On the Stout method, or pit composting, as I think of it, some things we do:
1) I don't dare put hay or straw in the garden anymore. Sourcing to avoid aminopyralids is too tricky.
2) I do use cardboard, but also this time of year I drive around the nicer neighborhoods in the morning, and collect bags of raked leaves, that people so kindly put out by the curb. You can never have too much carbonaceous mulch, and I don't know anybody who sprays their trees.
3) I like to add carbon mass-- especially charcoal if I've got it-- to any garden "deposits" that contain anything likely to attract digging vermin. It seems to cut way down on things digging up my compost.
4) Particularly with the cardboard mulch, I have still had problems with rats and mice deciding to nest under the cardboard layer, so watch out for that. I prefer the leaves for this reason, though would not want to waste cardboard either. But I tend to shred it up when possible, so it doesn't make a nice dry space underneath.
5) bones and eggshells: our soil is very calcium poor, and these are much appreciated by tomato plants.
6) Pumpkins/squash/melons are heavy feeders, so if you can start them out next to a pit containing charcoal and an animal carcass of some sort, they do really well and I have yet to burn any. Have used rotten chicken leftovers from fridge, cheap sardines, spoiled eggs, fish heads, dead rats from the basement traps, and small roadkill with great success. Waste not, want not...
Mouldering piles are... highly location-dependent. Here, they are just a good way to reduce how much you send to the landfill. They don't do anything for the garden. We garden in sand, and get 80 inches of rain a year, so everything just leaches out too fast. You can pile up compost all year, and at the end of the year, you've got... nothing. It's gone. This is why pit composting directly in the garden works better-- the plants at least have a shot at it before it washes away.
Hot compost... I think it's a myth! I know, I've read about it, and seen videos and whatnot, just... never been able to get one to *do* that. I think you have to have an on-site source of manure to make it work.
Pit composting
1) I don't dare put hay or straw in the garden anymore. Sourcing to avoid aminopyralids is too tricky.
2) I do use cardboard, but also this time of year I drive around the nicer neighborhoods in the morning, and collect bags of raked leaves, that people so kindly put out by the curb. You can never have too much carbonaceous mulch, and I don't know anybody who sprays their trees.
3) I like to add carbon mass-- especially charcoal if I've got it-- to any garden "deposits" that contain anything likely to attract digging vermin. It seems to cut way down on things digging up my compost.
4) Particularly with the cardboard mulch, I have still had problems with rats and mice deciding to nest under the cardboard layer, so watch out for that. I prefer the leaves for this reason, though would not want to waste cardboard either. But I tend to shred it up when possible, so it doesn't make a nice dry space underneath.
5) bones and eggshells: our soil is very calcium poor, and these are much appreciated by tomato plants.
6) Pumpkins/squash/melons are heavy feeders, so if you can start them out next to a pit containing charcoal and an animal carcass of some sort, they do really well and I have yet to burn any. Have used rotten chicken leftovers from fridge, cheap sardines, spoiled eggs, fish heads, dead rats from the basement traps, and small roadkill with great success. Waste not, want not...
Mouldering piles are... highly location-dependent. Here, they are just a good way to reduce how much you send to the landfill. They don't do anything for the garden. We garden in sand, and get 80 inches of rain a year, so everything just leaches out too fast. You can pile up compost all year, and at the end of the year, you've got... nothing. It's gone. This is why pit composting directly in the garden works better-- the plants at least have a shot at it before it washes away.
Hot compost... I think it's a myth! I know, I've read about it, and seen videos and whatnot, just... never been able to get one to *do* that. I think you have to have an on-site source of manure to make it work.