compost pile

Huge compost bin sighting!

I was walking around the other day and found these massive 5' x 5' x 5' compost bins. I hope they don't always look this inactive!  There's a lot of potential here. The "death" of a compost bin is when branches are tossed in... while they are organic and will break down, they will take forever to do so in that form and just take up space. To the left of these bins is a nice pile of wood chips, and it was good to see that the wood chips were not present in the bins... sawdust yes, wood shavings not really, wood chips no way. If the nature area wanted to (and maybe they do on a scheduled basis), there was plenty of material in the immediate vicinity of…

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Ants in the Compost

I spent some time away from the compost pile to spend more time and attention on the Worm Inn Mega in the basement.  My weekly food scrap deposit went to the worms, and it hasn't rained in week or two. Here come the ants! The presence of ants indicate a dry compost pile, or uncovered food deposits, or both.  In my situation, I simply haven't had rain in a while and I haven't added any fresh material. Ants aren't necessarily bad for the pile though- they help break it down along with all the other critters working in there. Keep your pile moist, and you should be good to go here.  Although I recommend making the least effort, I've been told that turning the pile will make them leave as…

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