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Andrew: in my experience, if you have a weed-free soil base, you won’t need a separate base.
The heat of the piles will kill any perannial weeds. The problem might arise in your mature pile (left to mature over a 3 or 6 month period) as invasive weeds could become a nightmare! I have couch (twitch grass) which means that I need a layer under the maturing pile.
I have seen a Youtube video on a 1.2m square pallet bin (4 feet square) arrangement with the metal base of an IBC container (1000 litre tank) as the base of the bin. Perfect for gathering the excess moisture of a bin. I would like to replicate, but I can’t find any damaged IBCs. Collecting excess moisture from a compost bin (by having a metal base) would be useful in a dry climate, where each drop of rainwater and moisture is precious.
I use “rock dust” (which is fines from my local quarry, only about 5 kms away) as a mechanical aid to opening up my clay. It is very cheap, and the quarry is happy to get rid of it, because there is no commerical demand for this fraction of the crushing process.
I also use coarse sand (sometimes called “quartz sand” or river sand) as a mechanical aid.
Most years I throw on about a half cm (1/4 inch) layer of either or both. Each year these “disappear” and the soil becomes slightly more friable.
Most rock dust “advertisements” have the theme of “essential trace elements additive”. With properly-made compost with manure, kitchen scraps, wood chips etc. trace element deficiency is rarely a problem because the inputs themselves are rarely mineral deficient.
Here in Australia, with its notoriously deficient soils, making compost can be more problematic. I sometimes add handfuls of guano (bird manure, high in phosphorous and sulphur) to a large pile. (I have no hard science behind this, only my intuitive feeling that by adding phosphorous I am helping the long term chemistry of my soil.)
I hope that this helps.
The best way to use tree chippings is to compost them. They are likely to be PERFECT carbonaceous material. Mix them with horse manure, cow manure etc. (providing the nitrogenous material) as you mix.
Trial and error will tell you the best ratio, depending on the type of tree, freshness of the chips, freshness of the manure etc.
For starters try 2 parts chippings, to one part manure (approximately). If your pile doesn’t heat up, try another pile of equal parts chip to one part manure.
Trial and error!
My advice would be to turn the piles twice, and let the compost mature for 3 to 6 months.
Hello Becky.
If you have 40 horses at your farm, you are in manure heaven!
My suggestion for the long-term: build yourself a series of bins to manage the manure, bedding etc.
Within half a year the effort and expense of building bins etc. will be rewarded by compost suitable for “no dig gardening”.
Have a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9_yWQATxNI
This might help to get you started.
All compost making, in my experience, is an attempt to optimise (i) raw materials input, (ii) labour to collect, assemble and turn (at least twice) the raw materials, (iii) cost of bins, (iv) time to mature, and (v) use the finished product.
If time and energy permits, any photographs of your arrangement, inputs and finished product would be warmly welcomed (in my opinion) by all readers of this forum.
If it helps, and as a guide for your endeavours, a cubic metre of inputs (horse manure, bedding, straw, sawdust etc.) will give you slightly less than half a cubic metre of finished product, suitable for applying on the surface of your garden area. (In other words, to spread a cubic metre of finished, mature compost, you will probably need slightly more than 2 cubic metres of raw inputs, plus 4 to 6 months of time.)
Please keep us informed of progress, if time and energy permits.
Good luck with your compost making and “no dig gardening” adventure!
Kevin
Tasmania (41 deg. south, with a blustery maritime climate, close to Bass Strait)Heat retention in compost: usually the longer the compost stays at above 50 degreesC (= 122 F) the more digestion is occurring, and the better the compost. Here, “better” means (i) finer particle size, (ii) a higher proportion of stable humus, and (iii) the original source material, is less noticeable.
My suggestion is to buy a compost thermometer, or rig up your own thermometer and probe.
If you can still see lumps of sawdust that have not been mixed and broken down, turn the compost again.
If you cannot see lumps of sawdust (or horse manure), turn the compost again!
Aim for at least two turns, and a turnaround time of 3 months. 4 months will usually be better. 6 months, better still.
Keeping the pile approximately cubic: measure your pile’s (i) breadth, (ii) width, (iii) height. Usually the height is the smallest measurement. For the next turn (and as a finaly maturing (resting) pile) try to make these measurements as equal as possible. For example if your pile is 5 feet (150cm) wide, 5 feet (150cm) broad, and 3 feet (90cm) high, try to turn it onto a 4 feet (120 cm) square base. This will increase the height. I know that this is often not practical or convenient. However, if you can manage it, you will get a superior product.
Hope that this helps.
Kevin (pre-summer Tasmania)The optimal dimensions for making and curing hot compost are cubic. However, it is easy to write “cubic”, but often very difficult and impractical to keep cubic dimensions.
Note that the volume of the pile after the first turn (a few days after it is turned and allowed to settle down) is usually between 60% and 80% of the original pile’s (original) volume. And after the second turn, it will probably be as little as 50% of the original volume.
Any effort you can make to keep these successive piles, cubic (or nearly so) will be rewarded by a higher quality compost, more broken down, more “mature”.
Kitchen scraps in compost heaps, for me, have been problematic. (I live in Tasmania – 41 deg. latitude south, almost at sea level, so probably warmer, all year round, compared to most of the UK.)
I have a local population of rats and mice and I don’t have a cat!
I don’t want to feed either of these classes of rodents so my solution is to first put all my kitchen scraps into an old (recycled) refrigerator and freezer chest for compost worms (tigers, red wrigglers) to predigest. (Of course, I have added a drainage hole, and collect the runoff moisture with a bucket. This is diluted 1 to 3 or 4 with water and is used as a liquid manure on my garden.)
I leave the scraps in these “bins” for about a year, so that they lose their rodent appeal. Then the “matured” food scraps are added to horse manure etc. for the final “bake”. I appreciate that this is “double handling”. I figure that this extra effort is worth it to avoid feeding rats and mice.
To these “bins” of food scraps I add occasional cow pats from my neighbour’s farm, and fresh grass clippings. The final volume is probably 70% food scraps and about 15% cow, and about 15% grass clippings. (Approximately.)
If you (and other gardners don’t have a rat or mouse problem) you are very lucky! And I hope your luck continues!
Piles of horse manure turning into compost appear to break down quickest when they are of cubic dimensions or nearly so.
My suggestion for turning horse manure into garden compost is to start with a base of some sort. If you do not have permanent or semi-permanent bins and need to have temporary sides, I suggest cardboard or many thicknesses of newspaper as the base, with 3 sturdy sides. The front of the bin could be made of boards etc. that enable its height to grow as you are shovelling in your quest for cubic “perfection”. 🙂
Piles of horse manure should always be covered (i) to conserve moisture (30 – 40% of the weight of the pile is water), and (ii) to prevent rain from entering the pile. If rodents are a problem, as they are for me, here, the cover might give you another layer of protection.
Christine and for all “no dig” gardeners, wrestling with how best to use horse manure in their gardens …
The following YouTube video might be of interest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9_yWQATxNI
You will see there an excellent suggestion for aerating your pile by using PVC pipes, at the bottom of the pile, suitably “holed”. I suggest 75, 100mm diameter pipe (3, 4 ins). This will act as a passive ventilator, and provide excellent aeration for your pile of horse manure (or horse manure, plus shavings etc.), especially in the bottom 1/3 of the pile, where aeration can be a problem, because of compaction or excess moisture.
One of the lessons that I have learnt – through years of “wrestling” with horse manure, and how best to incorporate it into your garden – is the need to plan ahead. In other words, today’s fresh horse manure, will be useful in 3 to 6 months at a minimum.
Only my experience. Hope that this helps.
Kevin here, from Tasmania. 🙂
Good morning Charles and all the marvellous forum contributors.
Charles: I have a question concerning volume of compost (volume of initial organic matter that is turned into compost).
I notice in your delightful and instructive videos that there you have a dedicated compost area, complete with a roof! Very impressive!I am wondering, please, if I can ask: approximately how many “bins” (separate areas/volumes) do you have, at approximately what volume (assume about 1 to 1.2m [3 1/2 to 4 feet] high? What are your main inputs? (horse manure, cow manure, garden/kitchen waste etc.)
The reason I ask these questions is that, like you (Charles), I live in a rural area, but it is still a huge challenge for me to gather sufficient raw material for me to turn these inputs into decayed/mature organic matter, ready for my vegetable garden.
Information that you can give might help me, and other readers of the forum, understand better some of your inputs into your garden.
TIA.
Kevin.
Hello Christine.
I have some experience with horse manure (experience is the name that we give to our mistakes!).
Not to worry that the horse manure might be, or seem, a little fresh, or has sawdust in it.
For next time, try to make a cubic pile(s), about 1m (high) x 1m (wide) x however many metres long you can manage (at least 1m long).
Make sure that the horse manure/sawdust mixture is well watered.
I suggesting a gentle garden hose mist as you are stacking the manure in your bin(s).
After 24, 36 hours there will probably be a large increase in temperature.
Try to get the temperature above 45 degrees (C), and better still, above 50 degrees (C).
After a few days you will notice the volume (height) of the pile shrinking, and the temperature falling.
Depending on available muscle power and time, you should aim to toss the pile into a new bin after 3 or 4 weeks. (After 2 weeks is slightly preferable, but this is a trade off between time/muscle power available, and other garden priorities.)After the toss (and very slight misting) wait another 2 or 3 weeks. The temperature, initially, will probably rise again, though probably not as high as the first time.
If you have the patience and the time, wait for a few months before using the manure.
There is probably no need to toss the manure a second time. But if you have the time and energy, this is recommended.
You will notice that the final volume – after 3 months – will probably be about 40% of the original volume, because of compaction, and oxidation of the original material.
I hope this helps.