RE: CG composting

H* A*

Susan,

I'm gonna give you some links and all, but I think you should give a hollar
over to John Vernin at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society for some
pointers on your compost problems. Reading below, I think your issue is
balancing the reds and the greens. Call John, read the links, go to the
library for recipes and I think you'll be able to get your compost pile
going in a few weeks. You might want to call up the Penn State University
Cooperative Extension - they might even have some goodies for you:

1) This Ohio State site is pretty good:

http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohioline/hyg-fact/1000/1189.html

2) University of Missouri on building a compost bin:

http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/hort/g06957.htm

3) A lengthy article from Mississippi State University's Ag Extension with
internal links:

http://msucares.com/pubs/pub1782.htm

Best wishes,

Adam Honigman

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	susan hauck [SMTP:haucks@about.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, March 22, 2001 9:20 AM
> To:	community_garden@mallorn.com
> Subject:	[cg] CG composting
> 
> Hello folks,
> 
> I have a question about fairly large-scale composting.  We are a 2 
> year old community garden in Phila.  We made a compost bin last year 
>  from old shipping pallets and started filling it up with green stuff 
>  from our plots, and leaves hauled in from around the neighborhood.  
> What we had by the fall last year was a big, very dry (despite all 
> the rain) pile of stuff.  Virtually nothing had composted.  When we 
> tried to turn it, we discovered that it *had* become the home of a 
> large swarm of yellow jackets.  Luckily, no one was bit!
> 
> My husband and I compost in our little "yard" at home and get good 
> stuff.  He insists on chopping every green bit into small pieces.  
> While I don't disagree this helps in breaking the stuff down, with 
> the volume at the CG it just doesn't seem practical to ask 
> everyone/someone to do this.  How do other CG handle composting?  
> Without seeing the compost bin, does anyone have ideas on how the 
> design might be improved?  I tried frequent watering at the end of 
> the summer season and it didn't seem to help.  suggestions welcome.
> 
> -sue
> the Brewery Garden
> http://members.tripod.com/brewery_garden/
> 
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