How long to compost cardboard?
elisa72
13 years ago
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robertz6
13 years agojoepyeweed
13 years agoRelated Discussions
How long for compost to turn to "fluffy" black gold?
Comments (8)Re; Cow manure. Your compost is likly weed free judging from the origional contents. The manure is high in nitrogen which will restart the compost heating , but adding cow manure (fresh,old and crusty or otherwise) will probably contain a lot of weed seed. You would also reset the clock for composting the manure and thereby delaying when it will be totaly finished. Now,back to the unlimited supply of cow manure. It makes very good compost without other additions other than moisture.Just heap it up and keep it damp while turning same as you have been or skip the turning and get same result over a longer period. Back to your origional question about adding manure to incomplete compost made with leaves and kitchen scraps. That is a good idea once the manure has gone through initial high heat and decompsiton kill viability of seeds. Starting with manure mixed with other material is also fine since the high heat stage will occur. If you have room to maintain multiple piles/bins of compostiable material,that can actualy reduce time spent vs quanity of compost produced. As you found when you just let the material sit long enough without turning,it winds up fine compost. Toss every thing togeather in a "NURSE" pile as it becomes available or you can shanghai family and frinds as free labor in bringing it to the nurse pile. Continue with the two batchs as you are doing now paying attention to detail on moisture and turning while the nurse pile quitly go's about it's business with minium attention. When you are ready to start a new batch,pull material which is weeks or months along in the process from nurse pile and begain working it. There will be times when material has been in the nurse pile long enough to be finished and useably with little to no effort on your part other than gathering and moveing material to the pile....See MoreComposting Cardboard & Coffee Sacks
Comments (7)Yes I turn my heap after a couple of weeks or so in the early stages. It's impossible to reach the bottom, and forking over the top half only compresses the bottom layers. So I fork out the whole lot into sacks, and then refill the bin so that the top goes in first and the bottom last, thus 'inverting' the heap. After some 15 years composting, I still find that the most difficult part is preventing it from get too wet during the processs. I visited a local Council composting facility 2 years ago, where they compost garden and food waste in greenhouse-shaped houses. Several tons are composted in each house. When the manager opened the door, clouds of steam issued forth, and the compost looked wet and messy. The wetness was, however, only skin-deep. When parted, the underneath looked dry by comparison. As you probably know, the materials have to achieve a temp of about 60 degrees for 2 consectutive days to comply with the directives. As they had fans to carry away the steam etc, I guess that's how the resulting compost is quite dry when the process is complete. Imagine having 10 tons of wet soggy compost to dry out! Regarding worms; I read somewhere that they can 'drag' leaves into their burrows and tear them up. Somehow I can't quite believe it. It's not as worms have jaws like caterpillars. Mind you, it's interesting to put a Lettuce leaf in the vicinity of those 'night crawler' worms as they search for food. Suddenly the leaf starts to move as a worm starts to pull it back towards its burrow....See Moresheet composting over cardboard
Comments (9)From my perspective, lasagna has some special advantages. First, for a new garden in soil that is very poor in texture and/or nutrients, lasagna offers a way to grow something without trying to till organic matter a foot deep right away. You can simply dig up a few inches of soil and layer it in between organic matter layers. While deep tilling may provide a similar result, this is much less work, at least on a small garden scale (not tractor-sized). Second, you don't have to have compost, you can start with ingredients and compost them in place. Labor and time of handling materials both saved. Third, the decomposition process itself appears to provide a highly active and enriched environment for plant growth, due to the high microbe and nutrient levels. I don't know if people do it continuously or whether it's more of a startup method for poor soil until it's more improved. I did it once with a small bed in poor clay converted from lawn, and was impressed with the results. Is it viable for a farm? Maybe not. As long as it works, you can call me strange all day long. :-D...See MoreHow long for smothering cardboard to break down?
Comments (8)What you want to happen depends on what you've got and are planning to do. For example, the purpose of the cardboard is to smother the heck out of weeds and grass--you don't want it to break down too soon especially for invasive grasses--you want them really dead. Though 9 mos is usually a good long time. Second, it depends on how you're planting. Do you plan to "dig in" to the soil under the cardboard and use that as planting soil, or are you creating a raised bed on top of your soil, and do you plan on planting relatively shallow-rooted items like a groundcover, or shrubs? The 5" is okay as cardboard-covering but is not deep enough to serve alone as the planting soil for large plants or shrubs, and will be a lot shallower ( and probably drift off parts of your slopey area) over a few months....See Moreelisa72
13 years agoelisa72
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13 years agoKimmsr
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13 years agoceth_k
13 years agoelisa72
13 years agojoepyeweed
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13 years agoannpat
13 years agotifbee
13 years agoMsShelley
13 years agoannpat
13 years ago
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