Cross-posted with /r/composting

I'm pretty proud of the results of my first year of serious composting (before this year, my method was, "dump kitchen scraps in a pile and turn it occasionally"), so I figured I'd share. Here's a picture of the pile, opened up yesterday for turning/dumping fresh kitchen scraps. Closer view, and even closer. As you can see, it still has a ways to go. It consists of mostly kitchen scraps, grass clippings, and oak leaves, and I guess the latter of those takes quite a while to break down. Here's a picture of it covered with a tarp after I was done, yesterday.

This is actually a combination of eight different smaller piles I worked on throughout the year while I was teaching myself to make compost. The first piles I made were basically just the result of mowing some tall grass/wild plants in the spring--I had thought that since I was mowing up both leaves and grass that the ratio would be just right for composting. I was wrong. Those three piles didn't really go anywhere. I should've added far more leaf matter, kept them wetter, and combined them into one rather than three.

The fourth pile was a combination of kitchen scraps and leaf matter. I had about a 1/2:1 ratio of leaf matter to kitchen scraps. It turned out okay, but of course, I should've added more browns. The fifth pile (featuring a guest who liked the "fresh greens" that I often went outside to spray onto the pile, if you catch my drift...) started out with probably a 1:1 ratio of browns to greens and ended up with a 2:1 ratio, since I started actually figuring things out. I used both mowed-up leaves and mowed-up household paper waste for my browns, and kitchen scraps and grass clippings for my greens. The pile did end up getting fairly warm. I turned it every 2-4 days.

The sixth and seventh piles were nothing but oak leaves mixed with grass clippings. I wasn't great about getting the ratios exactly right, but they were both probably close to 1 1/2:1 browns to greens. Both heated up after I turned them, every few days, and turned out great. I think I do have some pictures, but can't find them.

I started using a tarp with my eighth pile, and that tarp, as well as the increased amount of browns--always at least 2:1--made a huge difference, as previously I had a hard time keeping piles at the right moisture level. Either they'd dry out in the sun or they'd get soaked in the rain. The tarp protected from both and helped insulate the pile, enabling it to get to the right temperature despite being fairly small.

I tried to follow the Berkeley method closely (other than that I added to it every time I turned it). If I added new scraps, I let it sit for four days; otherwise, I turned it every other day. I started adding pretty much anything to it. One time while I was turning it, I found a dessicated dead robin nearby and tossed that in. There was no trace of it the next time I turned the pile.

Fairly recently, I combined all of my piles into one, as you saw above. This makes it a lot harder to turn, but it seems to be going well. Instead of making a new pile and letting this one sit, I've continued adding to this one every week, when I turn it (now that it's this big, it's hard to find time to turn it more often than that). I'm not sure if I'll be able to do this through winter. I've been stocking up on coffee grounds from Starbucks (I have maybe 8 bags of them sitting in the garage?) to help me keep it going, but it gets pretty cold here in Michigan. Maybe I should start a new pile in the winter rather than keeping this one going; I haven't decided, yet. I'm happy to hear your suggestions.

Thanks for reading! Tremendous thanks to /r/composting; everyone there is incredibly helpful, and there are many very knowledgeable folks there. I couldn't have learned this much about composting without them. I've offered them my five invitations, so hopefully we can eventually get the same kind of composting/gardening discussion over here!

I'm hardly an expert after just one year of composting, but I'm happy to answer any questions you have about my methods, about composting in general, or about how you might get started.

Now for some bonus pics, just for fun:

A bear admiring my pile
That same bear about to destroy a bird feeder... D'oh.
Compost/Hugelkultur-in-progress (I'm not sure how people find the time to gather enough woody materials/grass clippings to make a hugelkultur all at once!)

I flew to Ely, Minnesota in August with my friend Jared.

Hope the images work, I'll rehost if they don't.

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IMG_2631.jpg

Me left, Jared right.

He takes a regular trip with his family into the Boundary Waters (BWCA) and my in-laws have a cabin on a BWCA lake. In order to avoid driving and to get some flying hours in, we took this tiny plane from Columbus, OH to Ely, MN.

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/flight-path.jpg

Red line is actual GPS route. Blue line is simply airport-to-airport route.

We were trying to avoid flying over large bodies of water because when you’re in a single engine airplane, you don’t have a lot of options besides swimming if your engine goes out (ours didn’t).

We meant to get fuel after Chicago but the day we were flying we had 30 (thirty!!!!) knot headwinds even low to the ground. It was stupidly impressive bad luck. So we had to stop in Gary, IN to grab some gas before heading up again.

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IMG_2647.jpg

Gary, IN

After grabbing gas, we were off. We saw the Blue Angels parked on the north ramp of the airport as we were taking off but it was too late to grab a picture. Turned out they had a show over the Navy Pier in Chicago a little later in the morning.

We know because we flew through the TFR (before it activated).

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IMG_2657-e1506799924440.jpg

Chicago, IL

We thought we only had about 15 minutes to get through the TFR which we thought we could barely make, but also thought if we’re going to get intercepted, would be pretty cool to get intercepted by the Blue Angels, then realized the time change to Central and that we had an extra hour still before the TFR went active. The Blue Angels did not intercept us.

Next we flew up towards Duluth. Still staying low because of the ridiculous headwinds, but that meant things were also super bumpy.

Jared puked for the first time ever in a small airplane. I always have a puke bag in the plane for emergencies but never expected to use it with two pilots on board.

So Jared pukes. The turbulence and motion wasn’t getting to me until then, but that puke-bile smell? Oh yeah. I could feel it.

The problem was that I only had one puke bag in the cockpit. If I had to hurl, it was going to be in the same bag Jared used earlier. Gross.

Furthermore, Jared told me point blank that if I hurled, he was going to need the bag back to go again.

Faced with the prospect of sharing a puke-bag and passing it back and forth, we decided to land and take a 45 minute break.

We felt better after taking off (and getting the back-up puke bag from the baggage compartment).

Anyway, here’s Duluth:

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IMG_2675-e1506800330868.jpg

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IMG_3147.jpg

After turning the corner at Duluth, we went along Minnesota’s North Shore to drop Jared off in Grand Marais.

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IMG_2689-e1506800486520.jpg

Two-Harbors on the North Shore of Minnesota

Then finally, with the plane to myself, I flew over the Boundary Waters due west to land in Ely, MN.

http://photosoverohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IMG_2716.jpg

Somewhere in the BWCA between Grand Marais and Ely. Endless untouched nature.

Was a fun trip. 9.3 hours in the plane due to the ridiculous headwinds. I was super happy to get a burger on the ground.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s2iTsjvNthl8cmgvcF7q2vUewu69mGLb?usp=sharing

It's missing a screen decal and some software tweaks, but the #MAME#Sega arcade machine is about done. I really wanted to built something that could handle a game of Street Fighter 4 as easy as it could swap to Daytona USA on Model 2 or Virtual On using Demul.

Here are the components.

1 #Thrustmaster wheel and pedals2
Six button Sanwa/IR arcade controls sets
2 8 way mini flight sticks (For Twin Stick games)
1 Ipac ultimate

I'm a first time wood worker and vinyl applicator, and have a long long list of things that I learned not to do in the future. I'm still figuring out what the best way is to run all of this gear, but so far so good. What's not evident in this photo are the 1/2 lines of plexi that live beneath the decal around the perimeter, and that are illuminated with addressable LEDs. The window in the speaker area (speaker grills are coming, still) has a Dreamcast swirl LED sequence that travels through a spiral inside as well.

**As far as hobbies go, this one had a big learning curve and required the purchase of a few tools. That said, it was totally worth it.