One Month to finished compost? My experience so far with compost tumblers

[DeepseekerADS]

I have a bag in the kitchen for vegetable food scraps - the potato trimmings, the pod of out my coffee drip pot, and I save those up along with egg shells, and put them in the drums. I've 3 tumblers and 2 barrels i put waste in.

Even though I've been very disappointed on a few of my ventures, I'm still going on the berries. Someday they will pay off. I've two mulberry dwarfs - had to have 2, male & female, went through 4 to get two to survive (mail order plants SUCK!), and those two are going at it. I cleaned out my orchard a bit ago, 9 plants with 6 surviving in their 3rd year.

I need to study up on what to trim for what plant. My blackberries started last year have taken over an entire section of my garden. I let them go and they sure multiplied. I need to start trimming for berry production. My original blackberries from the first year - only one producing berries so far this year.

Out of the 12 raspberries mail order plants, there's only one survivor. I picked up two live plants at the farmer's market last year and they've taken over a large area. Mom ordered 12 strawberry plants this Spring from PCH, two survivors.

No more mail order plants for me. My plan is to get into cloning and maybe sell plants next year at the local farmer's market.

There's a little creek running right by a length of my lower garden - absolutely full of native fox grapes, and they're weighed down by berries now. 3 years ago I bought 3 "commerical" grape plants (again mail order - Burpee), two survive but they really need to do some growing yet.

 

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[boogeyman]

What kind of soil have you got the grapes in? Was told they really thrive in sandy soil. My grandparents had four that they put in when they built the house, so that was like 50 some years. Arbor right at the edge of the patio slab Nevada soil, didn't do anything except prune em. I've got pictures of me when I was 8 holding (barely) two fat bunches that went from my shoulders to the ground. I've tried several times but like you the mail order stuff doesn't work good. I started just buying what the box stores got, at least when they croak you can take em back & trade em in! Yup even trees! I've taken 3 back and they replaced em even though I later I found out what I did wrong. The best hint I got is to plant em & don't mess with em for a year or two. I just found out why my orange tree & a lemon isn't doing as good as it should. Guy told me don't prune em EVER! I'll let you know how that works out next season. Want to build a trommel with 1/2" or maybe even 3/4 to run the mulch through. You might start thinking about one at the rate you're going!

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Thanks for the info boogeyman!

The commercial grapes are planted in the bottom land below the house, where we hit red clay about 6" below the sod. Maybe a bit more than 10 feet from the creek, where the Fox grapes cover the trees on the banks of the creek (it was "branch", and then the rains came and that branch is growing larger). Last year I thought that the problem was the proximity of the Fox grapes to the commercial ones. The one commercial grape that died lingered the first two years, dying at the end of last season.

Maybe the problem is that I haven't trimmed the remaining two to put full effort into one vine leader.

Compared to last year, the Fox grapes are loaded with grapes right now.

Another issue with my garden is that it's loaded with copperheads - the reason I took all my raised beds down last year.

Last year I picked up a cloning set-up (haven't used it yet). One of them things with a mist pump in the bottom that sprays cuttings to get roots started. Maybe I wasted my money on that, but I do intend to use it. I bought it specifically to clone my more than 200 year old ancestral pear tree.

I sure don't need to clone anymore blackberry bushes. Mom said "you can't kill them". It's kind of like you can't stop them either - I've a new blackberry plant in the midst of my strawberry plants now. My strawberry plants are on a slope above the blackberries, and they're living but not really doing well. Maybe I should move them to the bottom flat and surrender the space to the blackberries. The blackberries? I've a new plant outside of my fencing now. They may take over my entire lower yard.

Above my house is my fenced in orchard of dwarfs. Surviving are three apples, a pear, a peach, and a plum. The cherry, nectarine, and a Stanley plum did not survive. I'm thinking I won't replace them in place, I'll expand the fenced in area and replace them then.

I look at these past seasons here, actually I planted them all in May 2015, so really it's only two years I'm into this. Retirement was supposed to be straight out of Mother Earth News and it didn't happen. So with all the other Pearl Harbors that happened I did become discouraged. Thus my absence in this thread.

 

[releventchair]

Reads like you kinda rooted in that holler.

Try some different piles and recipes for compost. Sometimes air/ breathing alone matters. Not so much all of it ,but the area on top for sure.
My previous success ( if a success by small amount) was a gentle turning at feeding time without really mixing. More a gentle folding.
Deep turning was only about every few feedings.

 

[boogeyman]

Might be a help for you, but please don't risk your life on it if you try. An old old boy told me he hooked up four wire leads to (I think) a fluorescent light transformer off a sign and attached each lead to a spike & drove them into the ground. Flipped the switch & it drove the rattlers out. He swore it worked, but I couldn't stop laughing. Then I remembered we did the same thing for worms. Heck! it even worked to get the sand shrimps up at the beach. Kind of makes sense since I'm sure the snakes can feel the field, but then again it doesn't.......... Put the dogs & toddlers in the house & give it a shot. What have you got going in the raised beds? maters etc? The copperheads might be living off the mice eating salad in your raised beds.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

What have you got going in the raised beds? maters etc? The copperheads might be living off the mice eating salad in your raised beds.

I had to take the raised beds down. I was running my hands through the compost in one of the beds and pulled up a copperhead by the tail.....

Raised beds are gone!