That is high praise, as there are a lot CN ratio videos out there there (most of them confusing or too long). ;-) Wish I would have made this one shorter and to the point.
Thanks for the video. I have just tossed some scraps (yard, house, and pasture) in a pile held up by 4 pallets and have not turned it yet (for a year). I have filled to the top several times and I think there is some magic going on in there. I have started getting the paper shreds from work. I now have 4 or 5 large bags and wondered how much manure to add to them. The info you have will be very helpful... given the weight of each I suspect it will not take much manure. Thanks!
stein shaw thanks! I bet you will indeed have some good stuff in there! The scraps may take a full year to totally decompose. I love the Bokashi method to greatly accelerate. I’d strongly recommend building a compost sifter to separate finished compost from unfinished, especially if you use the “add as you go” method, as I do. Everything I’ve learned about composting...I’ve learned by failure!
stein shaw the paper shredding tends to clump. It works best if you mix it with the other materials. I tell you this because I just pulled some big clumps out of my half done pile!
I had a compost pile last winter, I sifted and used the compost elsewhere and grew a garden in that spot, worked extremely well guessing worms etc moved in, have 2 piles going now but like the info on coffee grounds, ready to experiment.
Morgan, Loved the information. Your video helped me to understand how to do the C:N numbers better. Do have a basic recipe for when you add wood chips to the same products you used in your video? I know I always have wood chips available, and I would think a lot of people have wood chips too. Thanks you for doing all of the work to put out a really good video!
Agrarian Food Web Patti Armbrister I don’t use wood chips but I use shredded paper, which is the same thing (basically). Shredded paper or wood chips have very little nitrogen, so all your nitrogen needs to come from an external source. In my case that external source would be coffee grounds.
Hi. You can easily find out the amount of water per material. Weigh several amounts before adding it, dry it in the oven at let’s say 80 degrees Celsius and then weigh them again. Also, would you know how to calculate the C:N ratio of materials that aren’t to be found online?
Good idea with the oven. Though I don't think my wife would be too keen if I baked a steaming pile of ripe bokashi for 4 hours!!! Hahaha! Unfortunately, without employing a mass spectroscopy unit, I don't know how you'd measure C:N ratio. I find CN ratio to be a fairly inexact science, e.g., there's wiggle room. If you get it right to first order, you'll still get a hot pile.
Morgan - your videos are really helpful! Thank you for them. Do you think creating a biomeiler in an unfinished basement could help supplement heat to a traditional residence? I want to explore this, but don't want my house to explode from ammonia buildup! Cheers.
Well, now that’s an interesting idea! I assume you would put the compost in the actual basement? Ammonia wouldn’t worry me; seems like you could simply make it a closed system with a vent to the outside. Bigger problem in my eyes would be moving the compost up and down, unless you have a convenient access from the yard. Not sure of the size of your house, but I suspect you’d need a compost volume of 6x6x6 ft or 216 cubic ft. My greenhouse system was only 27 cubic ft, and it was insufficient to heat the greenhouse. Also, you’ll note that this pile only lasted 2 weeks above 100 deg F. The larger pile should last 2 months or more before needing to be turned. If you compost food waste, I’d recommend pre-processing it with the Bokashi method. Reduces odor and speeds decomposition
Thanks for your response! I appreciate your thoughts on scaling the project. I have an exterior stairwell to this basement which would increase feasibility. Venting to the exterior seems prudent, but it would definitely exhaust heat also. I will try to continue researching this, no lower heat bill is worth a destroyed home!
Over the years I have come to one conclusion. The C:N is just a scientific misnomer for heat production. If you have 3 cubic meters of shredded leaves and enough water to soak them and pile them up. You are going to get heat and lots of it. The C:N is a metric used in food waste reduction and not necessarily compost for gardening. Oh sure they say once the compost is crumbly and not hot to the touch it is ready to go onto your garden. I disagree with that statement too. Hopefully, there is time for the compost to age and let the fungal components take over. Which is lacking in our soils around the world thanks to common practises.
Kris, sorry, but I didn't see your comment until now. My apologies. I agree with you! Most of the reason I compost is to generate heat for my greenhouse, so I'm obviously very concerned with heat. And the commercial composting operations need to reach 160 deg F for 5 days (or whatever the pathogen-killing guidelines state). I also agree with you that the industrial compost may be lacking from a diversity of microbes & nutrients but have no proof! My typical greenhouse heating compost mixture is simply shredded junk mail and coffee. Not sure I'd want this as my only garden amendment!
This was an interesting comment that I thought I'd circle back to. I ran a compost pile for about a year, then put it in some raised beds. It was nice and crumbly, as it's "supposed to be". One bed in particular had a LOT of this compost. The plants in this bed were NOT happy! I agree with you that 1 year is not long enough of an aging period for growing applications!
![[Podcast] Understanding Carbon-to-Nitrogen Ratios & Cover Crops](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qV1xxMuOE54/mqdefault.jpg)
Most useful compost ratio video out there. Many thanks.
That is high praise, as there are a lot CN ratio videos out there there (most of them confusing or too long). ;-) Wish I would have made this one shorter and to the point.
Thanks for the video. I have just tossed some scraps (yard, house, and pasture) in a pile held up by 4 pallets and have not turned it yet (for a year). I have filled to the top several times and I think there is some magic going on in there. I have started getting the paper shreds from work. I now have 4 or 5 large bags and wondered how much manure to add to them. The info you have will be very helpful... given the weight of each I suspect it will not take much manure. Thanks!
stein shaw thanks! I bet you will indeed have some good stuff in there! The scraps may take a full year to totally decompose. I love the Bokashi method to greatly accelerate. I’d strongly recommend building a compost sifter to separate finished compost from unfinished, especially if you use the “add as you go” method, as I do. Everything I’ve learned about composting...I’ve learned by failure!
stein shaw the paper shredding tends to clump. It works best if you mix it with the other materials. I tell you this because I just pulled some big clumps out of my half done pile!
I had a compost pile last winter, I sifted and used the compost elsewhere and grew a garden in that spot, worked extremely well guessing worms etc moved in, have 2 piles going now but like the info on coffee grounds, ready to experiment.
Morgan, Loved the information. Your video helped me to understand how to do the C:N numbers better. Do have a basic recipe for when you add wood chips to the same products you used in your video? I know I always have wood chips available, and I would think a lot of people have wood chips too. Thanks you for doing all of the work to put out a really good video!
Agrarian Food Web Patti Armbrister I don’t use wood chips but I use shredded paper, which is the same thing (basically). Shredded paper or wood chips have very little nitrogen, so all your nitrogen needs to come from an external source. In my case that external source would be coffee grounds.
Hi. You can easily find out the amount of water per material. Weigh several amounts before adding it, dry it in the oven at let’s say 80 degrees Celsius and then weigh them again. Also, would you know how to calculate the C:N ratio of materials that aren’t to be found online?
Good idea with the oven. Though I don't think my wife would be too keen if I baked a steaming pile of ripe bokashi for 4 hours!!! Hahaha! Unfortunately, without employing a mass spectroscopy unit, I don't know how you'd measure C:N ratio. I find CN ratio to be a fairly inexact science, e.g., there's wiggle room. If you get it right to first order, you'll still get a hot pile.
Morgan - your videos are really helpful! Thank you for them.
Do you think creating a biomeiler in an unfinished basement could help supplement heat to a traditional residence? I want to explore this, but don't want my house to explode from ammonia buildup! Cheers.
Well, now that’s an interesting idea! I assume you would put the compost in the actual basement? Ammonia wouldn’t worry me; seems like you could simply make it a closed system with a vent to the outside. Bigger problem in my eyes would be moving the compost up and down, unless you have a convenient access from the yard. Not sure of the size of your house, but I suspect you’d need a compost volume of 6x6x6 ft or 216 cubic ft. My greenhouse system was only 27 cubic ft, and it was insufficient to heat the greenhouse. Also, you’ll note that this pile only lasted 2 weeks above 100 deg F. The larger pile should last 2 months or more before needing to be turned. If you compost food waste, I’d recommend pre-processing it with the Bokashi method. Reduces odor and speeds decomposition
Thomas P check this link, around the 3:30 mark: ruclips.net/video/xNUlrwqNXa8/видео.html
Thanks for your response! I appreciate your thoughts on scaling the project.
I have an exterior stairwell to this basement which would increase feasibility. Venting to the exterior seems prudent, but it would definitely exhaust heat also. I will try to continue researching this, no lower heat bill is worth a destroyed home!
Over the years I have come to one conclusion. The C:N is just a scientific misnomer for heat production. If you have 3 cubic meters of shredded leaves and enough water to soak them and pile them up. You are going to get heat and lots of it.
The C:N is a metric used in food waste reduction and not necessarily compost for gardening. Oh sure they say once the compost is crumbly and not hot to the touch it is ready to go onto your garden. I disagree with that statement too. Hopefully, there is time for the compost to age and let the fungal components take over. Which is lacking in our soils around the world thanks to common practises.
Kris, sorry, but I didn't see your comment until now. My apologies. I agree with you! Most of the reason I compost is to generate heat for my greenhouse, so I'm obviously very concerned with heat. And the commercial composting operations need to reach 160 deg F for 5 days (or whatever the pathogen-killing guidelines state). I also agree with you that the industrial compost may be lacking from a diversity of microbes & nutrients but have no proof! My typical greenhouse heating compost mixture is simply shredded junk mail and coffee. Not sure I'd want this as my only garden amendment!
This was an interesting comment that I thought I'd circle back to. I ran a compost pile for about a year, then put it in some raised beds. It was nice and crumbly, as it's "supposed to be". One bed in particular had a LOT of this compost. The plants in this bed were NOT happy! I agree with you that 1 year is not long enough of an aging period for growing applications!
Good info. nice and hot too ;-)
I need finished compost in the next few weeks - let's see if I can get there!
Good luck and plenty of turning ;-)