Gee64
Well-Known Member
This is a cool experiment! Can you please keep us updated?Thanks, @Gee64 ! This is quite timely as I'm starting to get my leaf composting station going today and I'm re-reading some of my composting references.
I'm trying something right now, and that is a small scale composting set-up using a 5 gallon bucket. I'm not sure it's going to work since most of the composting reading I've done says you really need a pile at a minimum of a yard/meter squared which is needed to allow the pile to heat up.
So, what I did was I filled a 5 gallon bucket with my partially finished leaf mold plus enough fresher fall leaves to fill the bucket and mixed in my last 6oz of my comfrey crumble. I was going to wait to see if the pile started to heat up in a day or two, but plugging the numbers into the calculator says I'll need a gallon of kitchen scraps as well so I'll add those in the coming days along with some JMS made from my fresh castings. I'm going to try two methods, the first with my normal potato flakes and the other with molasses and see how they compare.
Then I put that bucket into a larger container and stuffed dry leaves in between them to act as insulation, similar to the way hay boxes can serve as thermal cookers. Would be cool if it works.
Also this is aerobic composting so you need moist material, I water my compost exactly as if it were a house plant, and it needs access to a constant supply of fresh air.