Serious composting - making good compost

by Jude O'Connor
(Oswego, NY)

Get a 25 foot roll of wire fencing with 2 X 4 inch spacing and 2 foot tall, unroll it and cut into two pcs. 12 and a half ft each.

When you cut it go close with the wire cutters on one side so you have a two inch wire sticking out that you will curl up like a fish hook on each of the wires.

After you have all the hooks made, hook it to the other end of the roll so you now have a circle of fencing with a diameter of about 4 feet. Do this to the other piece of fencing too. Pinch the hooks closed over the wires so they make a wheel.

Fill the wire baskets with grass clippings from the neighborhood. They'll be glad you pick the bags up. On your first batch dissolve a cup of sugar in a six gallon pail and wet the piles down with this to give the bacteria something to feed on to get the process started. They'll cook down to half within a week, then pull up the fencing and move it beside the pile and add more grass clippings and shovel what's cooked down with the new clippings.

I use a four tine fork or a ten tine fork to turn the piles. I only use grass clippings because it works faster and in the spring lawns are mowed twice a week. I also add a cup of ammonia and a cup of sugar to a six gallon pail of water and add it to the piles once a month to keep the piles working in top shape. The finer the clippings the faster things cook.

Just about all the neighbors mow their lawns on the Saturdays so I fill my truck with the bags each week. You'll soon have some serious piles of compost.