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Fw: sanet-mg-digest V1 #1061

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

More info on the evil rats and compost; for anyone who wants instructions
for building Cantopper compost sifters, email me off list....
-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Teuton <fteuton@total.net>
To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu <sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu>;
sanet-mg-digest@ces.ncsu.edu <sanet-mg-digest@ces.ncsu.edu>
Date: Saturday, May 29, 1999 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: sanet-mg-digest V1 #1061


>On the urban compost front:
>
>Michelle, who is swell, wrote that "rats are bad"---(she gave all the
>details and I won't go into them, but I agree....) and that one should
>compost urbanely, in a manner that does not attract rats, and I agree
again,
>since not only are there public health reasons to raise a hue and cry over
>urban rats, but also yer neighbors will tend to shun you, if yer composting
>methods invite rodentia, flies, or other evil 'vectors' into their
>lives.....:-)
>
>These are sufficiently 'whoop-tee-doo' reasons for me, plus I truly despise
>the smell of rats....
>
>I have composted in Baltimore (large 'suburban' lot in Lauraville) and in
>Montreal---balcony composting, and I presently compost using Dennis's 'worm
>farm' paradigm, which I arrived at willy-nilly, but have since learned is
>the next best thing to having a cow, from a biodynamic point of view (see
>this year's Stella Natura for details).
>
>My present suburban composting system on a 6,000 sq ft lot involves a line
>of pallet bins about 50 feet long along the back fence line, about four
feet
>deep.
>
>Feedstocks include leaves, grass clippings, and chipped branch wood, as
well
>as all kitchen wastes. My neighbors donate their yardwastes cheerfully; my
>motto is "All donations gratefully accepted!"
>
>I have never had a rodent problem, in 28 years of composting. I think this
>is because I understand the idea that once the microbes have truly had
their
>way with food stuffs, it is no longer of interest to rats and other pests;
>my tasty morsels go into the deep part of a hot pile, and are surrounded
>immediately by absorptive brown materials (the brown-surround strategy!) In
>other words, to win the rat race, give the microherd a head start!
>
>Now, for a cheap composter in the city, it is hard to beat ye old trash
can.
>A 120 liter Rubbermaid Bruiser can, with little wheels and a lid you could
>take the plug out of to avoid anaerobia, cost less than ten bucks US when I
>was in Florida this spring, and is about 15$ Cdn here. (120 liters is about
>4 cubic feet)
>
>Some people will tell you to perforate the can for aeration, but I prefer
to
>insert a perforated pipe down the center, or even to make aeration channels
>with a piece of rebar (about 2$ for a 3-4 foot length).
>
>A good book describing the options of the urban composter is The
>Urban/Sububurban Composter by Mark Cullen and Lorraine Johnson, 1994, St.
>Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-10530-4. It has a realistic discussion of rats
>and refers you to the people at City Farmer for methods of rat proofing
>composters---hardware cloth is rat proof, chicken wire isn't, for example.
>
>The key for my own success in balcony composting lay in managing and mixing
>the feedstocks.  We used a Vita-Mix to blend our kitchen wastes into a
>slurry, then added a small amount of finished compost and an amount of peat
>moss adequate to bring the moisture content down to 40-50%.  The blending
>meant we could gauge the long term moisture of the mixture right from the
>beginning; if you only chop the vegetable matter, it will take some time
for
>it to break down and liberate its water, so you need to anticipate this
>with extra absorptive materials.
>
>Seeds such as melon seeds are of interest to rodents, and if you blend
>nothing else, it is good to blend them prior to composting so that they
will
>be fully accessible to the microherd, and thus not hang around for your
>Chompin' Charlie undesirable types...:-)
>
>
>If you are feeling the anti-peat beat, other browns for town include
sawdust
>(favored by the Olkowskis), shredded leaves, wood shavings or wood chips,
>chopped straw, etc.
>
>Trash cans are small enough and mobile, that you can move them easily,
turn
>the contents of one into another, and if one fills up, buying another won't
>break the bank!
>
>They also make a very acceptable wheelbarrow substitute for small lots, are
>useful to hold tools in, and are a good place to store nearly-finished
>compost---(maintain aeration please! Just that little hole in the lid open
will do!)
>
>And, if you do choose wood chips or other bulky, slow to break down
>materials, you can easily make a riddle that fits on top of your cans, so
>that you can sift the material to get the good stuff out and recycle your
>bulkies for the next batch.  (This can be referred to as separating the
>sheep from the goats---or the humic colloids from the ligno-cellulose! :-)
>
>Leaves and yard wastes are generally unattractive to rats, IME, and a
simple
>piece of turkey fence can be adequate for holding such materials. Your food
>waste compost, once it has mostly broken down, can be added into the center
>of the leaf pile to add nutrients and speed the decomposition, and worms
>also will hasten the movement towards humus.  I have found it helpful to
>line leaf containers with geotextile and cover the pile with same, which
>slows the drying out of the outsides of the pile while allowing air in.
>
>
>Frank Teuton---a trash can fan, for the urban Fran or Stan, who is not
>budgeted for a ComposTumbler (I'll pay $2.50/cubic foot, but not ten times
>that, thank you very much...:-)
>


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