Saturday, April 5, 2014

New compost structure

This morning we built a new compost structure. I use the term "building" loosley here, because it was more like "throw together some scraps".  We had some old metal poles the previous owner left us under the shed.  Last week we got several rolls of chicken wire for free.  We drove 3 poles into the ground, and wrapped chicken wire around it, leaving it open in the front so I could add material and turn the pile as needed.

A few weeks ago I cleaned out the winter muck from the chicken coop (I use the deep litter method where it gets cleaned out 1-2x per year).  However, I need to compost the chicken manure and it wouldn't all fit in my current compost bins.

My current composters are large galvanized trash cans, with holes drilled in them, submerged into the ground about 2/3 of the way. This allows worms in, but deters scavengers (racoons, mice, rats) who may be attracted to food items.  So the "new" compost pile is for chicken manure and lawn clippings only - since it isn't scavenger proof.

You can see the new structure on the left, and the old "scavenger proof" one on the right. And of course the girls love digging around in the open pile, there was a good amount of red worms in it already - the manure had been sitting in a pile covered in a tarp for about a month.