i personally use Moo Nure as a suppliment to my self-made compost, it's available at Home Depot. i can't tell you much about this product other than it appears to be a decent conentration of poo, and you get occasional poo nuggets in there, which i assume is a good indicator it's the real deal. there are a lot of poo-based products out there - Pachy Poo is one of them that is sold by the ATL Zoo (elephant poo).

re: compost, though...i went out and bought a compost tumbler and started making my own compost rather than buy it. i get at least one barrel full just from our scraps alone each year. the $250 i spent on the tumbler paid for itself in 2-3 batches. this may be an option for you - if i bagged my grass and had more browns to put in the bin, and added some 10-10-10 to generate some real heat and make the compost faster, i could probably knock out several barrels.

the only downside is, some vegetable seeds are fairly persistent, and same goes for weed seeds. i never put weeds in my bin, and occasionally a neighbor will slide in a seed or two so i end up with - sadly - a case like this year, where 500 pumpkin sprouts showed up in my main tomato bed. i was picking them out for weeks...but i took 4 of the strong ones and transferred to the community garden in our neighborhood so the kids would have a pumpkin patch to pick from (i'm such a sucker for Charlie Brown/Great Pumpkin! wish someone would've done this for me as a kid!!) bottom line being, be careful where you get your compost from...you never know what seeds may be in it, and it can be more of a curse than a blessing.

This is my second year of making my own compost and I can tell you, I have NEVER had tomatoes grow this fast before! I'll forget to water them and they don't even care. (Of course, I don't forget for TOO many days in a row, but...) I have had really good success with the basic black plastic BioStack box, but sometime in the future, may get a tumbler. That's the only thing that is a little bit of a pain. Turning the pile has given me a backache more than once. I love coffee grounds (but not the filters) and I have even used citrus peelings, which I have heard are sometimes a no-no. They work out great for me and a bonus is, they (and the coffee grounds) make the pile smell nice.

Thank you both. I wish I could get a compost tumbler this year; not sure that will happen. I've been looking at one from Gardener's Supply Co. for about $150. It holds 5 bushels/ 6 1/2 cu. ft. of compost. How large are your compost tumblers/boxes? I will definitely have to have a tumbler because I had a back injury two years ago.

I do have a couple of questions about the boxes/tumblers. In this catalog, on the box that does not tumble and sits on the ground, it mentions that there can sometimes be problems with rodents. UGH! I don't want anything to lure rodents! The tumbler is off the ground with a metal stand and there is nothing said about it attracting rodents. Do either of you have problems with this?

Thanks!
Beverly

I bought the Urban Compost Tumbler model# UCT9. 9.5 cu. ft., 7.6 bushels, 71 gallons. Average retail cost is $200-$250 depending on where you buy it (it's sold in many places, varying shipping, all units are drop shipped from the manufacturer). This is about 50% more capacity for around the same percentage in cost. I don't find it terribly cumbersome to rotate, but my wife and neighbor do find it somewhat cumbersome, albeit not impossible, when full (both female, both ~5'2"/130-140lb range)

The UCT9 is virtually impossible for rodents to get into. Of course, I had a 3'x3'x3' bin before that I never had a single rodent problem with that I'm aware of, here are pictures:

LINK1
LINK2

We got the UCT9 to make way for our new huge raised bed. The existing compost bin was tilled into the bed to make for a great tomato bed this year. Hoping for the best - but also have already pulled up those hundreds of pumpkin seedlings from a frisky neighbor that forgot to de-seed the pumpkin!

So ... with the rats, I think a lot of it has to do with your environment. We don't have an abundance of rats, but we do have a lot of squirrels, chipmunks, snakes and other critters. Check out

If you are prone to rats or live out in the country, you may have problems with coons, possums, rats. I live in a fairly urban historic neighborhood; maybe I'm just blessed? We have an overflow creek in the backyard. Really don't see much. Lots of places for them to hang out. Never seen nary a rodent other than squirrels.

YMMV, of course! Environment is everything.

satellitehead -- My hubby is a reptile geek and he is always excited to see the skinks...boy howdy, those things are fast!

bev -- I have not had a problem with rodents yet (knock on wood), and if the squirrels are getting into the bins, I can't tell. We have had an inordinate number of squirrels this year though (off topic)...anyone else notice this? Or, maybe it's just our area. After the Mother's Day tornados here last year, a lot of wildlife patterns seem different. Anyway, I digress... The only thing I get are spiders, which I do NOT like; however, it may be because I have the bins placed near a big pile of broken flagstone, from where we were working on a garden path. I just hose them out once in awhile though, while I'm wetting down the bins (which I don't do often enough...I am a lazy composter).

ugh, the squirrels. don't get me started!

the squirrels just took out my only other potted japanese maple and i don't know why. they chewed that one off halfway up the main stem, chewed the other up about 1cm from the soil line. THIS IS OFFICIALLY WAR!!!

i love animals but i plan to eradicate every last squirrel in my area by some means, trapping/moving, shooting, rigging up a squirrel trebuchet on my deck, or otherwise.

they also dug up my dill seedlings, and disturbed my piquillo peppers, shiso and ... all of my strawberry spinach! ARRGGHHH!

We're in Grant Park, and our neighbor trapped 27 squirrels last fall. We still have plenty. We also have opossums and are overrun with rabbits and chipmunks. Occasional rats. The squirrels are definitely war. Last year, I think they took a bite out of every tomato.

On topic, we compost wherever the next raised bed is going to go. My husband built me a new compost bed last night after two weeks without one (we put the new chicken coop where the old one had been, and the dirt from the old compost pile completely filled the raised bed I thought was going to be the next compost pile). No rodent problems, but our neighbor's dogs get into the compost. Adding fresh chicken manure has, unfortunately, made the compost more attractive to them. Time for another fence. For you intown folks, did you know you can free horse manure from the police stables?

i was aware of the free manure, it's what we use in the neighborhood community garden just to the southeast of you (over on Schuyler Ave).

i got a new problem this week: fire ants have invaded my compost tumbler. not sure how to get rid of them safely without using some kind of bug killer, but i don't want to kill the worms that are doing such a good job of aerating everything :(

Satellitehead (or others who have a tumbler)--I have some dumb compost questions.

We just started composting about a month ago in an old, covered plastic recycling bin. We put our scraps (veggie peelings, eggshells, coffee, etc.) in there along with some decomposed leaf matter that had worms in it. It's a confined space and a pain to turn over plus we seem to be breeding bugs in there. But no mammal critters and it's working so I want to expand the operation ;-) We were going to build a bigger bin, but I am worried about being able to turn it, so I find the idea of a tumbler attractive.

When you use a tumber--before you are ready to use the compost you made, do you stop adding "fresh" veggie scaps or whatever for a few weeks to give everything time to decompose? Or do you just keep adding stuff the whole time and throw back inside anything that isn't ready when you dump it out?

And you said you had worms in there. How do you keep worms in there, if you dump it out?

THanks from a compost newbie.

Susan

the UCT9 came with a very long set of instructions. it talked heavily about ways to compost.

if i remember correctly, there were two methods you can use with tumblers - you can either batch compost or you can slowly add over time. with batch composting, apparently you can knock out batches in less than 30 days. i believe i read where, if you do the 'slowly add over time' method, you can add fertilizer such as 10-10-10 to generate more heat to more quickly push along the process.

we personally started with all of the top 1' or so of our old bin that hadn't started breaking down yet. it filled up about 45% of the bin. we've been slowly adding since.

because we had so many worms in the top foot or so of the old bin, we kept away from fertilizer and whatnot. i'm going to start bagging grass and stopping by the cffee shop to get grounds here pretty soon just to fill it the rest of the way up; i'm tired of walking out and finding celery and turnips and all kinds of other stuff growing in my bin =)

I have a pretty small yard with a neighborhood association, so don't have a good, inconspicuous spot for a compost bin. However, I always amend any new planting holes with coffee grounds & bagged manure compost I buy at big box stores.

I also occasionally practice in situ composting. When I'm in the mood, I save my old veggies or scraps (banana peels, etc) & chop any big pieces into chunks. I keep them in a baggie in the freezer & when it gets full I dig a hole next to some plants & mix some in there (along with some coffee grounds, deadheaded flowers, etc) & cover back up.

I read about doing this in a gardening magazine & feel like it helps the soil/worms on a smaller scale. Keeping it in the freezer means no smell or flies & I can add it to the garden when it's convenient to me. As long as you're adding it in relatively small amounts, it disappears into the soil very quickly (perhaps a month).

If you're interested in composting, I highly recommend the following book:

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide: Banner batches, grow heaps, comforter compost, and other amazing techniques for saving time and money, and producing ... most flavorful, nutritous vegetables ever. by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin

I got it at my local library & liked it so much I bought a copy... which my mother promptly ran off with! A second copy is on it's way to my personal library as we speak!

Here is a link that might be useful: Buy your own copy on Amazon!