Saturday, January 08, 2011

Too much compost?

Took a serious swing at the huge pile of tree trimmings that's been aging in the yard, the plan was to have the tree trimmers leave it all behind, I would then chip and shred it into compost gold!  It was slow going but nice relaxing work to do with the iPod on.  I chipped and shredded for about 6 hours straight and reduced the trimming pile by only ~30%.




Had to rearrange my composting center to facilitate an additional pile or two, I didn't plan this out so well and as such didn't have the necessary pallets to create bins.  I ended up cleaning up the whole area, relocating about a ton (that's a total bullshit estimate, I have no idea what it weighted) of gravel and dirt to the side of the potting shed.  Then I was able to drag the Compost Tumbler over to the West wall to free the North wall for additional piles.

I don't much care for the hay as a pathway mulch not to mention it's SPROUTING all over the place!  I'll be composting it to dispose of the remaining 1.5 bales as well as the material already in use in the paths.  It makes a good carbon source and the hollow structure of the straw is conducive to air flow.  It's hard to tell from the picture but the footprint is probably 7' x 4'  When I'm finished shredding the tree trimmings I expect the footprint to grow by another 50% and the height to end up at 5'  This would bring the volume to 315 cubic feet which is just ridiculous and unmanageable.  ;0)

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