Taylor Clem: Alright, good afternoon, everybody. My name is Dr. Taylor clam on the environmental and community horticulture agent with you up office extension lateral County, as well as the Master Gardener volunteer coordinator
Taylor Clem: So I want to welcome everybody to today's program black gold composting for beginners as part of our Master Gardener volunteer lecture series.
Taylor Clem: Master Gardeners who like to have different interests or special it specialize in different areas. They like to give presentations and education.
Taylor Clem: Associate related with those areas. So the Master Gardeners they oversee this big portion of the program for this lecture series. So today we have Nikki buyers with
Taylor Clem: Us and she's gonna be doing that presentation.
Taylor Clem: Feel free to send all your questions in the Q AMP a box as well so we can make sure that we can respond to those questions appropriately, but will also have time at the end of the presentation to answer any of the questions that you may have.
Taylor Clem: And feel free to reach out to me via email through the contact information that you got through the emails on registrations, etc. If you have any additional questions. So I like to pass it over to Nikki, and thank you, Nikki very much for helping us out today.
Nicki Byers: My pleasure.
Nicki Byers: Okay. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Nikki buyers and I'm going to be presenting to you of talk today, a
Nicki Byers: Big Black Hole.
Nicki Byers: I'm a real advocate for composting. And so I'm going to hopefully you will get a lot out of this chart and hopefully you will be able to start composting.
Nicki Byers: Very soon after we're done with this talk. It's a super easy thing to do. And it's so great for the earth in the environment. So I'm like I said, a huge advocate for composting. A few other things about myself. I have been a master gardener for going on eight years now.
Nicki Byers: I love of gardening obviously all aspects of gardening. I have a huge ornamental garden in my, my home. I love to attract wildlife to my yard.
Nicki Byers: Pollinators and hummingbirds butterflies any kind of birds I attempt to do some vegetable gardening, but unfortunately the conditions in my yard don't have
Nicki Byers: Really lend itself to that, but I do help out and a beautiful vegetable garden at one of our elementary schools here in actual County.
Nicki Byers: I'm
Nicki Byers: Just, I get a lot of personal satisfaction from my Master Gardener Program and being a master gardener and being in my garden all the time, but I also get a lot of personal satisfaction from
Nicki Byers: Composting and recycling my kitchen scraps my garden scraps and and then I allow what I get. In the end, which is this beautiful black gold this this soil. This
Nicki Byers: This additive that I can put into my garden that is better than fertilizer. I think I think everybody if you have the opportunity to compost really should compost.
Nicki Byers: Yeah, it's my talk today is called composting turning garbage into gold and see my first slide here, this must be the where they keep their compost bins behind these trees over here, which is a great spot.
Nicki Byers: The advantages of us making your own compost is you can use it on your plants in your own yard. These you can use on your citrus in your vegetable gardens and your ornamental gardens.
Nicki Byers: And then all this stuff when I'm done. You know when these guys are spent. And when my pumpkin Spanish, they all go into the compost bin so composting. Um, it's easy. And I really hope you're going to get a lot out of this talk.
Nicki Byers: In the beginning on composting. It's basically been around since the beginning. And we hear the old mantra is old as dirt and it's absolutely true, because that's what compost.
Nicki Byers: And if there was human civilization. They had waste and they were making compost, whether they knew it or not.
Nicki Byers: It really arose because people had to get rid of the waste the you had to have a place to throw human waste to throw animal ways to throw decayed and rotting
Nicki Byers: Plant waste and unbeknownst to the people who did initially I think they just would pile all this stuff up and then realize
Nicki Byers: Hey, the grass is kind of greener over by with it pile of stuff. Used to be, you know. And somewhere along the way they realized by putting this on their agriculture and and these plants and stuff that it benefited them.
Nicki Byers: Archaeologists have discovered evidence of composting since the Stone Age and the Egyptians any type of River Valley civilization, they're found
Nicki Byers: Always that there was composting going on the Greeks, the Romans. And then here in North America, the Native Americans were huge composters when the European settlers came, they
Nicki Byers: The Indians help them with their agriculture, they showed them how they composted and the net the Native Americans. They had several ways they compost it
Nicki Byers: And she composting was one of them. And she called posting is basically what we do today. It's the layering of
Nicki Byers: Nitrogen and carbons and making a pile and it breaks down and then using what we get on our fields in our plants. They also compost and while they're planting these ancient composters
Nicki Byers: They were undeserving they composted everything. Like I said that you composted human waste animal waste, whether it was a an herbivore, or a carnivore, they just threw everything into the pile and like when they did this composting while planting.
Nicki Byers: Several of the things I read said they would just take basically fish carcasses. That was one of their favorite things to do and just plant them right alongside the squash and
Nicki Byers: Everything else do you see weed and they would just throw it all right in there with their with their crops for the year.
Nicki Byers: And then they also did see balls, which I thought was great because we kind of do seed balls but they would take the seeds.
Nicki Byers: And then wrap them up and clay and the newer and get nice and hard when it was time to to plant. They just basically throw these in a field wait for the great conditions from Mother Nature, the sun and the rain.
Nicki Byers: They would have the seeds would have the nutrients they have the clay to hold the moisture and lo and behold, you'd have some beautiful plants coming up in the spring. So those ancient guys
Nicki Byers: They knew a lot about composting, and then these gentlemen, these guys are our modern composters and they have the the first gentleman, Mr. Dr. King he toured China and Japan and the 1800s, and he observed these peoples.
Nicki Byers: Using muck out of RIVERS RIVERS that you know they were through everything. And so it was like a little creek, but they throw all their waste into these things and they become very lucky and sludgy
Nicki Byers: And then they take this muck and sludge out and put it on your crops, he published a book called farmers in 40 centuries.
Nicki Byers: Where he described the different ways that they use these maneuvers and these plant materials to create compost and this gentleman here, Sir Albert Howard, who is a British
Nicki Byers: botanist he in the early 19th century, during the same time where they started to develop modern herbicides and pesticides in even synthetic fertilizers. He started noticing that the soil was not as good. After we used to these things. And this the soil.
Nicki Byers: Was really not as healthy and he wanted to go back to the way they use doing and he actually flew to India.
Nicki Byers: And he was called he was the director of the Institute of plant industry in and I'm not sure if I'm saying this right it's indoor or indoors India.
Nicki Byers: And that is the mana he developed the story composting process and that is our modern day process of composting. He talked about layering of the carbons with the nitrogen, but he was a much more
Nicki Byers: Discernible compost or he then said, you know, we cannot be putting human ways and waste from carnivores into this, that it needs to be a pure more organic
Nicki Byers: Type of composting. So he, you know, said we can only put certain things in the compost. We need to layer it in such a way that the air gets in that
Nicki Byers: Insects bugs micro nutrients that are coming into the soil. And then he used that to us in the agriculture and he he
Nicki Byers: Basically, um, he made a scientific method out of it and he wanted to prove to other people that you know where these synthetic things that are being developed. They're supposed to be helping with crop yield and make the process. The labor easier. Actually, we're having some counter
Nicki Byers: You know, productive results to our soil.
Nicki Byers: This gentleman here is Jay I rodel and if you think Rodale That name sounds familiar, publishing. Well, he is the father of organic farming and he took into sir Albert's
Nicki Byers: Processes of the indoor process. He actually noticed that by using these synthetics that
Nicki Byers: They were residues. He thought he didn't think plants. He thought they were dangerous. They were toxic that we've been grown with these pesticides and herbicides and he became the father of organic farming and to this day.
Nicki Byers: The Rodale Institute still remains from about 1947 or before actually he he and his wife started a small farm in upstate New York, but he
Nicki Byers: published the first organic farming magazine and they still publish. If you see when you check out. Prevention magazine. This is the gentleman, he was kind of like our first had a health nut.
Nicki Byers: As to say who was concerned about eating organically and and only putting the best stuff in. So it was because of these guys.
Nicki Byers: That we can thank our process of composting that we do today and the this their process is the one I'm going to teach you guys so that you can have nice clean great organic compost.
Nicki Byers: And so why should we compost. We should, because it really does great things for our soil, it adds nutrients to our soil, it adds micro and macro nutrients.
Nicki Byers: Like we were talking before we're not only carbon and nitrogen, but some other stuff. I'll go into later in the talk.
Nicki Byers: It induce the valuable microorganisms and we get to recycle, which I know we all love to do now.
Nicki Byers: And it's a really good habit to get. And I know we all think oh we recycle our plastic bags and we recycle our cardboard. So we sent to the curb. Well, you need another been you need to recycle your kitchen scraps.
Nicki Byers: And it so it helps without that kitchen waste. It's less going into the landfill.
Nicki Byers: And if they're collecting less stuff at the curve and putting less stuff in the land fill in time it will actually save our county and us all money so it's it's a great way to
Nicki Byers: To reduce landfill waste to get a good feeling about recycling and to save a little money you make your own compost. You don't have to go out and buy a few bags of black cow to help improve your soil.
Nicki Byers: And the bottom line is it's really beneficial for our planet. Um, so how do I start. Okay. We know composting is great.
Nicki Byers: We know everybody doing it.
Taylor Clem: Yeah, I do think the right right now would be a good time that we could I have that pole ready for us.
Taylor Clem: If we want to ask people about their experience with compost. So I'm, what I'm going to do is I'm about to send out a poll to everybody, you should actually see it popping up right now.
Taylor Clem: So feel free. You know, we're like, we're just interested interested in how long have you been composting. If you are and just go ahead and drop in those
Taylor Clem: Your response, Nikki, are you seeing those responses as they come in.
Nicki Byers: I don't see the responses I say I see the pole.
Nicki Byers: But it says the host and panelists can vote so
Taylor Clem: OK. OK, so I'll, I'll publish that here in a second. We have just
Taylor Clem: This is pretty pretty uniform, but we got a lot of people who've never done it before, which is awesome. So this will be really, really great.
Great.
Taylor Clem: For those we have a lot better, less than one year. So I'll go ahead and I'll close it and I'll publish it. So you all can see it.
Nicki Byers: Okay, I see that now. Oh, excellent.
Taylor Clem: So we can see. Yeah. So we have a lot of people have never done before so
Taylor Clem: Awesome. I mean composition is a wonderful thing. And we have a lot of less than one years. You can see we have one the five, six to 10. We also have some people that are upwards of greater than 10 years. So, you know,
Nicki Byers: We give them some new tips.
Taylor Clem: So that's just wonderful. And I think, and we also have the pole at the end setup and everything for you and Nikki, but this is kind of, I think this is kind of an interesting result because we're seeing that we actually have a pretty broad spectrum of, you know, experiences regarding compost.
Nicki Byers: Yeah, I'm glad to see there's a lot of people who have never composted because it is I hopefully they're going to want to accomplish when they're done listening to me.
Right.
Nicki Byers: How do I start. How do I go start accomplish
Nicki Byers: Well, first, to get started, you need a bin. You need to bins. Actually, you need a big been outside in your yard somewhere and you need a little bin and it like this little guy. I have here. Let's see my. There's my compost bin me
Nicki Byers: That you keep in the kitchen that you throw all your kitchen waste in and everything when it comes to deciding where you're going to put your big outside been
Nicki Byers: I recommend here in Florida, where we never have a winter and where it's summer all the time. It's always going to be hot in your compost, it's always going to be cooking.
Nicki Byers: I put it in a shady spot. And I always say, put it in a discrete spot is not. You don't want to walk up and see somebody big
Nicki Byers: Pile somewhere. So if you find a little spot in the corner.
Nicki Byers: Or behind your shed or to kind of in the in the back of it, you know, and where it isn't right there in your landscape, but I also recommend that you
Nicki Byers: Make it in a good spot. So you'll want to go out to your compost a lot you know I'm always saying, oh my, my husband thinks that's like a
Nicki Byers: Code for saying I'm going to the compost. That means it. I'll be back in two hours because I'm pregnant end up pulling we are putting putting a new plant or doing something so he always laugh when I say, Oh, I gotta go to the compost.
Nicki Byers: And, you know, make it a nice walk. Make it someplace you want to walk by and check out and see every day. So put your, you know, think about where you're going to put your compost collection bin and
Nicki Byers: Into a wire bin is sufficient, but they make beautiful commercial ones, you can do it yourself. They there's great links on on the computer on how to build your own bins and my gosh the the creativity and the different kinds of bins. They're great. I'm a very basic
Nicki Byers: composter mine. I wish look as nice as this wire been, but it is just a wire been system and I you can use up the three been simultaneously because
Nicki Byers: The first year you're just collecting so it's going to be just collecting of your greens in your brown so you don't get to use your compost yet so okay a whole year has gone by, we've collected. Well, you have to let it sit for
Nicki Byers: Eight months to a year. Also, so you're not really going to get any compost for about, I'd say 18 to 24 months.
Nicki Byers: And then of course you need your little small collection bit. So that's how you start, start with one wire been because you're just going to need one for the first year and one little collection.
Nicki Byers: And here are some other examples of outdoor bins. This is nice. This is called like an earth machine. I had one of these
Nicki Byers: I think I had one of these for about 10 years in the back of my yard and that was before was a really active composter but I used to love to throw things in it.
Nicki Byers: I would just, you know, throw things in it, but I found it hard to turn things in this and it didn't get wet when it raining.
Nicki Byers: So I would leave the lid off sometimes when I became a more active.
Nicki Byers: composter I didn't find that that worked is good. You're supposed to put the little shovel in his. He had this little hole here.
Nicki Byers: It was just cumbersome. But for some people swear by them and they love it. So it's a very individual.
Nicki Byers: This is another nice do it yourselfer it's got lots of places so you can get the air in the water can come through on the top and I like this setup.
Nicki Byers: I'm not worried about the chicken wire on the bottom because that's where I get some of my best compost is what I dig out the very, very bottom of it that's truly the black gold is that stuff on the bottom.
Nicki Byers: And then this is a tumbler they call composter and now you can see this very closed system. So you're not going to get any water when it rains.
Nicki Byers: You're not even going to get any insects or little critters to come mix everything up for you. And this one.
Nicki Byers: Where eat like even this one the worms and the cockroaches and bugs. They can come up from underneath and get inside your compost and help mix it around for you.
Nicki Byers: What a system like this, I, I often recommend if you do have some decent soil at home and you find some earthworms and stuff, throw a couple of pots of those in there because it's kept at the right temperature because if it gets too hot.
Nicki Byers: Your earthworms, and you're good microbes will die. You will, they will procreate in there, you'll get more earthworms, you know, you only need one earthworm and you can get a lot more
Nicki Byers: So these are some options for outdoor been designs.
Taylor Clem: Nikki I wanted to ask is, we had a question come in that had to do with the different types of composters
Taylor Clem: Yes. And I want to ask, Do you have a preference for the different types of composters like the the drum versus why
Nicki Byers: I love the wire mesh. I'm a huge proponent of the most inexpensive model. As a matter of fact, you can get this one for free.
Nicki Byers: from Alaska County Public Works office and I really do think it works the best because
Nicki Byers: You can get all kinds of critters can get in there. Your earthworms your bugs. Your microbes, it, it gets the rain from the sky. I don't have to come with my hose ever and give it a little bit of water.
Nicki Byers: It really just does it all on its own in these wire bins. I love them. They're easy to work with. When it's time for me to
Nicki Byers: To get my compost. I just unhook the wires that I have in the front and I open it up and I've got a big space. I can shovel, all I want. And
Nicki Byers: I like the wire bins. Now that's the system. I'm going to show you today is how it's done. So you can call this number. So if you go to if you can take a screenshot I'd take a screenshot of
This
Nicki Byers: You can call this number, make sure they have, they usually always have them, but sometimes they don't.
Nicki Byers: Make sure they have these bins and go pick yourself up one of these wire bins and one of these nice little buckets and you can start your composting.
Nicki Byers: It's perfect. And that's how I really, that's when I became a master gardener. I think I, I picked this up.
Nicki Byers: One of these bins at a master gardener plant sale actually either that or cannot be a hawk, because I think we usually have these at the plant sale.
Nicki Byers: And I set it up and started composting. So I prefer the wire bins.
Nicki Byers: Okay, so here's the three been system. This is actually my system. And I know it's not glamorous, like I said, the other ones that set up are much better. I don't know how they don't get their tops to collapse.
Nicki Byers: Because I get must have raccoons and things climb into mine. I think is what happens. But this is my, this is exactly how it looked
Nicki Byers: Last Thursday when I went out and took these photographs. This is my active and working pile, which I took a close up here. So this is the one that has all my egg shells and my
Nicki Byers: Everything out of the kitchen, all those scraps other plant materials I throw from the yard. The second one here, as you can tell, here's my first one. No. Like I said, it's hard to see. Then there's the second one and this is what I'm harvesting right now. This is compost vintage
Nicki Byers: This is what I threw in this pile for an entire year, the year of 2018
Nicki Byers: I always start my composting. On January 1 that's just to keep things kind of easy. That's when I stopped one and start a new one and then this one here. The far one
Nicki Byers: To the left is my cooking pile and basically on January 1 I take leaves and pine needles and everything and I fill it to the tippy top which is to about right here. So, on January 1 this been was full to the top.
Nicki Byers: And in the past nine months. It has collapsed to this point. So it probably is ready, but I'm going to let it go till January, like I always do.
Nicki Byers: And so this is my cooking. This is my idol. So that's my three events system. So, so like I said, the first year, you only really need one bid. And then when your next year comes, you get your second Finn and you stop using this one and you start using your new one.
Nicki Byers: And then the third year you get your new one. You start collecting your, your one from the first year you stop using this one.
Nicki Byers: And you start collecting in the third been so that you're working, you know, active pile. So that's how that kind of works, and we'll go over that again. And so it's clear.
Nicki Byers: So there we go. The three wire composting bids is my active. This is the one I'm using. And this is the one that's cooking until next year. So this is 2018 2019 2020 let's see this conference. Looks like I'm curious.
Nicki Byers: Okay, so I have my outdoor been set up. I got my little collection been in the kitchen. So now what do I do, what do I put in to make some good black gold.
Nicki Byers: We start collecting your materials in here that we get coffee grounds are excellent egg shells are fabulous any kinds of leaves and these are in, you can use paper. And here's just some more kitchen scraps and stuff.
Nicki Byers: That nice little pot. I showed you that you get from electro county actually tells you right on the side, the things you can put in. So if you forget you can just remind yourself.
Nicki Byers: But definitely any kind of vegetable and fruit scrap this is all your nitrogen is your greens. This is the stuff that you know is this is really good, you need you need a good ratio of nitrogen to carbon your nitrogen is richer. So we do about 1123 ratio so
Nicki Byers: I'll talk more about that in a minute. But I never can get as much green, as I think I need with my kitchen scraps. I have tons of brown. I have leaves everywhere. So I never worried about that. But from the kitchen in my greens, I get all my scraps. My eggshells tea bags coffee grounds.
Nicki Byers: I'll talk about yard trimmings and grass trimmings, you can use fireplace ashes. If they're wood ash. If it's no charcoal ash can go in there has carcinogens. I'm even leery of those
Nicki Byers: Because I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to my compost.
Nicki Byers: Those little dwarf line logs and stuff because those are chemically treated and they have like wax and different things in them. So I usually don't use that if I would
Nicki Byers: Ashes only. And then, of course, any green garden plants or vegetables.
Nicki Byers: So when I clean out my vegetable garden at the end of the year and you get all the leftovers, all that stuff just gets tossed right in the compost pile anything green
Nicki Byers: Year some more things that these can go and these are greens and browns, actually. So this is a green any kind of a fruit and vegetable and a leg coffee that these are considered brown Jeezy your carbons is your paper and your straws pet hair and stuff.
Nicki Byers: These are some more greens that can go and I'd like to do a lot of flower arranging and stuff like that. So I always throw all my all my old
Nicki Byers: flower arranging stuff or my did bouquets and things. So right in the compost. I even love that slimy water that they end up with. I just take the whole base out there. Check the whole thing in my compost.
Nicki Byers: It looks like they you know they've taken this out of like a super something
Nicki Byers: And that's fine you strain that up and make sure there's no animal fat or bones or anything like that, as long as it's just your vegetables you can throw things like that away. I usually just recommend raw
Nicki Byers: If you do do anything cooked, make sure it doesn't have butters or oils or anything. And you don't want those in your compost.
Nicki Byers: They can inhibit your microbial growth and it can smell you just don't want things like that in there. You want your banana peels your tea bags or eggshells
Nicki Byers: And then grow grass clippings, um, ideally, yeah, you would love to say I want to put my grass clippings. And because they're a great green. However, you don't ever want to put anything in that has any kind of
Nicki Byers: Pesticides on it or have been treated and you don't want to put anything that's been infected or anything or or any weeds. Well, if you were to take any of the grass clippings off of my lawn. You would get weeds.
Nicki Byers: You would currently get some fungus.
Nicki Byers: You would probably get some solid web forms. I mean, my alarm is just abused right now. I mean you and I have to unfortunately have somebody come and treated for the side web orbs and the fungus.
Nicki Byers: And everything now. So my lawn is off limits to my compost pile only things that are you know you don't want to put like I said, if you've got any Doug, we'd already chamber bitter. That is the last thing you want in your compost pile.
Taylor Clem: We have one question come in, that I think would be good to answer right now. It has to do with
Taylor Clem: Like say seed pits like avocados peaches, you know, Cherry seeds etc are those things that you want to make sure that you exclude from your compost pile or can you include those
Nicki Byers: You can definitely include those in your compost pile and you'll be amazed because you'll say to yourself.
Nicki Byers: You know, we, you know, gazillions of peaches last year. Why don't I find any peach fits. You know, why don't I find any cherry pit.
Nicki Byers: This stuff, it breaks down. I'm always amazed. Now I do find avocado seats, I must admit I do. And as matter of fact I usually get an avocado tree or two growing in your compost. That is one that doesn't really break it out.
Nicki Byers: So yeah, you can definitely throw any pits in there that you want. And a lot of times those avocados as much as we want to be good.
Nicki Byers: You just rots right there on the counter and you pick it up and you're not going to
Nicki Byers: Open it up and take the seed out and I'm going to show you later. While we're processing our compost, how you can get bigger things like that out of your compost and not have them be a problem. So yes, I would definitely throw those kinds of things in my, in my little kitchen compost bin.
Nicki Byers: Okay, so our Browns are carbons that we need to put in our compost bin. So when I start a fresh batch of compost. I have an empty BEEN, IT'S JANUARY 1 I usually throw about two feet of
Nicki Byers: Leaves and I have a big Magnolia and I have oaks, like I said, so I just take a couple of really big buckets, I throw them on the bottom. I get about
Nicki Byers: About do 24 inches of leaves stacked up in there. And then I start my kitchen compost, which is pretty much, you know, I go out there with my little bucket.
Nicki Byers: I'd say at least three or four times a week.
Nicki Byers: And then so you just start piling it in and piling it in and then I usually don't throw any more leaves on maybe I'll put in another foot or so or another 10 inches so of leaves, maybe once a month or so.
Nicki Byers: And unless unless it's something happens like it's like I've put a lot of one thing it like
Nicki Byers: Watermelon rhymes and stuff like that certain things get kind of stinky. And then whenever you see things you smell a little right smell a little fermentation going on. Just take a big bucket of leaves and throw them on top or
Nicki Byers: A lot of people like to use shredded paper like a lot of people put shredded paper in a lot. And that, that's good.
Nicki Byers: I again being a purist I stay away from shredded paper I'm just weird. I just don't like ink. I don't know why I think, oh, they think because I use newspaper to like line.
Nicki Byers: For my mulching and I put it underneath to keep the weeds down so not sure why I'm skeptical about putting it in my my
Nicki Byers: Compost I think it's probably because I have so many leaves. I mean, I never at a loss per lead. So I'm always looking to throw some leaves and twigs and small branches. If you have oak trees in your yard. You know what I'm talking about.
Nicki Byers: 2000 small branches are like what my yard is made of. So these are just your Browns, you like I said, you want to for everyone.
Nicki Byers: Kind of bad to greens you want to put about three batches of browns or carbons in there with it.
Nicki Byers: Here's some more. So here, like these oak trees look at Beijing. Imagine the leaves, you're going to collect that for these when it's time to break and you can't leave them on the ground because they're just gonna
Nicki Byers: They're just going to break down there.
Nicki Byers: I like I have pretty decent soil because I have a tree that's about that big. And that's a that's about 100 year old tree.
Nicki Byers: I've only lived here 20 years so for 80 years these leaves fell and nobody ever raked him up. So it's, you know, they have composted and becomes pretty nice soil.
Nicki Byers: I must admit. Now, digging around the roots and everything is a whole different story. So here we get our paper if they say pet hair so I don't put that here in mind but
Nicki Byers: I suppose I might start doing it while I was researching. I found that people put pet hair and lint and they're very acceptable things to put in your compost. So I think for my 2021 batch. I may start putting in some pet hair in some went into my
Nicki Byers: compost pile and people put straw people put pine needles in leaves. It's interesting. I didn't talk about like cow manure or horse manure and when it talked about things to put in and you can
Nicki Byers: Use those in your compost, but not household compost or like the one we're talking about
Nicki Byers: You really don't have a lot of access to come into our own worst manure and I'm sure you don't want to really like take a bucket of common. And we're from a friend and put it in your compost, because that would be
Nicki Byers: It'd be a brutal transport, you know, that's not what really, you want to have in the back of your car truck or anything. And if you do use they they are so nitrogen rich these kinds of
Nicki Byers: You know,
Nicki Byers: Stuff. So you want to really get it mixed in with like, hey, but if you do have a horse or have some cows and you muck out their stalls and you have an area where you can have that by itself and mix it with hey
Nicki Byers: You have to turn it a lot. It's, it's, it's not a fun job for anybody because it really stinks and but you will make some beautiful soil and it will probably take about eight months, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to to process horse manure income and
Taylor Clem: Nikki I think that brings up a
Taylor Clem: Good point. We have, we actually have a few questions that just came in that did come in asking about using maneuver from like chickens, ducks cows, goats, etc. And, you know, there is nothing wrong with using their waste. You just have to be careful of what they're fed
Taylor Clem: If they eat forage that has been treated with herbicides, there could be herbicide residual within their manure, we had that situation happened where a lot of people read in the last recount a few years ago had compost that actually had herbicide residual within that compost.
Taylor Clem: And that was really bad situation. So you just have to be very aware of what you're using for maneuver in its source.
Taylor Clem: And you we don't recommend if this doesn't recommend that you just throw it right into your garden treat it and mix it in like, what, Nikki said with hey, some of the Browns allow it to be just part of the ingredients for your compost.
Taylor Clem: And then it also brings up regarding dog waste. Don't use dog waste because yeah no animal like a household pet like my cat that you popping in
Taylor Clem: Do not use their waste. We had a bunch of questions. And it's just a good point to bring that up. Sorry to jump in, Nikki.
Nicki Byers: Know I anytime I appreciate that and hear things you can't compost exactly what we said here animal waste. We don't want any kitty litter kitty stuff in there.
Nicki Byers: You don't want any dairy products don't want any animal bones any oils, nothing like that, no eggs, no pesticides, like he said this is the this is called like I said no call
Nicki Byers: We know we don't want to throw your weeds in just because you know they may not. We may not cook away all those seeds. And the last thing you want to do is
Nicki Byers: Here. Now I'm taking this nice complex they made them talk dressing a plant with it. Now, all these weeds that coming up in there. The weeds that I threw in a compost bin. So I definitely keep my weeds out of the compost bin as much
Nicki Byers: as I possibly can because I've got some weeds that grow back that way that I just have to pull out like skunk mine and stuff loves to wrap around my wire bins.
Nicki Byers: So, and, you know, you have to be careful because you think, oh, here I made this potato salad. It has potatoes celery onions in it right you know all those are all vegetables, but no.
Nicki Byers: You put some mail in it, which is made from eggs and oil in that kind of stuff. Is it just is not conducive to a good batch of
Nicki Byers: Compost, it can it it's clumpy it's sticky. It's gonna, it's going to make it's not it's going to suffocate your microbes, it's going to, it's going to hurt the stuff that you've worked so hard to make nice
Nicki Byers: If you accidentally throw a little thing of data salad in there. It's going to kill it, it's going to ruin that whole batch. You know, it's going to be
Nicki Byers: Fine. Just mix it around and don't make a habit of throwing any processed food in your compost and you say, well, oh, pastas made from wheat and no no pasta in your thing.
Nicki Byers: You know, bread, no nothing like that goes in your compost. If you want it in its purest form. You know you want just your raw plant material in your
Nicki Byers: In your compost. Nothing processed. It's important to remember. So here we go again things just to remind yourself not to compost, you know, any
Nicki Byers: Any poultry dairy fats, oils decrease your coal or coal ash your disease or infested plant material.
Nicki Byers: I was out you know as lot of little the eldest rain has brought in some bugs. I gotta say, I've seen some white flying on things and
Nicki Byers: Things that I would normally just cut back and throw in my compost. They've had a few little bugs and things on them. So I just throw them to the curb. Now I'm not going to throw that back there and my compost.
Nicki Byers: In that we said no pet waste your trainings that are treated with pesticides or any invasive plants, especially because
Nicki Byers: A lot of good things grow in your compost, but you don't want it to be invasive plants, that's for sure. I get a lot of good plants out of my compost type salvage
Nicki Byers: Some beautiful begonias and some beautiful all kinds of stuff on there, actually.
Nicki Byers: Alright, so we have got our container. Can we started we have our been. Now we're going to make our compost and like I said, it takes about two years to get your first batch of compost.
Nicki Byers: You've got to collect it for a year and then you have to let it cook for a year. So if you start tomorrow, you know, in 2022 you should have your first batch of compost now.
Nicki Byers: Like I said, I give it an entire year to cook with. And I'm pretty busy. I don't have time to always be managing my compost, but you could probably do it quicker.
Nicki Byers: If, if you worked at more I turn mine. Very rarely. I kind of really just leave it to itself, but you basically just layer your green and brown elements in your outside, Ben. Just, just keep collecting it, month after month
Nicki Byers: You do it with your ratio of your nitrogen, carbon and you turn it is needed.
Nicki Byers: You want an ideal temperature of 122 to 131 because at that temperature, you can kill off weed seeds and things like that. But you're not killing off your
Nicki Byers: invertebrates and your micro organisms that you need to keep that all everything moving interning. And then you want to keep it moist. So if you have it in a closed system like one of those tumblers or one of those earth machines you do occasionally have to like
Nicki Byers: You know water it throw some in you'll see how dry it would get
Nicki Byers: Throw your hose in there and give it a good water if you water it, give it a good turn with your
Nicki Byers: Pitchfork or your shovel, but I really don't have to do any of that to my compost. I really just let it cook on itself. I turn it very rarely
Nicki Byers: See on. Here we go. So here's a nice system. These guys have a bunch of compost bins. So they're like I said you could start once every six months. If you have room. So then you could if you had enough material see
Nicki Byers: There's only two people that live in my home. So when it comes to kitchen scraps and things like that. I'm kind of limited. I mean, I drink coffee every day so I eggs. Almost every day I there's certain things that I know go into my compost very frequently, but
Nicki Byers: You know, no matter what. I just can't make enough compost with those kinds of things that I have. And even with everything that I cut out of my yard and everything. I just, I don't have
Nicki Byers: enough stuff to make compost every three to six months, but if you wanted to stagger and do that. You could make. And you had the amount
Nicki Byers: Of stuff you need it. You could make more. So here's this lady, she's turning her compost, she's you know she had a five gallon bucket there. So I just loaded in there and and
Nicki Byers: And then here's the one of those nights tumblers. The nice thing about tumblers are they are nice and clean. They're clean clothes systems.
Nicki Byers: But they do need a little
Nicki Byers: You know, you need to water it and possibly need to what I call like seed it with maybe some earthworms and stuff to make sure that you're getting some invertebrates and some bugs and stuff in there.
Nicki Byers: Okay so troubleshooting. Okay, so hey I'm collecting my stuff. I've had my compost pile up for six months now.
Nicki Byers: It's doing good. I've been putting my leaves in I've been putting all my stuff in, but I'm not sure it's working, you know. What's it supposed to look like. What's it supposed to do.
Nicki Byers: I go back there and it smells bad. But when that shouldn't happen, it should never smell bad my compost never smells bad. As a matter of fact, I never even see like any maggots or flies in my compost. It's very clean.
Taylor Clem: Hey, Nikki It's nice.
Taylor Clem: We had a question that just popped up. I think it'd be good for clarification, could you give us a little bit more information on that ratio 321 What's three. And what's the one
Nicki Byers: Okay, so your nitrogen is your one because you don't want too much nitrogen. You want more carbon
Nicki Byers: And okay so your, your green materials like and when I, when I think of your, your nitrogen rich there.
Nicki Byers: They haven't broken down and as they break down they release more nitrogen and like the common over that is full of nitrogen that's really rich. That's why you
Nicki Byers: But all your kitchen scraps and stuff as a breakdown. They're going to be more nitrogen rich than, say, your oak leaves that might even take like even when I sit. Now, not all my leads are broken down, they take their slower to break down and stuff. So you need
Nicki Byers: Your, your nitrogen, your greens are more concentrated. So if I put, I'd say.
Nicki Byers: I take about a 10 inches of my greens my kitchen scraps. Like I said, about a month going then I want to put you know that I want to put like 30 inches. So for every 10 inches. You know, you go 10 2030 inches of your, of your Browns, is that help that make it more clear.
Nicki Byers: You think, okay, yeah. So you just you. That's your, your that you don't do that does not have to be, you know, especially at a household level, you know that.
Nicki Byers: It's not set in stone, even a 5050 but like I said, usually have a lot more leads and stuff to throw in there. You just want to have more of your carbons than you do have your nitrogen.
Nicki Byers: You know, anything that's to nitrogen rich can actually burn your plants and in not be as valuable. So, and we're going to learn about that when we comes to using your compost.
Nicki Byers: Okay, so
Nicki Byers: Like our troubleshooting. If you do smell any strange or odors. You know, it could be because you're putting things in there that shouldn't be in there like any kind of a meeting you know you don't want any meats are weak bones.
Nicki Byers: Or oils in your pile if you smell like a rotten egg smell. Sometimes if that means you don't have enough oxygen in your, you can. It's now become an anaerobic instead of aerobics
Nicki Byers: And what I would recommend is if you smell something like that throw a bunch of brown and give it a good toss. Give it a good turn and it should. It should fix itself.
Nicki Byers: Same thing with it becomes too high in nitrogen, it can smell bad. You smell that nitrogen just mix it always seems to be to mix some more brown seems to help put more leaves in
Nicki Byers: What I I never noticed any smells like eggs or ammonia, but I do smell fermentation, especially when my pile looks like this with like watermelon and lots of fruit.
Nicki Byers: I can walk up and whoo. You really smell like there's somebody making moonshine back here something. And that's always time if my compost pile look like this.
Nicki Byers: I would definitely take a big batch of leaves and throw it on top. And I kind of keep that helps keep the critters from coming around to because
Nicki Byers: That's the kind of stuff that like a recommends love to come and grab a piece and run away with
Nicki Byers: And so if I put stuff that like this that's really wishing and stuff I'll usually like to throw some leaves on just to camouflage it from some of the other pests.
Nicki Byers: But I really don't have problems much with that at all. Like I said, I don't do much to mind just by keeping it
Nicki Byers: With really pure ingredients and then people have a hard time because their new piles don't heat up. It takes a long time.
Nicki Byers: Like I said, six months and my piles, you know, they're filled like there'll be this tall and then I come back out and they just, they just compressing on themselves. They just keep decomposing all that stuff. Just, just in a month.
Nicki Byers: Just it just always looks like it's just this little title pile of compost. I'm like, I've been putting stuff in there forever. You should go back to my
Nicki Byers: Slides use it looks like all of mine are about the same. And I've been, like I said, throwing in my one that's cooking.
Nicki Byers: At times it has been filled to the top. This year, and it's already now decompose down to a lower. So you just have to be patient. You know, it says if you have less than a cubic yard of material.
Nicki Byers: It may not heat up. So just keep throwing stuff in there. And that's the key. Be patient. Patient patient patient
Nicki Byers: Alright, so, hey, a year has gone by, we've thrown all of our stuff in there. We have a big batch of compost. We stopped using it. We let another year ago by to now it's been two years since we started this pile.
Nicki Byers: It's time. It's time to get this beautiful compost that we've been working so hard for. And so we need some things to harvest our compost. It's really nice to have a sifting screen, you need something to put it in a nice receptacle.
Nicki Byers: Which you can see my Rubbermaid underneath here. And that's, I only use that if I'm doing small batches this Rubbermaid actually holds about 40 pounds. But if I'm doing a lot. I'll do it right into my wheelbarrow.
Nicki Byers: Then I own and I depending on I harvest as need, so I don't harvest it all for the entire year all at one time and then keep it and store it.
Nicki Byers: I only harvest what I need and I let the rest of it sit there and keep cooking for the year for whenever it's done. But I make sure that that pile is empty.
Nicki Byers: Usually by December 1 so I can start on January 1 throwing my stuff into it again for the next year.
Nicki Byers: So when you do harvest. Make sure that if you don't use it all in that day, put it in nice cool dry place.
Nicki Byers: Here we go. I keep it in my shed. So this is my bin and then this is my nice sifting screen which I just love, I have to admit, and then all you need is like a pitchfork and a shovel. You really don't need much.
Nicki Byers: You know, to acquire this beautiful stuff. So most people have a pitchfork and shovel in a bin. You can find these beautiful sifting screens online. You can buy them. You can purchase them. There's lots of
Nicki Byers: Websites that show you how to do it yourself and make your own.
Nicki Byers: It has like a little one inch squares. So, you know, the good stuff falls through the bad stuff stays on my side.
Nicki Byers: And that's, that's what you need. So here it is. This is what you do.
Nicki Byers: You get your screen, you put it over your bin or over your wheelbarrow. This is my working. This is my pile that we're harvesting from this is my vintage I just did this on last Thursday I took this out.
Nicki Byers: Of this is
Nicki Byers: The fourth time I've taken compost added this pile. This year, you know, I was lucky enough to have a great abundance of excellent soil this year.
Nicki Byers: So I really haven't had to use a lot of my compost. So I'm really excited because I'm going to have a lot more for my small little veggie garden this year. I usually by this time of year my compost is pretty wiped out.
Nicki Byers: Like I get a bunch. This year, and I'm definitely going to save a bunch to put in my vegetable garden and I love to talk dress things with it.
Nicki Byers: This time of year especially, you know, intellectual County, we shouldn't be using any nitrogen rich fertilizers and
Nicki Byers: To it, but this time of year also is, you know, we've got another two months of growing. We've got a lot of things that are just starting to bloom.
Nicki Byers: Are nice fall plants. We're going to get a fall, spring when these days cool off a little things are going to want to bloom. They're going to want food, they're going to need good stuff. And this is a great time to use
Nicki Byers: Compost because they truly as a substitute for synthetic fertilizers. It's better than synthetic third what it's synthetic fertilizers.
Nicki Byers: It's got nitrogen, carbon, we've got just wonderful things in it. Then I highly recommend you know saving some compost for this time of year because this is
Nicki Byers: This is the time you can really benefit from using it. So I take a couple of shovel falls I throw it in my screen and then you just go now with my I just use it and I just kind of rub it through shake it a little
Nicki Byers: I, you know, I'm very gentle with it. It's actually a very nice process. I find it very relaxing when I when I'm processing my compost.
Nicki Byers: It's always fun to see what's in there, what's left over when I first started composting. I've never used to crush up my eggshells, and I used to find a lot of eight shells in my compost. Since then, I really started crushing my shells, I
Nicki Byers: Ever find a shells anymore. And like I said, I'm always curious like what happened all those corn cobs I threw in there. I mean, I, I knew there should be kinds of these, they just compost down to nothing.
Nicki Byers: And this is very nice. So I've done shaking it out. And so I find some roots of things that have grown in their looks like some looks like some
Nicki Byers: chips from like pine bark, which I'm sure I threw in there when I was raking leaves and all kinds of stuff like that. So that's basically what's left over, and
Nicki Byers: If it's stuff that I think is still organic and is good. I sometimes will throw it back into my pile that I'm cooking. That's that I'm using right now that I'm throwing things in my active pile. But if it's stuff like this. It just kind of toss it into the back 40
Nicki Byers: And
Nicki Byers: And then, lo and behold, there we have a nice
Nicki Byers: Nice batches soil. Look, I had earthworms in this one, and it was nice compact soil.
Nicki Byers: When I squeezed it's held together. Look at these particles. I mean, this is this is a good year. I gotta say 2018 was a good year for compost. I've been very pleased with my results.
Nicki Byers: And so it took me about, let's say 20 minutes to to get 40 pounds of compost. I went out there. I did about five screen fools, I think, and I filled up this been with 40 pounds and
Nicki Byers: It's already gone and I'm so glad I did it last Thursday, because
Nicki Byers: I wouldn't want to be sitting on my compost today because of after all these rains and how wet, it's been it's it's heavy. And it's hard to work with. So I would wait
Nicki Byers: For a dryer day if we've had some extensive rains and stuff I maybe wait a day or two to dry it out and to harvest it because it's heavy. And it's hard work. I gotta say, you know, it can be backbreaking. That's why I never usually do more than that have been at a time.
Nicki Byers: And if I do, I do it in my wheel barrel that's better working height than this little shorty thing.
Nicki Byers: So there you go, 40 pounds of compost pretty nice. Okay.
Nicki Byers: So why did we use compost in the garden. Let me look here and I lost my notes. I have to get better organized here for a second. Oh.
Nicki Byers: It's a great additive in an amendment to our soil. I gotta say that is probably the number one reason it's
Nicki Byers: It just, it's like a probiotic for our crummy soil that we have here in Florida. I can literally say in my yard alone, there are sections that is just so full of clay that you can't even get a shovel in it.
Nicki Byers: And then there's other sections that is so much sand and you couldn't get water to stay. It drains out so fast, so you know in a in a very small lot of land. I don't think I have a third of an acre.
Nicki Byers: You know, you can have run the gamut on our to our Florida soil. So there's it is such a great additive and Amanda of your soil. So you'd benefit.
Nicki Byers: It improves the structure and the overall you know just health of your soil, like I said, it's like a probiotic. It's taken all these good things in we're mixing it into this soil that's maybe not as good. But now this stuff's going to take these
Nicki Byers: macro and micro organisms, and it's going to, you know, spread into that nice soil. So now the soil that you've added your compost to it's going to be improved soil, it's going to be better soil, it's gonna, it's, it's going to be able to let your plants absorb the nutrients they need better
Nicki Byers: It helps retain moisture in soil that's dry it increases, like I said, the earthworm activity and it increases the good microbial populations. So
Nicki Byers: We like I said here in Florida. We have terrible poor soil and that such a great additive for that, you know, our soil.
Nicki Byers: With it's heavy, and clay and as poor drainage. If it's Sandy. It doesn't it over drains, it's too dry, you know, just let us know water stay and therefore no nutrients. Stick around.
Nicki Byers: You can have acidic or alkaline, you can have places where the roots compacted and then just bad bacteria accounts like this poor little
Nicki Byers: Poor little garden plot looks like it's been over planted so many times that you know only the weeds are growing. Now it looks pretty sad. It looks like it needs.
Nicki Byers: An infusion of some good compost and you could, I mean I wouldn't say hey dig this whole thing out. I would say pull a lot of those we eat, pull, most of them and add a good amount of compost it to improve it.
Nicki Byers: And here in this poor little vegetable garden to looks pretty bad.
Nicki Byers: Let's see. Okay. Oh, I get what I'm missing my one little
Nicki Byers: I was going to cheat with and tell you guys about
Nicki Byers: See here.
Nicki Byers: Hold on. Be patient with me.
Nicki Byers: Oh, here it is, this is, this is it okay if your, your benefits of composting.
Nicki Byers: And, you know, it adds, like I said, the micro and macro nutrients that are often absent from synthetic fertilizers, it adds carbon sulfur magnesium, iron iodine.
Nicki Byers: Calcium boron copper and zinc. And what's nice about compost is that it releases its nutrients slowly.
Nicki Byers: It can take months or years to release it, unlike your synthetic fertilizers that like you use the blue food. It's like a quick hit you know that's going to
Nicki Byers: It's going to keep everybody happy for a couple of weeks, you know, in green him up. Whereas if you use a compost material, it's, it's going to
Nicki Byers: Be much slower release.
Nicki Byers: It has it enriches the soil, it retains fertilizer better. So if you use a little fertilizer after you get this beautiful composted soil, it will help the fertilizer absorb and be better managed by the plant.
Nicki Byers: And it also it
Nicki Byers: Buffers the soil it neutralizes acid and alkaline soils.
Nicki Byers: Bringing the pH levels up to optimum range is because if plants pH is or off, they don't absorb their nutrients properly certain plants need certain pH is for it to be able to absorb and the compost helps regulate that.
Nicki Byers: Lets it be, like I said, it helps sandy soil, you know, retain water and nutrients.
Nicki Byers: It helps a hard packed soil loosen the bound particles in the
Nicki Byers: Air and so that the routes can spread and the water and it can drain and in the air can penetrate that hard tough soils, it alters the soil structure.
Nicki Byers: It makes it less likely to erode and prevent soil from splattering on plants in spreading disease. So that's the beautiful thing about compost.
Nicki Byers: It can hold nutrients tight enough to prevent them from washing out, but it also holds it loose enough so that the plants can take up the nutrients as they're needed.
Nicki Byers: It does. It makes it makes soil basically easier to work with to it makes you have a lighter lonely or nice soil, not that hard. Heavy packed soil.
Nicki Byers: You compost brains and feeds a diverse life into your soil, things like bacteria, fungi, insects and warms there, they can you know really help support your plants for healthy growth.
Nicki Byers: Compost brings and feeds that diverse life into your soil.
Nicki Byers: The compost, the bacteria and it breaks down the organics into it so that the plant is it's more readily available for the plan. Like I said, it can absorb its nutrients. Some bacteria convert nitrogen from the air into nitrogen that's more available to the plant.
Nicki Byers: Compost in rich soils have a lot of beneficial insects, like I said, worms other organisms that burrow through the soil and it keeps it well, Eric. Good.
Nicki Byers: Compost can also suppress many diseases and harmful pests can overrun your poor and your lifeless kind of soil.
Nicki Byers: healthy soil is an important factor in protecting our waterways compost increases the soils ability to retain water and decrease run off you know runoff is pollutes our waterways and you know it gets into our before and
Nicki Byers: When we use fertilizers and pesticides and everything, you know, we definitely want to decrease any kind of run off to keep that stuff out of our
Nicki Byers: Our water so important. So like I said you know the reasons, it improves the soil is it encourages these healthy root systems and it
Nicki Byers: Eliminates the overuse of synthetic fertilizers and it can reduce the use of chemical pesticides and things like that, it really so many things about compost just make it a must have for the organic gardener.
Nicki Byers: Oh, this is a great movie. I want to give a little plug to. So this is going to be on Netflix on Nova on sep tember 22nd.
Nicki Byers: This month, and it's all about how we need to take better care of our soil and how composting, he's going to do that and how taking our ways that have these, you know, these huge landfills and places in
Nicki Byers: Into our earth. And hopefully, the solution is right under our feet as the trailer photo shows. So I hope everybody can tune in and check that out. I know I'm excited about seeing it.
Nicki Byers: alternate ways to compost. Okay, so this seems very overwhelming to some people. You know how
Nicki Byers: You know, I have to get a bin. I have to have a spot in my backyard. I have to possibly turn it, you know, all these kinds of things. Well, I would like to compost and
Nicki Byers: I don't know how to start. Well, if you if you don't want to make your own compost, but you really feel passionate about recycling all your kitchen waste into your medium, large,
Nicki Byers: Cook all the time and stuff. Now these jet people at the beaten path garden, they will take your compost for you.
Nicki Byers: And you can give it to them for free. Isn't that nice of them to take your free garbage.
Nicki Byers: Well, electronic county charges to take it away off the curve. So
Nicki Byers: Recorded in your big, can you know you are paying to have it taken away. So these gentlemen have a couple of spots. If you have a screensaver. And you're interested in that.
Nicki Byers: I would take a screen shot I would get their number in their addresses of where you can jump off your stuff.
Nicki Byers: And and they actually if you get in touch with them. You can get a bucket from them and it's $20 a season and
Nicki Byers: They will come. You can either dump it yourself, or they will come and pick it up for you. And then as the season moves along. This is a picture of them you can follow them on Instagram. This was just from last week. That's what their compost pile looks like. Isn't that awesome
Nicki Byers: Look at the steam coming off. I mean that some good stuff. And then they will sell compost to homeowners and stuff. So if you need some compost. You can get in touch with these guys at the beaten path and Bill set you up. They'll take your, your garbage and they'll make it into gold for
Nicki Byers: They sell it back to you. I'm not sure. So you'll have to look you'll have to get in touch with them yourself and see what they say another
Nicki Byers: Organization here in Gainesville, and electric county that also takes away your kitchen scraps for free. Is the student compost cooperative and they're always open so you can go and gay and go drop this stuff off it's over by the energy and research park.
Nicki Byers: Right on, on campus. So yeah, they have little they have like those
Nicki Byers: tumblers they have a bunch of tumblers you'll see them out there and you can just go and throw your stuff and they all they ask is that you turn it after you throw your stuff in. So they make sure you crank it up.
Nicki Byers: And getting close it up and and there's more information about their they have a great website to I would recommend checking it out. They it
Nicki Byers: Okay, if you are going to share compost. If you're going to give it to somebody else. Yeah, there really is an etiquette, you want to really make sure that you only share the purest of materials.
Nicki Byers: Like Taylor said we inadvertently sometimes don't realize what's in compost if things had been treated with fertilizers or pesticides and stuff. So if you are
Nicki Byers: Sharing, make sure that it's it's good and pure and you know where its origins are and it's good.
Nicki Byers: I would share it frequently, I wouldn't like save a bunch of kitchen scraps for two months and then go give them to somebody, because I'm going to tell you they're going to smell to high heaven. They're going to be already composting.
Nicki Byers: Into this sludge into some five gallon bucket somewhere, without any carbons added to it. No leaves or anything. So it's not pleasant, it will it will smell it will not be bag.
Nicki Byers: Don't use plastic bags like to say, oh, well, you know, put in a plastic bag and then because it's immediately starting to break down and it's just dirty and nasty.
Nicki Byers: If you do want to, I think, a great option is to freeze your compost and I use. I do freeze my condo sometimes if I'm not
Nicki Byers: Able to know if I'm not gonna be able to run out to my
Nicki Byers: My been maybe and I use a Tupperware like this and I just feel that puppy up
Nicki Byers: Throw them in the freezer. And then when time comes to throw it out there. It's great because it's already kind of broken down to when you throw it in the compost or because now it's been frozen.
Nicki Byers: So that's a good way, if you're going to like, bring it to somebody to like if you are sharing your compost better to bring a big chunk of frozen compost than a slimy bucket full
Taylor Clem: Make is that primarily with the greens.
Nicki Byers: That you're putting into your body that is primarily with the greens. Yes.
Nicki Byers: Thank you for clarifying.
Nicki Byers: That. So, um, that's pretty much it. That's, that's how you compost.
Nicki Byers: And
Nicki Byers: As we see in my last slide, you know, in reality, you know, the plants are actually farming us you know by giving us the oxygen daily and then till eventually we
Nicki Byers: can consume us. And like I said,
Nicki Byers: We, the Earth has been composting since day one. And that's what they've been doing. And we'd have been back going back to the earth.
Nicki Byers: I really hope everybody enjoyed my talk today. I hope you learned about composting, I would. I'll be here to answer any more questions, if I can, or tail and I can help answer your questions.
Nicki Byers: But
I
Taylor Clem: Had sorry Nikki.
Nicki Byers: No, go ahead. That's it. I'm done.
Taylor Clem: I was just gonna say, I just put a link inside the chat box.
Taylor Clem: That's to a call tricks survey and we do that as kind of like a follow up with all of our programs to help improve each one of them to see how well we did. So feel free. Please fill that out and I'll include that I'll include that link as well as a link to the
Taylor Clem: The presentation as and copies of the slides and some other ETA's publications from the university that are all associated with compost and that that follow up. We are going to make sure that we get that content kind of
Taylor Clem: Curated specifically to help cover more in depth details as well as cover the information that Nikki presented you all today.
Taylor Clem: But I think right now would be an appropriate time, you know. Thank you very much. Nikki and, you know, we can open up the floor for any questions we and we do have some that we do have kind of saved in here that I think it could be worth talking about.
Taylor Clem: Okay, so the first one, Nikki, we got a couple questions in the chat box, but also as well as like in the Q AMP a box that had to do with moisture and water.
Taylor Clem: As well as that, turning frequency is, do you have a recommendation on like, how often do you need to water or vert and how often do you need to turn or is it based off of like the condition of the compost, what
Nicki Byers: We do a vision.
Nicki Byers: It is more based on the condition of your compost, if you've noticed that your compost is very dry, and it looks it's, you know, getting dusty on top. You, you definitely it needs water.
Nicki Byers: If it's a closed system like one of those earth machines or a tumbler, you're definitely going to have to throw water in there more occasionally if it's an open system with the wires that now just got rained on for the last four days I
Nicki Byers: In my open system. I never have to water between the Florida humidity and our frequent rains.
Nicki Byers: I don't have any problems with my compost ever drying out or not processing or not breaking down and because of lack of water.
Nicki Byers: But definitely in a closed system. If you take that lid off and you look and you say, oh, everything looks crunchy, you know, the leaves are actually dry, you want it to be wet you want it to look moist, if you do go reach in and touch it. You want it to stick together.
And be very
Colin Burrows: Noisy
Colin Burrows: Nikki That was a great job. But one thing. There was a question that came up about Magnolia leaves and other leaves.
Colin Burrows: Yeah, they'll, they'll break down with time. But if you have a lawn mower that you can blow the things and chop them up with a lot of other things with all my Beanstalk so I I chopped up as well as ah clippings and toss it into the compost.
Colin Burrows: Because that's a lot faster.
Yes.
Nicki Byers: I agree with that. You can definitely
Nicki Byers: Usual mower, and chop up especially like Magnolia leaves, but sometimes I like stuff to be a little chunkier but that's just me and it's very personal compost. It truly is. This is you, what you put in it.
Nicki Byers: So, you know, especially after you doing it for about 10 years that Oh gosh. These Magnolia leaves don't break down or this doesn't like I said with the eggshells at first, like
Nicki Byers: Now,
Colin Burrows: Because the
Colin Burrows: Earth is found them.
Nicki Byers: Well, they will find that you see.
Colin Burrows: With
Colin Burrows: Half a half an avocado shell.
Colin Burrows: For us.
Taylor Clem: We did have another question that came in and i think it's it's a good thing to point out, because we're talking about the different like some of the precursor individuals that have done a lot of work with composting. Someone mentioned George Washington Carver.
Nicki Byers: Oh yeah, and
Nicki Byers: You did I actually had a quote from him and I couldn't find it.
Taylor Clem: When it was done for telling
Taylor Clem: People, I was thinking of them as just peanut butter. But you know when you think
Taylor Clem: When you actually look at him sustainable agriculture.
Nicki Byers: He. Yes, he was a huge proponent and when I was doing my research, I saw George Washington Carver, and I think I even mentioned him on the slide. So yeah, Jay WC he knew
Taylor Clem: What was going on.
Taylor Clem: Actually, there's a
Taylor Clem: Mean, see if I can find it. I was actually reading a really cool article recently about George Washington Carver and sustainable agriculture.
Nicki Byers: I really I've always
Nicki Byers: I've been a huge fan of George Washington Carver, he, he did so much for agriculture and in an organic farming, you know,
Taylor Clem: So I put I just put that link that I was referring to. I saw it sort of a few years ago, five years ago, but it was something I discovered recently.
Taylor Clem: But great, great point to bring up
Taylor Clem: Let's see.
Taylor Clem: Let's talk a little bit about
Taylor Clem: Like, what can go in and out, or what should not go in a lot of questions came up with eggs, and I know that you all kind of talked about it.
Taylor Clem: Critters love the eggs. So what I've done before in the past is I actually just rinsed the eggs in my sink before I incorporated them in because they're not necessarily attracted to the shell. They're attracted to the any remnants of the insides of the egg.
Taylor Clem: And I can't think of the technical team.
Nicki Byers: Term besides new
Taylor Clem: York
Taylor Clem: But, um, so they that's what they're attracted to. So
Taylor Clem: You can rent them out and that can help reduce it and you can pre crush them up that can help reduce that attraction that you get from pesto eggshells can be great with, you know, as a calcium source for your compost.
Nicki Byers: Absolutely. I mean, it's funny when I cracked my eggs. I usually have like a paper towel on the
Nicki Byers: On my counter. So I'll crack up, put them all on the paper towel and then I kind of fold it over and crush them all up. So, it absorbs that extra like albumin that comes out of them.
Nicki Byers: And I just throw the whole paper towel and the correct a little squished up eggshells right in my little pie in under the sink. So I noticed that, that helps.
Taylor Clem: And I actually do have one final poll that we want to send to everybody, and we'll finish. Finish going through
Taylor Clem: Off some of the questions that we do have, but after today's program, tell us how enthusiastic, you are, what's the likelihood that you are going to compost or they're going to start compost or that you already compost, at least, or if you just after today. I'm not going to do it anymore.
Nicki Byers: To do it yeah so
Taylor Clem: We'll see, we'll just keep this I'll keep this up and running for a second. We did have one question while this is running it came to do with like Lent. I know there's, like, people will include whatever they can think of in compost.
Taylor Clem: You know with dryer land or maybe some of the stuff that you collect within your vacuum. Could that be appropriate.
Nicki Byers: I believe it can be now vacuum stuff. I'm not as sure because
Nicki Byers: I mean I vacuum.
Nicki Byers: Housekeeping is my favorite thing, my thing is, um, so I think I would put any of my vacuum cleaner live or anything in
Nicki Byers: The my compost, but I just recently as I was getting ready for this talk.
Nicki Byers: Saw that a lot of people use dryer lint and then I asked a bunch of my Master Gardener friends. I'm like, do you ever heard about putting links in your competition, like, oh yeah, you would all the time.
Nicki Byers: So, um, because I am such a crazy purist when it comes to my compost. I am not going to start incorporating my blend until 2021 because I do like to see
Nicki Byers: What kinds of things like my compost is better or different because I did put this in a didn't. And we'll see maybe that'll be a new edition for me because I do do a lot of laundry, I must admit.
Nicki Byers: So yeah, I think lint is fine. I'm not sure about the vacuum cleaner stuff.
Taylor Clem: I don't know if I would use the vacuum cleaner because you've
Colin Burrows: never been seen before. So I don't think that would be a very good
Nicki Byers: It's so personal. It really is. And you know I know they say that the lint is because it's, you know, cotton fibers and things
Nicki Byers: But then I also think, well, if you have a polyester, would you be getting polyester fibers and things. I mean I you know i'm i'm still I still i like i said i haven't started putting the LinkedIn yet. So I don't know.
Nicki Byers: I think that should be. We actually have, um,
Taylor Clem: Let's keep let's keep moving because we do have a lot of other questions that I want to make sure that we can get to, um, so
Taylor Clem: One of them is weeds do like Biden's alba, you know, that's all stuff that we do not want to include
Nicki Byers: It'll grow in there unless you want buying the album all over the place.
Nicki Byers: Because that's one of those guys that just
Taylor Clem: Yeah, same with anything that has disease. You do not want to put that within your compost, because some fungal diseases can sit within soil for a very long time. And if you're not careful, you'll spread to all the plants that comes in contact with
Nicki Byers: And what about like viruses to
Taylor Clem: Same with some viruses. Yeah, so anything
Colin Burrows: Like six days or six squash mode on the don't put that in there. Put that in the compost.
Colin Burrows: Angry
Taylor Clem: Yeah so. So here's a good question. So it has to do with compost tea. So you can make compost tea.
Taylor Clem: But the research is on the fence on if it's been how beneficial it is or not.
Taylor Clem: Because it's you. We are seeing benefits as a follow your application like you just spray it on, but it's it's very mobile. So you'll lose majority of it.
Taylor Clem: But we are seeing some really other cool cool benefits of compost tea. So there's been some really neat. Research has come out.
Taylor Clem: And we're doing some more studies on it, but it actually seems that oak leafs compost tea has been seen as a cure for citrus greening or a way to help slow the spread of citrus greening
Taylor Clem: So they're doing a lot in some UFO researchers are doing some stuff on that right now. So we don't know enough about it.
Taylor Clem: Because saying we're seeing some really cool effects of using live oaks, because we're noticing that citrus trees around oak trees.
Taylor Clem: Well, very, very, very low infection rate with citrus greening so
Nicki Byers: Very interesting, because I am surrounded by live oaks.
Nicki Byers: Yeah. And I always say
Nicki Byers: You know my citrus is okay.
Taylor Clem: Yeah, so they found so they saw that and said, Hmm, so they make compost tea out of leaves and and they saw that that helped out significantly, but they don't know exactly why yet so they're still doing a lot of questions and research striping that one out. So
Taylor Clem: Let's talk about pests compost insects. So like you got worms maggots flies the
Taylor Clem: Yeah, how do you manage the bad dudes that end up that you don't want in your compost.
Nicki Byers: You know, I've never seen any bad, like I said, I don't see maggots and I have never seen maggots in my compost.
Nicki Byers: And I don't know why that is. I mean, I'm more likely to see maggots in my trash that goes to the curb that now has had stinking meat in it or bones and things like that. I see the flies coming to those stinky odors and then the maggots securing I do see some fruit flies over my
Nicki Byers: Compost but I can say I've never when I am compote when I am harvesting. You see there's, there are no cockroaches. There are no. The only thing I have is earthworms. And so I'm not sure what practice I specifically do
Nicki Byers: Reduces that
Taylor Clem: Make one of the big things is like when we're seeing a lot of like maggots or bad insects that we, a lot of its associated with food scraps that we're including that we should not include
Taylor Clem: Or, you know, sometimes you will get flies and because of if you're using a lot of manure. So you might have to reduce the amount of maneuver that you might have within your compost.
Taylor Clem: So it really comes down to what you're put it ultimately comes down to what you're putting in, if it would attract
Taylor Clem: Those pests outside the compost while it's breaking down it'll attract that with inside the compost. So if you can reduce the amount that you're using, and then
Taylor Clem: So like if you're reducing amount of food waste were some other greens that you can include to help offset that loss because it's not necessarily using food scraps. But it's that you're using those greens to help maintain that ratio.
Nicki Byers: Yes, and you put your yeah your other your career. We oak leaves in and stuff like that.
Taylor Clem: Absolutely, absolutely. Um, so let's again they keep coming in. So let's just go to this. Um, so if you have roaches in your compost. What do you do
Nicki Byers: I don't do anything.
Nicki Byers: They are good for your car they they're actually working your compost. They're in there. They're, they're turning your soil for you. They're doing the work. So just leave the cockroaches in your soil. The only time to be a problem.
Nicki Byers: Is on that third year when you're harvesting and if your compost has cooked long enough and has, you know, reached its optimum temperature, you shouldn't have any problem with that, if you
Nicki Byers: Get it wrong.
Taylor Clem: That's true, if it's, if it's a hot compost, you'll actually deter, a lot of the pest within there because we're talking about hot compost. It's over, like 110 degrees, I think, is like that ideal compost temperature when it's really cooking.
Nicki Byers: Right now.
Nicki Byers: You're if you have a pile of anything in your yard, it's it's 110 degrees. I mean, for crying out loud. It's 110
Nicki Byers: Degrees air.
Nicki Byers: So,
Taylor Clem: So are there pluses and minuses associated with water being able to get into your compost bin versus not being able to get in.
Nicki Byers: I see the water, not being able to get in is more of an a negative. I think you getting water in your compost is a positive. I think you're accomplished drying out.
Nicki Byers: Is bad, it doesn't make as rich a compost and I don't ever see like even in the most driving
Nicki Byers: torrential rain, like my compost is never washed out of my compost bin. Even my stuff that's like actively working right now all my egg shells in my avocados and
Nicki Byers: Your salad debris that stuff. It stays right in that nice while you're been nothing ever washes away now for another washes out even like I said during the most original rainstorms so we
Nicki Byers: Put I think
Nicki Byers: Less water is bad more water is good.
Taylor Clem: Yeah, it's a balance usually like if your, your temperature is off, it can be because you have too much, too much like it's very excess amount of water in your compost. You might have to add salt dust to reduce that
Nicki Byers: Yeah. If you picture aerobic activity. It gets compressed.
Taylor Clem: Or it's just too dry, you know, so it's like you gotta be a happy medium. Yeah.
Nicki Byers: But, but honestly right here in North Central Florida. I say I don't turn my compost. I really, it's, it's, it's a great environment like I can't imagine what it's like. It must be different up north. When it gets cold and
Taylor Clem: You have to turn it
Nicki Byers: Yeah, you'd have
Taylor Clem: Regularly in cooler temperatures. Absolutely. And that was another question is do you turn the compost during the cook stage, I know not everybody does, but it, it can definitely help out the campus, especially with
Taylor Clem: encouraging it to break down getting oxygen within the pile.
Nicki Byers: Yeah yeah yeah if you want to turn it, go for it. For sure. I think you can overturn it too. So be careful. Again, the balance. Um, yeah.
Taylor Clem: Absolutely. Um, so one question that came in and I think that's a good one is, how do you add the compost to your yard, do you just throw on or do you mix in. How about areas with mulch.
Nicki Byers: Okay, so. Oh, so you already have mulch on top.
Taylor Clem: Yeah, I think I'm seeing in two different situations like an ornamental landscape bed and turf grass area.
Nicki Byers: Okay, so in your ornamental beds. If you have mulch down, I'd pull your mulch back your pine bark or your, your pine needles or whatever and and then I would mix up the good get a an inch and a half deeper and I call it top dressing, and that's what I do with my compost I top dress it
Nicki Byers: On top of these plants. I don't you, I would never put a plant in straight compost. It's just to nitrogen rich, it will be to you want to
Nicki Byers: I would he think about, like, I think I put maybe about like a 3070 so you only need about 30% compost to 70% of what other soil is there.
Nicki Byers: I pocket plant things. So if I'm putting in some new plants and ornamentals I mix up the soil that's there. I threw a nice bunch of compost in with it and then mix it up again. So it's together and then pocket plant that plant with it.
Nicki Byers: Like I say, I talked dress potted plants with it. I'll just take a little bit, put it on the top, mix it in about the top two or three inches hanging baskets. I'd like to do that with and just ornamental plants around the yard.
Nicki Byers: I don't put my compost on my lawn. I'm very selective of who gets
Nicki Byers: A compost because I only get so much a year so
Taylor Clem: You're actually having some recommendations come out soon. We're doing a lot of research right now on the benefits of doing a
Taylor Clem: Top dress application of compost on turf grass, the results that we have in the research is really, really cool with regards to like early green up in the season.
Taylor Clem: And just the nutrients availability, you know, Nikki was talking about cat on exchange capacity, they're looking at how that improves and turf grass areas are we doing as a broadcast so
Taylor Clem: What were the, the true impacts that's associated with that encompass the turf grass. We're not entirely sure of yet, but we are seeing
Taylor Clem: Good benefits when you're just doing like a quarter inch top dress application. We just broadcast over your turf grass.
Taylor Clem: Something you can error rate your landscape your turf grass bed if you want to improve its access into the soil. But just a top dress can be can help be beneficial to that soil as a soil amendment.
Taylor Clem: What about pants. Do you ever have answering your compost bins. Your piles.
Nicki Byers: No, I've never seen answer my files. Yeah.
Taylor Clem: So, um,
Taylor Clem: So one of the recommendations that I you know I immediately think of is how do we safely manage ants. So, you know, disrupting that habitat moving them away.
Taylor Clem: Can really help. So by turning it, it can just discourage them from coming in.
Taylor Clem: Obviously, you don't want to apply any like insecticides in there. I'd be interested in looking about some other organic ways of managing
Taylor Clem: Ants within landscapes is like using citrus oils.
Taylor Clem: Well, I'm not sure how well that would impact or what that would do impacting
Taylor Clem: Compost I can't imagine it impacting the compost, but I don't know enough I'll top my head to give that recommendation.
Nicki Byers: Well, and I love if I get if I do have a little problem with enhance
Nicki Byers: Like boiling hot water. Great.
Nicki Byers: Given that it's a big disrupter of ants. I've noticed. So I do use sometimes boiling hot water, but be very careful if you're trying to read your and piles with that.
Taylor Clem: So I'm great responses on that one.
Taylor Clem: So someone uses a garbage bin. It seems like for
Taylor Clem: Their compost, should they make holes in the side of it.
Taylor Clem: Yes, yeah aeration, I would imagine, as well as drange of excess moisture. Yeah.
Nicki Byers: Yeah, for sure. Hey, the nice thing is if your link sticks on good you know that you can just turn it on the side and kind of roll with I see people do that with I've seen him do it at school gardens, they make pickle barrels into their compost.
Nicki Byers: And then the kids just turn them on their side, and they just go push them around all over. That's how they turn it so that's kind of fun.
Taylor Clem: So we did have two thing two questions actually pop in like right at the same time about diet tenacious Earth.
Taylor Clem: And it. The question is, is it safe for the garden. Um, I think.
Taylor Clem: There's some pluses and minuses with using it.
Taylor Clem: Do you all have any recommendations. I'm going to pull up the latest recommendation on off.
Nicki Byers: The top of my head I not. I don't use that to Macy's or
Nicki Byers: For any kind of insect control or anything like that. Um, I know some people do.
Taylor Clem: Yeah, so like one of the issues, for it is it has them in order for it to be effective. It has to
Taylor Clem: Be dry. So if it starts to get West immediate loses it loses its effectiveness. So here in Florida. We're constantly wet humid, so it loses its effectiveness very, very quickly, and also because of its a silica.
Taylor Clem: It's very dangerous for inhalation. So you have to have a mask gloves. So either our benefits, but I don't see that the benefits are substantial enough to justify it to use
Taylor Clem: But you could still technically use it but just be aware, that's not going to be as effective in Florida, as well as the making sure that you're wearing a mask. When you're ever you're using it.
Nicki Byers: This day and age, I have one on anyway.
Taylor Clem: And we have one question come in during the presentation. And I think this is good because on the do not
Taylor Clem: Do not compost slide that you had, you had the picture of the walnut.
Nicki Byers: walnut.
Taylor Clem: walnut. Do you want to give us a little info about that one, because I think
Taylor Clem: That's very important because there has been some I've had some homeowners that have had that in their compost.
Taylor Clem: And then all sudden
Nicki Byers: Isn't it poisonous it's, it sounds like, I don't really
Nicki Byers: So I read about it.
Taylor Clem: allopathic
Taylor Clem: It's allopathic so there's a there's a lot of plants that are actually allopathic it's a natural herbicide essentially and
Taylor Clem: There's specific chemicals that can change between plants, but that chemical actually inhibits plant growth. So essentially if you put the like a whack walnut or some other plant material that might be like a little Pathak
Taylor Clem: What will happen is that ends up that chemical can end up in your compost and it can actually inhibit plant growth. So if you put it in your vegetable garden. Your starts might not do very well.
Taylor Clem: So that's why. So it's like, specifically with like those. I think like even pig not hip or ease. We don't want to do
Oh,
Nicki Byers: Those are trees that you grow in North Central Florida. Correct.
Taylor Clem: Yeah, and black black walnuts. Yeah.
Nicki Byers: I agree.
Taylor Clem: And one of the questions at
Nicki Byers: Is cedar like that. Like, I noticed people have cedar trees like nothing grows on to them.
Taylor Clem: Um, let me see.
Nicki Byers: Always
Taylor Clem: Yes, they are. Yes, they have a little Pathak properties to them.
Taylor Clem: Yeah so. So that's just a good reference to note that you know there are some plants that they may not be very well but like the
Taylor Clem: So cedar walnut.
Taylor Clem: Check out for the hickory other nuts will be fine.
Taylor Clem: So,
Nicki Byers: All in there.
Taylor Clem: Mm hmm.
Taylor Clem: One that we have is, has to do with the temp of a compost, you have
Taylor Clem: I've used like a probe before laser, but do you use any way to
Taylor Clem: measure the temperature of your compost.
Nicki Byers: You know, I don't. I just kind of like I just kind of feel it. I kind of stick my finger in it you know i mean i don't i don't have at the moment is product. Yet when I'm surprised I don't because
Nicki Byers: I usually like all the gadgets that go along with things and. But no, I can usually tell that my compost is hot. I, you know, you just like I said you can you can
Nicki Byers: But you can you should use it a thermostat of, you know, a thermometer and they make them specially for compost and like Taylor said everything above 110 you're cooking well
Nicki Byers: If you want to kill weed seeds and stuff. You want to get it even higher. I think it's like 128 or something like that. Yeah.
Taylor Clem: So we, we have run out of time. Um, and I know there's a couple questions that we have not been able to get to, I can pull those out, but feel free, Nikki, I'm gonna kick your screen off for a second. And I'm going to pull up a contact slide for us.
Taylor Clem: This is the slide. I told you I was going to send you but I
Taylor Clem: Forgot to
Taylor Clem: Okay. Um, the, you can send us any questions that you would like to that ma G at a lateral county.us that's our Master Gardener volunteer help desk.
Taylor Clem: Any question has to do with composting gardening, anything like that we can provide you different resources and materials and help answer some of those questions that you may have or help solve some of the problems that might arise within your landscape.
Taylor Clem: We have a podcast that we created called extension cord. You can pick up on any major platform of it. Feel free to like us on Facebook or on YouTube. Follow us on YouTube. We post a lot of our webinars on our YouTube page. And that's just another way that you can engage us as well.
Taylor Clem: So I want to thank everybody for joining us today. And I want to thank everybody that you know we have even participants that are right now in you on YouTube, as the live stream. So I'd like to thank them all for joining us as well.
Taylor Clem: But thank you all for joining us. And thank you very much. Nikki for that presentation today.
Nicki Byers: Thank you all for
Nicki Byers: Spending time with me this afternoon.
