're trying to grow food. So you have to approach it a little bit different the nature would. There is nothing wrong with speeding up the process. Why waight 6-12 months why you can do it in less than one? It is the same exact process we just figured out how to speed it up.
Ps:
We are part of nature. I think a lot of people forget that.😉
Talkless walk more
Stop adding water!!!! If you would of mixed it without adding water it would of fixed itself but you can't help yourself you had to keep adding water every flip
With that amount of heat, it NEEDS water. And more than he gave it. I give lectures on making compost, so I have this down to a science. The key is turning it every other day to keep it aerated.