… Sara’s totally gonna kick my butt.
So in her comment yesterday to this post, she said:
I shall gently remind you that TWICE now you have alluded to said wonderful news yet have neglected to deliver it.
TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My response was to tell her that I soon would, and mimic an evil laugh.
So today I sat down to reveal the Wonderful News, and discovered … that I already did.
It’s the Wild Cards thing: there’s a new anthology a-brewing – Fort Freak – and I’m in it.
As I’ve indicated, I’ve been getting lots more stuff done of late. But it’s taken a toll. In part I need to figure out how to manage my sleep better. One consequence of this is that my brains are sometimes even more scattered than usual.
Then again, I did reveal the Big Secret in my next post … on the 17th of May.
In other news, anybody got any cheap and easy solution (my favorite kind!) to the problem of how to measure 2 2/3rds cubic feet? It’s a gardening thing. I’ll tell you all about it when I get this thing done in a few days.
Also, any ideas on how to dry compost? I need, by remarkable coincidence, 2 2/3rds cubic feet of the stuff. I think I’ve made that much, and probably more, in the handy composter I fabricated out of a wheeled 50 gallon Wal-Mart garbage bin. It was yesterday when trying to turn and sift it – yes, when the boys and I experienced our little shovel-handle mishap – that I discovered it’s basically mud. Now, I suspect strongly that means it’s mostly, yes, compost; but extracting it from the unfinished bits with my homemade screen was less than productive. Not to mention not so much “sifting” as “grating.”
So I want to try drying it out and then sifting. The problem is how to keep it from all blowing away in the process, this being Albuquerque, and also to keep a lot of crap from getting in it. In large part literally, since a lot of birds hang out in my yard.
Suggestions, please, O my wise and puissant readers?
Sure. According to the Internet…
2 2/3 cubic feet is
638.3217 cups. Or
10,213.14726 Tablespoons. Easy.
Oh, you mean easy for *YOU* – OK, that’s about 20 gallons of compost, (19.9475 gallons to be precise) which may be easier to count. Measure it in an old gallon pitcher (you need to reserve one for gardening use anyway). Or 4 5-gallon buckets from the home despot. Or even the same 5-gallon bucket, four times
or a little less than half (40%) of your 50 gallon drum.
Yes, I realize I’m measuring dry volumes in a liquid system, my excuse is that compost is neither dimetyl hydrazine nor plutonium, we’re not worried about too much precision. Or critical mass. No wait, my excuse is that the compost in question is WET…
As far as as drying it out, I’d suggest that you measure it wet, then till it in to the soil, and let the native New Mexico soil do the drying work for you. You’ll probably have to wait, well, for that volume, given the climate, recent humidity and the phase of the moon, probably …
15 minutes before planting. Maybe 20, if it rained today. Seriously, if it smells strongly of ammonia or putrefied meat, till it daily until it stops smelling that way and starts smelling like good dirt, then plant.
Alternatively, bring some 5-gallon buckets (with lids) the next time we go to Los Cuates and I’ll give you 20 gallons of my compost.
My actual approach is to make enough that I can’t be bothered to measure (actually, I don’t really sift, either…). My favorite way to get this going is to build a nice big compost bin (or, better, three) and then frakking BUY a pickup-full of compost to put in it/one. This feeds my instant gratification jones, and jump starts a big compost habit for the future. Yard waste and kitchen scraps will only be worth about 10% of your ultimate volume, but it’s less depressing to put them on top of a big pile of compost, even if you did buy it…
Then in the fall you steal all your neighbors’ bags of leaves before the trash guy arrives (ok, you can ask first, if you insist, which might reduce the amount of beer cans, paper plates, and broken kids’ toys that you get…) My motto is
“Your leaves – I won’t rake ‘em, but I’ll take ‘em”.
If possible live amongst a bunch of people who DON’T have compost projects. Discourage them. Tell them how you threw your back out and only got $7 of compost. You know, lie. Or bribe them with extra tomatoes. Or extra zucchini. No wait, THAT much zucchini will discourage them. Maybe grow zucchini purely for the compost value???
BTW, if you have older neighbors who hire a yard person, that individual is EAGER to get rid of leaves, grass clippings, etc, and will gladly contribute them to your compost experiment. They’ll have a whole truck full of compostables at the end of their day, and they’d rather dump it with you right here for free than drive it out to the “convenience station”.
Then all you got to do is turn the huge thing. Did I mention more than one compost bin??? Good.
Oh, wait – you asked for responses from your “wise and puissant readers”. Nevermind.
Larry-Rosanna-Danna
Okay, looking at a standard Home Despot bucket, which I conveniently happen to have on hand, I thought, Hmm, seems pretty big to be just a quarter of 2.67 cubic feet. Therefore I resolved to bite down hard on what I’d previously avoided, and do Math.
And we know that’s always risky.
So: the bucket’s ostensibly 5 gallons. It’s functionally 1 ft x 1 ft (I measure the total height as 1’2.5″ or so, but let’s not overfill. Plus being able to multiply by 1 is always a plus!)
The volume of a cylinder = pi x radius squared x height. Thus: 3.142 x .25 x 1 = 0.7855 cu. ft.
The requisite 2.67 cu. ft. would therefore take 3.4 buckets, yes?
Giving us a mere half bucket less than the four you proposed. Which makes your calculation from wet volume pretty good by the standards of accuracy I’m shooting for here. No thousandth-inch tolerances in gardening, which is why my pal Joe should probably never, ever try to do it.
Feel free, Larry and everybody, to check my math, here. And thanks again, Larry!
My attempts to dry the compost I sifted day before yesterday, by the way, were – I’m guessing – compromised by the fact it rained like a beast last night. I still haven’t figured out a way to dry out the mass of muck in the bin enough to sift. Especially if it’s decided to start raining daily. Suggestions, please?
(Please also note that, what with the vagaries of one thing and another, this comment actually follows chronologically the comment after it. Deal.)
I’d suggest finding a cardboard box that’s approximately 1 cubic foot in volume, fill it up once with compost, then twice, then again to the two-thirds mark.
I doubt that this would fill up a full five-gallon Home Depot bucket one time (I use one as a trash can).
One would think it wouldn’t fill a single five-gallon bucket. As I did – and I turned out to be mistaken.
Turned out in practice that the 2.67 cu. ft. amounted in fact to about 3 and a half buckets. What I wound up doing was mixing in 4 buckets of each ingredient – the proportions being the most important thing – and dumping that in my frame. Left me with about half a bucket of Mel’s Mix to spare.
Clearly the procedure wasn’t exactly precise. Then again, this ain’t tool and die work.
In any event, it turns out to be easier for me to find 5-gallon plastic buckets than 1 cu. ft. boxes. Go figure.
Whoa. Impressive. Not to say, “overwhelming.” Science!
And, ah yes, you’ve caught me: I was too lazy to do Math.
Actually – and this is true – it didn’t really occur to me. As I said: more scatterbrained than usual.
In any event: thanks very much.
And – twenty gallons? Ye gods. That’s a poopload.
Still and all, I may have that much. As I failed to make clear in the post, my current desire to dry the stuff derives from my need to sift it before use. Although it’d best be kinda dry before I go and mix it with the other Secret Ingredients for my current project, since the water’ll make it heavy as a bitch and all. (The key being that mixing, not tilling, is what’s in store for this batch.)
That’s also why I need to measure – not exactly, but reasonably close: my Secret Project. Which as threatened – make that, “promised” – I shall reveal once I actually get the damned thing going.
So I have this giant mass of gooey black stuff from the composter that I need to dry before I get the chunks out of it. As is needful for my purposes.
If I don’t wind up deriving the requisite 20 gallons from my bin I shall happily accept your kind offer to make up the slack, and meet up with you with buckets in hand. Or at least in car.
Great suggestions as to how to come up with extra composting fodder. I’ll implement them, although it does turn out my kitchen residue of fruit and veggie parts and coffee grounds produces kind of a startling volume.
And more than one bin is indeed a Good Idea. Especially since my trash-bin composter (which does indeed work) is such a bitch to turn. I’m thinking of following a suggestion I’ve read recently of using a cylindrical container and just rolling the damned thing around the yard to turn it – a cheaper, not to mention mechanically simpler, version of those fancy crank-turned rigs.
So, what are you growing this year? Also, can I maybe bum some trumpet-vine cuttings off you, please?
Los Cuates is a good suggestion regardless of whether I need extra compost (homemade being vastly superior for the Secret Project, or so I am given to understand.) First, it’s always a good suggestion; and I haven’t gotten to talk to you in too long.
And thanks again for helping out! You’re a pal.
Mea Culpa. You said you wanted to measure in order to sift. I ignored that. As I said, I don’t sift. Apparently I’m aggressive about it. Like, proselytizingly aggressive, apparently. I figure sticks rotting in the garden is (eventually) just as good as sticks rotting in the compost pile…. But maybe not in the Secret Project ™.
I’m doing herbs, tomatoes, chiles, peppers and yellow squash. This year I’m trying raised beds (on the footprint of last year’s un-raised beds). Pics @ picasaweb.com/lwhays
L-R-D
Oh, and Trumpet Vine is basically a compost kit. Yes, you can. I’ve got a nice little sprout invading my apricot tree well. If that one dies, I’ve got about 20 others…
Actually, I want to dry in order to sift. Then measure.
It’s all very complicated.
Nonetheless all shall soon be revealed. I, um, hope.
The reason I’m playing it all close to my chest is, candidly, I want to actually do something before blatting about it in public. Of course it could be argued I’ve already failed at that; ah, well.
Impressive garden set-up, by the way. Very nice.
Yay!
I see where you sort of said it, but then made it sound like you were referring to something else, leaving the rest of us sleep-deprived and brain-addled folks understandably confused.
I need to get myself a compost system pretty quckly here, spring and the farm co-op food has arrived and the little bin under my sink will be full soon and there will be lots of greenery to deal with. Matt’s parents have a great rotating composter and I totally desire one!
And now you torment me with more secrets!!!
You are going to drive me to drink, Vic!
You said that your trash composter is a pain to turn. Do you have a picture? I suspect that the turning handle isn’t long enough. Could be an easy fix with a spare broomstick and duct tape.
It won’t be the prettiest solution, and I’m by no means a gardener. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Thanks! I appreciate the advice.
I may yet try taking some pictures. Sadly, all I have available is my little cellphone camera. So we shall see how that plays out.
Anyway, the composter is made from a bin that closely resembles the trash caddies the City of ABQ wished upon us all to roll the garbage out to the curb. It’s a tall box on wheels, basically. So turning entails emptying it out and then refilling it.
When it’s got a lot of stuff in it, especially wet stuff, it requires a considerable deadlift to dump it out. Then everything has to get shoveled wherever it’s gonna go: whether straightaway back into the bin, or to the screen to sift it into a wheelbarrow, with what doesn’t sift getting dumped back in the bin. Reasonably arduous, yes.
Now, for a first attempt the trash-bin composter works fairly well, meeting my three main criteria of: 1) Cheap, 2) Fast, and 3) Actually makes compost. Still, I’m thinking of whipping up a 3′x3′ cylindrical bin out of chicken wire and trying that. Maybe, following that suggestion I read, I can turn it by actually rolling it about the yard.
Stay tuned. And, uh, once again: any suggestions on how to dry out the composting mass so I can sift it, please hit me with ‘em.
And thanks again!
I have a character in Fort Freak.
Go me.
Yes, Ty. Go you.
Next: we get Mosquitoman in!
Dude.
No way you’re going to roll a 3′ X 3′ structure anywhere. Especially one made of chicken wire. Plus all your compost would fall out through the wire, leaving a trail you’d have to re-gather.
My suggestion: Make two 3′ cylinders of wire, with no top or bottom, set em up on their flat ends. Fill one. When it’s time to turn, lift the wire off and fork the compost pile into the other one. Rinse and repeat…
Oh. Ah, good to know.
Thanks for dropping the science here, Larry!
I’ll likely implement your suggestions about 2 open chicken-wire cylinders. They seem pretty useful. One of those 55-gallon plastic barrels is another intriguing concept – that was actually the original “roll the composter around the yard to turn” design.
Also I’m finding sundry uses for chicken wire, so will be getting a roll soon anyway.
An easier way to turn your compost is to get one of the old-fashioned steel trash cans (the 55-gal plastic or steel drum might work better), fill it up about halfway to two-thirds with compost, put the lid on tight, flip it over on its side and roll it about the yard. Flipping it back upright might be a chore, but a decent lever-and-fulcrum setup can alleviate that. Sure beats the Ø200-400 that you’ll pay for a commercially-made unit.
Good idea. Any idea where to get 55-gallon drums, please? Especially plastic ones?
here or here — Ø25 a piece.
Awesome! Thanks, Mike.