A steaming heap, literally!

[Chief]

I must tender my apologies to my friends and neighbors here in Cascade Park, That mist this morning was probably from my compost pile, but it should stop steaming so heartily in a few days. If it smelled kind of "horsey" outside this morning, blame me...

I managed to make three cubic yards of compost this year, and I needed every bit of it. I expanded all of the flower beds in the front and back, (mainly because I was tired of mowing so much grass). I really did need that much volume to fill the deep beds that I've been digging all summer. I've long been a fan of what used to be referred to as "French Intensive" gardening; where you dig out a bed to a depth of about 18 inches, and layer it back in with compost and soil. The advantage is that the roots of your plants can go very deep, and the bed maintains an almost inexhaustible moisture source at the very bottom,

So what I've been doing is taking a whole bale of alfalfa hay, spreading it in the back yard, then shredding and bagging it with my lawn mower, and piling it into the compost pile. Then, I run out to Battle Ground to a horse stable I know of, and get a modest load of fresh horse stable sweepings, and mix that in with the alfalfa. The result is horse manure without the horse. It heats up pretty hot in a day or so too. The pile I built in July peaked out at 168 degrees! (This pile was 140 this morning).

The goal is to have some roughage to mix lawn clippings with, along with all of the leaves I can lay my hands on this fall. This compost starter will ensure that the whole pile rots thoroughly over the winter, and will be ready in March, when I'm ready to turn it in to my roses and raspberries.

So yes, a 140 degree fresh compost pile steams like mad in the morning, especially when it's only in the forties. It's a little oderous right now, and that will pass in a day or so as well.

And those beds I built this year? Mrs. Chief and I hit as may sales as we could find, and planted somewhere near 500 bulbs that will come up next spring. Oughta be something to see...

And if you are really bothered by it, let me know and I'll make it a little better with a jar of raspberry jelly. Because of the compost, my yield went from six to nine gallons of berries this year, and I'm hoping for 12 gallons of berries next year. We always make extra jelly to share....

[karma]

You better protect those bulbs, those tree rats can spread them all over the neighborhood! Your neighbors will love you!

[psumom]

I managed to make three cubic yards of compost this year,

I wasl almost afraid to read on after that . ;D

[Chief]

Just in case you thought I was kidding....I shot this this morning. Kudos to Louis for use of his YouTube account!

Air Temperature: 34 Degrees

Compost Temperature: 150 Degrees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfW-66zEADU

;D

[Chief]

Clark County will clean up with state grants

http://www.oregonlive.com/suburban/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_north_news/1164079521144720.xml&coll=7

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

VANCOUVER -- Two grants totaling more than $860,000 will help Clark County residents learn how to compost food waste, use yard clippings and divert poisons from landfills.

The county programs were among 67 programs financed statewide Monday by $18.2 million from the Washington Department of Ecology.

Clark County's solid waste program is receiving $762,469 to:

Divert 130,000 pounds of organic waste from the trash into compost.

Properly dispose of 1.7 million pounds of hazardous household waste such as lawn chemicals, paint and solvents.

Train 20,000 students to recycle, generating 750,000 pounds of compost in the process.

**SCHNIPP**

Our tax dollars at work. Hell! I'll show 'em how to compost, and it'll cost a lot less than what the City's gonna spend on this! And nothing speaks louder than results! To date, my neighbors have donated at least 10 cubic yards of leaves to my compost pile, by collecting most of the leaves in the Morningside neighborhood. We really did do a joint community recycling project all by ourselves! Go figure!!

The leaves get broken up by the gas powered lawn brooms, and the pile is so hot right now it reduces in volume by 8-10 inches in height in just a couple of days. All of that heat is sterilizing the compost, and it will be ready to start using around February.

[karma]

Isn't it nice of your neighbors to share with you and to help you improve your yard with their leaves. I live in a neighborhood where they love to share too. I really love my blower/vac and with all the leaves we collected by the power of the winds blowing them down to the end of our lane we have collected enough to mulch our whole canna bed and we are still collecting. Anyone seen a street sweeper in your neighborhoods as of late? We have so many pine needles blowing that it's time to put the blower end to use and blow out the lane to make sure it's clean here. As you can see we don't waste any of the good stuff here and would like to requests our stormwater fee back for all that we do for our area. I can hope right? The County has to do something as H&H is closing and where is all this going to go? My bet is this will not be spent for what it was collected for???

[Chief]

I wasn't clear. This isn't for just improving my yard at all. There are several of us that are going to share this pile of compost, and I'm also donating a load to the Neighborhood Association for their planting projects.

One lady in Morningside has several raspberry vines in her yard that need to be moved to a sunnier location. My other neighbor and I are probably going to dig her a new bed, augment it with lots of that compost, and transplant her raspberries for her. She brought her leaves all the way over to my pile, so the least I can do is wheel them back over to her as finished compost.

It's a really good deal for everyone involved, and it didn't cost anything to do beyond a little bit of gasoline for the leaf blowers.
.

$762,469

Question: Jost whose money is that anyway???

[Chief]

Updating!!

My back-fence neighbor just called, and stopped by to deliver about 13 more bags of leaves that he salvaged fro his neighborhood. The pile is topped off afresh, and ready for some Spring weather to get fired up again.

The pile has cooled considerably, (it's cold-compst season) and once the temps start hitting above 50 again, I can turn it and get it hot again to finish composting.

And this ongoing Neighborhood composting project continues without one penny of assistance from the City...

;D

[klhatch]

Chief, you had better keep this to yourself. I have heard rumors that the City will soon require you to have a permit to pick up leaves. The catch will be that you can pick your leaves up without a permit as long as the leaves are going to be disposed of. Although, If you are going to be using your leaves for things like decorations or composting then a permit will be required. Seems to me I read this somewhere in the Columbian.

[Chief]

bttt

I went out and turned the pile again this morning, and it's steaming away! Internal temp is back up to 130 degrees!!

Hot stuff!

;D

[karma]

Are you going to use pretty soon? Or are you planning on having folks over for tea?

I decided to put the leaves directly on top of the canna bed then cover with straw!! Removed the straw yesterday and nice compost and feeding the cannas to boot! No stirring the pot here!! Even beat DH compost for improving the soil and feeding beside not having to mess with those bins. Will be putting the straw between the corn rolls so we won't have to water much. Gosh I love gardening!!

[Chief]

We plan on using it around April 1st. You have to understand that we put almost 15 or more cubic yards of leaves in this heap! It's taken all winter for it to rot down....

;D

[karma]

So I can take it you don't shred/mulch these first? One needs to try this as it cuts down the processing time. Aren't we hard core gardeners a lot of fun?? Heck I even mulch the pine needles for my paths, which keeps the weeds down!

[Chief]

The only shredding we did on the leaves was to vacume them up with a lawn blower. that really chopped everything pretty well. We eneded up packing so many in there, it's taken all winter to rot them down....but it's some really good stuff! I augment it with raw horse manure in the Fall to really kick start it....

yah...hardcore gardening is fun stuff!!

;D

[Chief]

Between my neighbors efforts today, and mine earlier this week, we managed to ditribute most of 4 cubic yards or so of finished compost! Down at the bottom, it's really dense, with a lot of residual vermiculite that I tossed in last year. Pretty nice stuff, and chock full of red wigglers!

Almost time to start a new one...

;D

[karma]

With that nice gental rain everything got a good feeding!

[Chief]

Updating....!!!

Time to start anew! I gave one of the neighbors back the leaves we collected from them in Morningside Neighborhood the other day, and here's the buckets full, to prove it. It's raining now, and all of that compst is soaking into my neighbor's lavender, and I have no doubt she'll have quite a harvest this year...

;D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/SeniorChieftain/givingbackthoseleaves.jpg

Not much left, considering we filled this bin to the top, and let it rot down several times over the fall and winter...that's my heavy-duty stainless steel pitchfork with the indestructable handle. This compost pile has eaten two regular Home Depot style wodden folks already...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/SeniorChieftain/endofit.jpg

Not bad for an old guy, eh??

;D

[Chief]

Just to remind everyone where we started on this thread almost 700 views ago was this tidbit of reporting from the Oregonian....

Clark County's solid waste program is receiving $762,469 to:

Divert 130,000 pounds of organic waste from the trash into compost.

Properly dispose of 1.7 million pounds of hazardous household waste such as lawn chemicals, paint and solvents.

Train 20,000 students to recycle, generating 750,000 pounds of compost in the process.


I am starting my 10th season of home composting and my second season in this heavy duty frame, and all without the assistance of Clark County, the City of Vancouver, or the slightest sign of interest from the Cascade Highlands Neighborhood Association; despite repeated offerings to share the joy of fresh compost. I told the NA "Friends of Trees" gal to come see me this Spring when their tree plantings in the neighborhood got underway, and I would donate a load of compost to their efforts. Not a whisper from them, either.

No problem, because my neighbors and I have very effectively and quietly worked around all of them, and nothing speaks louder than success.

;D

[karma]

Got to love those that compost!!

[Chief]

Updating...

Last week I did e-mail the City's Office of Neighborhoods with a brief story about this composting project, a few good digital pictures, and a link to the YouTube video I made. I was very clear that our composting project was completely independent of the Neighborhood Association, and that we have a long term, successful, an true neighborhood level composting project. I think that's newsworthy. I also ommitted all references to Clarkblog.

Myk at the Office of Neighborhoods bounced it back to me, recommending that I send it to the Columbian's Neighbors reporter, and providing that person's e-mail address. I sent it, and a couple of hours later I got a "Daemon-Mailer" notice that it had been bounced. No surprize there, but I had to go through all of the motions.

I then got an e-mail from someone else at the City last Friday morning, who forwarded my original message to Solid Waste, and to the President of the local Neighborhood Association. Of course since then, I haven't heard "boo", sic' 'em, or "kiss my ass" from anyone.

So this has gone full circle, and I have performed "due dliligence" to try and point out something very positive in my neighborhood, and how we actually are doing this without any assistance from any Gubment office.

Which is of course what doomed this project from the start, no doubt because I dared do this without purchasing a permit, and without the direct supervision of a Neighborhood Association, Friends of Trees, The City of America's Vancouver, or one of the City's full-time Botanists, or the Urban Forestry Office..

Shame on me!

That's OK though, because this thread has over 700 views on it as of this morning!

Here is that link to that video on Louis' YouTube account. It's been running there since mid-November of last year...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfW-66zEADU

;D

On Edit: I want to reiterate that I live in the "Cascade Highlands" Neighborhood.

[karma]

;D Chief, you did good and you NA could learn alot from this but sorry to say they won't. You are not alone out there, several of us environmentally sound souls do more than an NA can or will do and we don't see a dime from our efforts. I think WM should open this up for the Public not just NA which in my book do nothing for our Communities!! I could use more funding sources to continue our composting, more electrical cords so I can vac up more leaves from neighborhood streets for my composting, how about money to pay for my electrical bill due to blowing out the roadways on a monthly bases?? Oh the list of things one can do for their community efforts. How about a refund of stormwater fees??

[Chief]

I hear you! Figure the odds that anything that cut into the City's revenue stream will ever be eliminated.

For the record, I haven't heard "boo" on any of this since last Friday. Thank you very little...

[karma]

Ecology seeks nominations for sustainable practices awards

OLYMPIA - The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) is seeking applications for the 2007 Governor's Award for Pollution Prevention and Sustainable Practices. Businesses, government agencies, schools and organizations may apply from now until June 1. The award recognizes those who are leading the way toward sustainability.

The competition is open to any Washington facility in good standing with environmental regulations. Ecology is particularly interested in enterprises that have reduced or stopped the use of hazardous materials, waste and emissions, or that have switched to practices that conserve resources and energy.

Gov. Chris Gregoire will honor the winners at a ceremony in the fall.
Winners will also receive additional publicity about their achievements.

The application form, guidelines and information about past winners can be found at the awards website at:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/hwtr/GovAward/index.html.

Last year's winners were two electronics firms, a snack food manufacturer, a hotel and conference center, a dental office and a group teaching organic gardening. They joined 93 past winners.

An external panel of judges selects the winners from finalists reviewed by Ecology staff. The judges are past winners, pollution-prevention experts, and representatives from business, labor and environmental groups, and academia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again these folks leave out the Public!! Chief ya might want to send them a copy????

[Chief]

Oh yeah, right!!

That would be the local equivalent of Rush Limbaugh's Nobel Peace Prize nomination....

"Give Peace a Chance..."

::)

[Chief]

Another note to John Laird: I could heat my house with mine...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfW-66zEADU

mrgrn

[Waterbuffalo]

Is this a new video of the compost pile?

[Chief]

No, it's the same early Spring video I've had up for over a year.

Again, this is not for your benefit...

mrgrn

[Waterbuffalo]

Calling out all composters hmm?

Well I give the guy a little credit.. He's trying...