I have been managing a fairly large community composting facility for years. It is a core
part of this RED Gardens Project, where most of the organic material generated in the gardens
and in the surrounding landscape is mixed in with the household compost from our own house and from
quite a few of my neighbours, and this provides an essential source of soil amendment and fertility
for the vegetable gardens. And the methods that I use to manage this composting facility have
evolved over the years, with a significant changes since I last talked about it almost 5 years ago.
The main purpose of the changes were to reduce the amount of work that it takes to manage the
substantial amount of material, which was possible in part because of changes in how
I have been controlling the rat population. I also made a series of panels for creating
the compost containers, which enable me to easily setup each new compost pile
and to allow a lot more air into the material, which improves the decomposition process.
And this focus on built infrastructure and changes in simple processes have drastically reduced the
amount of work that I need to put in, and I still end up with good quality compost in the end, and
all of the numerous people who add material to the compost still only need to follow the one rule.
This composting area started as a way for me to recycle old plants and other garden wastes,
as well as material from the surrounding landscape into a useful soil amendment and
source of fertility for the vegetable gardens. And this gradually developed
to the point where over 30 households use this facility for most of their compostable material,
as well as all the material that I add from the gardens. In the process I became the manager of
a significant community composting facility, all without any signs, instructions or notices. There
is quite a lot of material going through this system, with a large bin being filled over
the course of about a month, and I try to keep everything simple, especially for all those people
adding material. I have always been keen to avoid all the typical advice, rules and restrictions
that are usually associated with small scale or household composting, mainly because I believe
that we need to find ways to deal with all the potentially problematic material within local
compost systems, rather than sending it all away to somebody else to deal with. I used to refer to
it as the "No-Rules Compost", because from the standpoint of my community, for the people who
add material to this compost, they can ignore the rules they typically come across about what they
can and cannot add. But there is actually one rule relating to material added to this compost system,
that people can add anything that was recently alive, including plants and vegetable scraps
of course, but also cooked food, meat, bones, oils, bread, citrus, as well as pernicious weeds,
diseased plants, cardboard, paper, and even dead chickens and some roadkill have gone in. And the
challenge for me was to adapt the system to be able to handle this continuous flow of a wide
mix of different material, and to make it easy for everyone else to use, and so that they didn't need
to find other composting systems to handle the material that is usually seen as problematic.
The last time I talked about this, the system I had been using was managing all of this, for
the most part, but it was way too much work for me, and had a few other issues, but I have since
changed a few things so that it is much easier and simple for all of us, as well as being tidier.
The old system was based on piles of compost that moved,
each one being turned 7 to 10 times before being ready to use. It started in two bins made out of
scrap plywood with holes drilled for a bit of air, and a makeshift lid, with the first
bin designated for loading, which was emptied into the second bin when it became too full,
and then it was turned into loose piles of compost after that. The challenge for me was to turn all
of the piles in the row so that there was space to empty the main loading bin when it became full.
This was a lot of work and lot of digging to move all these piles, and I occasionally built separate
larger compost piles during the active growing season for the large amounts of material from
the gardens and surrounding landscape, so that the bin would not fill so quickly. But this separation
of material wasn’t ideal as I found that it was a lot better to mix it all in together.I
tried a few different options to reduce this workload, but ended up adopting a system where
the loading bin itself moved, instead of the piles of compost. This reduced the pressure
on me to turn the compost in time, as well as the amount of work involved as each batch was
only turned once or twice in total, and the bin could fill quickly when there was lots of
material to add, and I could simply move it to next location and start a new bin.
The one main benefit to the old system was that all of the compost was turned quite regularly,
which mixed and incorporated all of the material, and it also added air into the mix which helped
to speed up the decomposition process. This was important as I never felt I had enough compost
available each season so was keen for the whole process to speed up. But a few years ago I began
to buy in additional finished municipal compost in large bags, and in even larger quantities,
and this took pressure off, which meant that the whole process could slow down, allowing
the decomposition to take longer and for a stock of my own compost to build up. The other benefit
of turning was to prevent sections of the compost pile from becoming anaerobic, where the supply of
oxygen ran out, which slowed down decomposition, smelt really bad, and became a source of methane.
I have become increasingly concerned about the production of this potent greenhouse gas within
the composting process, and although I have no idea how much methane gas could potentially be
produced in a problematic compost pile at this scale, I wanted to greatly reduce the possibility.
Maintaining a good mix of material definitely helped the situation, but I decided to make
the enclosing sides of the composting bin out of wire mesh stapled to a wooden frame.
This is obviously much better at allowing air into the mix of decomposing material than
holes drilled into a sheet of plywood. And more recently I built bases of a heavy duty wire mesh
held off the ground to allow air to flow underneath, and it also let’s excess liquid drain
away. Allowing air to access the large volume of material from all sides and top and bottom
seems to have greatly reduced the chance of anaerobic conditions occurring, and I rarely
come across those foul smelling sections any more, even though the compost is turned less frequently.
The other big reason for regularly turning the compost piles was to deal with the rats
that would inevitably be attracted. Avoiding rats is one of the main reason for the rules
restricting certain types of material being added to the compost, though I have found that rats are
attracted to all kinds of compost piles even if none of this problematic material is added.
I have taken quite a different approach to this issue, which suited me at the time and
the context that I am operating in, and was content to attract the rats to compost bin
to eat what was there rather than eating the vegetables in my gardens. And I hoped
that they would build their nests in the compost piles so that I could trap and kill them. When
I regularly dug over and turned all of the compost piles I would typically find rat nests,
and I would kill all of the rats I could either directly or with the help of a neighbour's dog,
or with various other methods to trap them as they ran away. But in the last few years
I changed to a method of using a flame weeding torch to fill the burrows and nests with heat,
smoke and other harmful gasses. By sealing off all of the entrances to the nest except for one
which I placed the torch into, I could much more successfully and very quickly kill the nests
and any rats trapped inside. This changed a lot, as it meant that I could much more effectively
control the rat population in the compost piles and in whole area around the gardens and meant
that I didn’t have to turn or dig out the compost piles in order to deal with the rat issue.
The other big changes are the purpose built structures that I have been slowly
constructing. First was the front and back panels made from old chicken wire mesh stapled to a
treated wooden frame, with the front slightly higher than the back. This allowed a plastic
covered frame to serve as a lid which would shed the rainfall to the back of the line of compost
piles. Originally I used modified pallets as dividers between the batches of compost,
but have gradually replaced these with stronger welded wire mesh
fixed to the same type of treated wood frame. These are lighter and longer lasting,
and also prevented rats from burrowing between the piles, which makes them easier to deal with. I
then built a wood frame hood lined with the same reused plastic silage cover, for covering the bin
that is currently being filled, to keep the rain off and preventing material from blowing away too
much, but to still allow easy access. And finally I used a heavy gauge welded wire mesh held off the
ground by a wooden base, with holes drilled in it to allow enough air flow to the bottom of the pile
but strong enough to hold up the weight. And all of this is easily screwed together,
then unscrewed and moved and reassembled whenever I need to start a new compost pile.
When a compost bin is full, I unscrew panels from the oldest pile and construct another empty bin
at the end of the line. First the space is cleared, the base screen placed on the ground
and the front, back and side panels are screwed together and to the existing structure. I unscrew
the hood from the previous bin, and move it to the new bin and screw it into place,
and the new container is ready for use. I then cover the recently filled compost pile with a lid,
and let it sit for a while longer. After a few weeks, when this material starts to cool down a
bit, I take the lids off this full bin as well as off the empty bin beside it and remove the front
panel. I then fork all of the material from one bin to the next, trying to bring the material from
the outside into the centre. This turning mixes the material up a bit and adds a lot of oxygen,
which allows the whole pile to heat up again, and this is the only time I turn the compost until it
is almost fully decomposed. I then remove the base screen and set it aside for the next new pile,
and replace the front panel and lid so that the space is ready
for the current active pile to be turned into when the cycle repeats.
I like the system as it has developed to this point at least, but there have been a few issues
and it did take me a while and a fair amount of material to build all of the panels, based
and lids. I have enough sets of panels for four bins, including the currently active one, which I
think is the bare minimum I need, but a few more would work well, and I will probably eventually
replace the chicken wire on the front and back panels with the stronger welded wire mesh. I
also need to line the plastic lids with chicken wire or something else,
in order to prevent whatever it is from clawing through the plastic, probably in search of rats.
With this system involving less turning it takes longer for the material to decompose,
but it is a lot less work, and a lot tidier, though it does take up more space.
And the size of the container is big enough to allow the material to heat up enough in
order to kill a lot of the weed roots, seeds and disease organisms, but it still seems to
be small enough to let in enough air to the core to prevent anaerobic conditions from forming. I
have space for about 14 sections or batches in the row and I tend to start a new pile
about every month, so I would need to move the compost on within about a year
to make space for the next round, when I start the process from the bottom again. But
because I have recently bought in a lot of compost I have let these compost piles build
up perhaps too much, and they are getting in the way, even after consolidating the material into
larger builders bags. So I have started to screen the material into large bags to mature some more,
and to move it out of way of the line of bins, and it will be nice to have a
large supply of compost ready to add to the gardens in preparation for the next season.
So the basic premise of this community composting facility has not changed, but
the way that I manage it has evolved quite a bit, to make it easier and more effective. I move the
bins regularly and turn the compost a lot less, and buying in other compost for a few seasons
has taken the pressure off so that I could wait for the slower decomposition process to catch up.
The lightweight panels and lids are easy to take apart, move and reassemble, and they let in a lot
more air to reduce the chance of methane being produced and the decomposition process slowing
down too much. And I can do all of this because I have a much more effective way of controlling
the rat population that doesn’t involve the frequent turning of the compost piles.
The lids are useful for keeping out excessive amounts of rain, but I do occasionally need to
add water to make sure there is enough moisture for the whole process to work effectively, and I
do need to keep an eye on things to make sure that there is a reasonable mix of material, but most
of the time it seems fine. The whole facility is a lot tidier and easier to access than it use to be,
and the prominent hood makes it easy to identify where the household compostable material is to go.
And as far as all of the people in my community who use this composting facility are concerned,
the rule is basically still the same, they can add anything that was recently alive,
and I get a lot of good quality compost at the end of the process for use in my vegetable gardens.
The evolution of this compost system over the years has been a really valuable lesson for me,
because its shown in a very direct way how what we do is often the
combination of a whole bunch of different factors, techniques or methods that we
try to work with. And more importantly the change in one of those factors or one of those methods
can actually enable the fundamental change of the whole system itself. And I think this
is one of the greatest benefits of this RED Gardens Project that I have been working on,
where I explore a lot of different things and try out a lot of different methods and techniques
and I'm often in a situation where I can compare and contrast all those different possibilities.
I think this is a great way to learn, and I share as I can through these videos.
If you value the work that I do in this RED Gardens Project, and
appreciate the videos that I make, It would be great if you'd consider supporting me and
this project through Patreon or Paypal. But most importantly, thank you for watching.