Debris waiting to be shredded and then composted

While I am waiting for my shredder machine to arrive, I am cleaning out beds and letting the plant debris dry out thoroughly. I even removed the long stringy zuccini plants from the compost tumbler so they would dry out. I will put them through the shredder and return it all to the composTumbler with the other material I have waiting to be shredded.

Well....sorta...

Nov.13th, 2008

I let everything dry out, but then we got 6" of snow and I totally forgot about the drying out process, so now it is all wet again.

But, the chipper/shredder arrived yesterday, only 5 days after I ordered it. So I put it together.  You can see how that went in the How To section-look for How to put together the electric chipper/shredder.

The only thing I had that was dry was a bin of leaves, which really don't need to be shredded because they are so thin they break down easily in the compost.  I managed to shred up some soft twig and filled the composter with dry leaves, a little rabbit manure and cow pie that was close by, adding a bucket of water and a little bit of wet sand/dirt.  I tumbled that around good and now it just has to do it's thing.  If I can locate that bag of activator in my garden shed, I will sprinkle some of that into it, as it is pretty cold outside.

Freezing temperatures...

Are definately keeping me from doing anything with my compost tumbler out in the garden.  I have been adding kitchen scraps to the Backporch composter tumbler on the back porch.  The morning sun hits it full on.  Some days it thaws out, but most of the time it is a frozen brick.  I put the stuff in the composter anyway, so that when it does thaw, it will be turned a few times.  It will all be there waiting for the mid-winter warm up that usually comes along in Feb.  If not, well it can just wait til the Spring thaw.

Jan 27,2009 update:

The weather has been roller coaster-ing up and down, but mostly it's been colder than normal.  The compost inside the composter doesn't thaw out every day.  Turning the composter when the compost is frozen is a hoot.  It will start to spin out on you real fast, but nothing inside moves.

Spring will get here...eventually.

Feb and March, 2009 update:

By George! It feels like Spring is here already.  Our weather has turned very warm and dry.  I added two large feed sacks of chicken/rabbit manure to the ComposTumbler in the garden and on nice days it gets tumbled. Had to add some water to it.  We live in very dry climate and the wind makes it dryer.  The compost is looking like compost, but not quite finished.  We are supposed to be having snow blizzards, but we are just getting sand storms.  The spinach bed is starting to grow. Not good.  It will snow again and kill it.  But until then I let it grow.  The rabbits need some greens.

The backporch composter on the back porch gets most of the kitchen scraps and starts the decomposition process while it's warm.  It will take longer to finish, but I may put it into the worm factory and let them finish it off.

It is not really Spring, it just feels like it.