The makings of compost

We had our two compost piles in the garden at the back of the yard, right next to the fence. According to composting guidelines a "sunny spot" is best, well right next to our fence is a down right inferno! We couldn't keep  those compost piles wet enough to do anything. Having studied the lay out of our property we decided to move them into "the chicken side yard" which only gets sun for about 4 hours a day. Compost is happening like crazy! I have also started using the leaf mulcher to break down large piles of green stuff.

I took a quick video to show the giant pile of squash vines before they get demolished.


Last year we would have just put all of the garden biomass into the trailer and hauled it down to our yard waste facility (they make compost from it too). But I wanted to utilize at least some of it. The sunflowers I have no hope of mulching since our's is a leaf mulcher you can surmise how powerful it is.  Anything with a really thick stalk or that's gone slightly woody is a no go. But just about everything else I can run through. I have to help it along by cutting stuff as I go into small pieces, and stopping to unclog but for the most part it's great.

Here's the giant pile of squash after the mulching. It was really heavy and took two people to move (thanks for the assist mom.)

In a happy bonus we now have red wiggler worms in our compost pile which won't last long as it heats up. But they sure help the breakdown process. Our compost piles went directly over the chicken guts that we had placed some red wigglers in, they found their way up to the banquet of new veggie parts and food scraps.