Are you growing again? We would have given up growing if we'd stuck to the garbage can method like at first. Our yield was increased when grown them in soil as in a raised bed or even a bottomless cardboard box. The moisture stays more constant in contact with the earth or in a large enough container 24" or more across. The problem is you run out of rotation space to keep from planting the tomatoes or potatoes in the same spot, so that's why I like the bottomless cardboard boxes & layering up wherever I can squeeze them in. As long as I go up it even works to put between fruit trees and behind the strawberries. My new favorite is using the plastic compost bins with holes in the side purchased at garage sales for less than $5. Of course, leave off the top lid to prevent shading. We also left the base in place on the ones with perforated sides, but the earth machine type has no bottom. Easy to concentrate watering efforts, less evaporation, & holds the mulch materials in place in the wind. Plus harvesting is simple to tip them over or steal new potatoes from the sides. Mulch with alternate layers as we get them -- not too much of any one thing unless I've mixed them up. used coffee grounds + filters dried grass clippings as well as mown over & dried on a tarp herbaceous yard waste (what you cut back after flowering) shredded waste paper household napkins, paper towel, & kleenex household compost weathered straw Even planted a crop in early August last year, then let those regrow in spring from the mini tubers they set last year. Ideally, you wouldn't plant that late, but that was when we received an order for 50# of organic potatoes that had several that had gone bad or sprouted when we opened up the paper storage over the five 10# bags. The company gave us credit, but we had to do something with the smelly potatoes, so separated the worst from the best & planted the best, then composted the worst just outside of the potato beds. Those will be our 1st harvested potatoes this year to eat over summer, but not our storage potatoes. This year we're growing squash in it, but last year we grew potatoes in a bed made from 12 or more pallets of various sizes with a lift out pallet for a door. It basically became a huge compost bin after our summer harvest & even contains brushy debris from a huge ice storm in January topped with horse manure compost.

dalton thanks for the pics. I have been talking to my husband about making a bin. When I saw your pallets I knew that was the bin for me. Maybe because I can get the pallets free and it does not look hard to do. Swanz that is a very nice bin my hats off to you. I tried to do that once and my daughter just laughed at the finished product and my family threw it out. Oh well so much for building things.

My compost pile consists of just that... a pile! I never turn, mix, or water it... I let Mother Nature do her own thing. Yes, it takes longer to be able to pull black gold out from underneath it, but I don't mind waiting. The only thing I really did to contain my piles is make a ring of cheap wire fencing to surround it. Within 2 years, I can dig some decent loamy soil from the bottom! I've wanted a barrel composter, but they cost too much for me to justify buying one. Very good, Kristi! Isn't homemade compost awesome?! Larry has spent many years hunting and trapping, and he says that if you urinate around the edge of your yard, most deer and other larger animals won't bother your yard and garden... it doesn't always work... it depends on the animals and how used to humans they are. He says female human urine would probably work better because it has a stronger odor. Other than that, not much works... there are lots of wives tales, but not many are really effective. Possums don't really bother gardens much, but deer, coons and skunks will want to eat!

Hi Naomi! Sounds like a frustrating problem. I have crazy ants in mine, but no fire ants.....yet! Gosh, I hope I didn't jinx myself. As awful as fire ants are, remember that all ants are decomposers, so they are really assisting the process as they help themselves to your goodies. I really don't have a sure fire answer (no pun intended), but I would try a number of things. If you are up for it, put your boots on, get your pitchfork, and spend a couple of minutes every day disturbing them. Maybe they will move if there is regular disturbance. If your pile is not too wet from the rain, you might try adding daily water with a hose, to the disturbance time. In our heat, it can be difficult to keep a large pile moist, so it may actually be beneficial to water it daily, unless you've gotten lots of rain lately with Fay. I think small amounts of daily UCG may not be enough. Have you tried to get the large, plastic bags of UCG from SB and cover the mounds with them? Personally, most of the time, I put UCG straight on my plants. I use it as compost itself and I feel like it's precious and that I might be wasting some of it if I process it through my compost first. If all else fails, and your pile is not too big, try covering it for a few days with a tarp. Fire ants generally like sunshine, so they will move somewhere else. Maybe not permanently, but long enough for you to be able to turn your pile without fear of being attacked. I don't know if there is any basis to this, but I'll tell you what works for me in my yard. When we moved here, less than 3 years ago, this yard was sort of abandoned. Fire ant mounds were not uncommon. We are big mulchers (several inches of wood chips in many areas). We have no fireants except at the very edges of our property (where the mulch stops). Very rarely, in our utility area of the yard, when the mulch gets thin, I might see a small, linear mound forming by my stepping stones. If I get some wood chips and cover the exposed areas thickly, the ants disappear again. I don't know why, but that is my experience. If you can get wood chips, you might lay that as the foundation of your compost pile in the future? Or maybe just the immediate surrounding area? Another note, if you have any way of getting your pile to heat up quickly, for sure they would go away, but this usually requires larger amounts of material at once. Lastly, I wanted to mention that the compost pile I have on the ground in my yard I reserve for mostly yard waste.... and an occassional nitrogen burst from my DH. I end up putting my kitchen scraps in my two bins, where creatures can't get to it. Sometimes I put leaves and paper in these as browns if things start getting a bit funky, and it goes back to being fresh. Wishing you luck and a pile of gardener's gold for your trouble. Please keep us posted on what happens. I'd like to know what ends up working for you so I can learn from it too. Don't let this discourage you. You'll find the solution. Happy composting! Anna