Keith Addison wrote:
(Power Shredder)
> I've been wanting to ask ever since. Didn't you forget to say it
> stinks? I've been grousing at our chainsaws because they use too much
> fuel and they stink.
Yes. It's a foul, noisome reek! The rattling, noise and stench all
scream of inefficiency . . .
> Didn't you decide on fitting it with an electric motor? Could you use
> a belt-drive with it?
It's got a clutch and a belt drive on it already. I think adapting
it for an electric motor would be a relatively straightforward
proposition. There are two issues with this approach right now. The
first is financial. (I've left a "career" position to work at home,
and my income is inconsistent, at best.) I'm very reluctant to spend
ANY money because I'm never sure when my next influx of income will
occur. (And I just spent over $400 on repairs to our natural gas boiler!)
The second relates to time and energy. I have several "projects" on
the go, including the unfinished business of a new computer for my
supercharged truck. As the weather warms, I have an increasing amount
of yard work to do as well. The horsetail rhizomes are starting to
poke their spore producing heads through the ground already. I've
transplanted several large plants, as well as three blackberry vines,
to various places around the property, and I need to transplant my
peach trees as well.
Because we have access to inexpensive grid power, I believe an
electric motor will be the best solution for a shredder power source.
>
> I keep thinking you need one of these old Yanmar diesels, like the
> one that powers our shredder.
> http://journeytoforever.org/compost_shred.html
> Compost shredder
Yeah, that would work too! Small diesels are very hard to find in
North America. The Briggs and Stratton 3.5 horse engine I've got
powering the shredder is ubiquitous and cheap!
(Old Yanmar diesels)
> I'm sure the
> Yanmar would have started up first time. It seems you find them
> easily here in Japan and in many 3rd World countries but not in the
> other industrialised countries, just the Chinese Yanmar rip-offs.
Maybe there's a market for importing these into North America . . .
I've noticed several Japanese vehicles (right hand drive) have been
imported recently. (And I'd LOVE to get my hands on one of those 4
door turbodiesel Rangers!) I've thought about the Lister models
available from India, but these are HEAVY. My shredder has the engine
mounted on the top of the thing, and I find it teeters rather
precariously as it is.
(Compost volume)
> Does that mean you have to find way more materials too?
Partly it's because my garden has grown in. When I trim the plants
back, I have more material to compost because all of the plants are
much bigger now than when we first planted them. In addition, I
shredded EVERYTHING that came out of our garden this year, rather than
just throwing it on a pile to rot. Some of the material I shredded
this year came from our garden the year before. It had been sitting
in a pile and simply didn't decompose, or rather, it was decomposing
VERY slowly. I also asked my neighbors for their leaves in the fall.
I'm astonished that people throw their leaves away, but then, they
think I'm crazy for composting them.
> What's the volume of the plastic composter?
It holds 11 cubic feet of material. We got ours through the
municipality for a very low price several years ago, but there's a
picture of one here:
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/composter.html
I think they're asking WAY too much money for that thing!
> It could have used the N but not the extra liquid.
This has been a problem for quite some time. My compost seems most
active during the late summer, when it's hot outside and most of the
material in the bin dries out.
(straw)
> Straw's not so easy, it needs a special microorganism. "The most
> promising results were obtained when the straw was subjected to the
> action of a culture of an aerobic cellulose decomposing organism
> (Spirochoeta cytophaga), whose activities were found to depend on the
> mineral substances present in the culture fluid. The essential
> factors in the production of well-rotted farmyard manure [ie compost]
> from straw were found to be: air supply; a suitable temperature, and
> a small amount of soluble combined nitrogen. The fermentation was
> aerobic; the breakdown of the straw was most rapid in a neutral or
> slightly alkaline medium in the presence of sufficient available
> nitrogen. Urine, urea, ammonium carbonate and peptone (within certain
> concentrations) were all useful forms of combined nitrogen." (Ahem.)
> Too much moisture, not enough air supply.
I'm beginning to think the plastic composter itself contributes to
this problem, especially toward the bottom where the air supply seems
to get choked out by all of the damp material that blocks air to the
pile. I suppose I could solve that problem by drilling holes into the
sides and inserting plastic pipe that has holes drilled at regular
intervals.
> To make thermophilic (hot) compost you'd need more dry browns (on the
> C side of the C:N ratio) and maybe more bulk. And it's probably
> easier to get it working right when you make it all at once instead
> of filling the bin up steadily.
We have a fairly steady supply of kitchen scraps, as my sweetheart
makes nearly every meal we eat from scratch. It's hard to control the
ratio of what goes into the composter. However, we have a steady
supply of newspaper that probably could be shredded rather than
recycled. (Some of the newspaper goes into the bunny cage, too. I
tend to throw that into the pile of material that needs shredding, as
it tends to be soaked with rabbit urine, but by the time I GET the
shredder out and started, the newspaper has dried.)
> You're making mesophilic compost, and it's being quite quick about it
> because the worms are finishing the job at the bottom. Important to
> have this kind of compost in contact with the earth (with
> thermophilic compost you might have it off the ground to provide air
> supply from underneath).
The composter sits on the ground, so you're likely right about this.
> Compost like this is just fine, but the quantity is often too low.
> How much are you producing?
I can take three to four 20 liter buckets of compost out of the bin
every two to three weeks. I've noticed that we get a lot of common
chickweed (stellaria media) in our flower beds because I've been
putting compost into them. The chickweed came to our property
courtesy of the barn litter I've been adding to the soil. It makes a
nice ground cover, actually, and seems to choke out other, less
attractive species. Still, it would be nice to have the pile hot
enough to kill seeds entirely, especially since I have to weed out the
stellaria from around my trees.
> Also it won't kill weed seeds, and there are other things too that won't
> be killed at those temperatures, nor necessarily by the worms, but
> IMO they'll be well-controlled in the resulting microorganism
> populations.
That would be provided we actually have healthy microflora and fauna
in our compost culture. It would be interesting to put a sample under
the microscope and see what's there!
>
> By the way, Q.R. is really good stuff, worth paying for.
>
> http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/QR/QRCO.html
> Common-Sense Compost Making - How to use Q.R. Quick Return Herbal
> Compost Activator
I will check it out. The JTF small farms resources are excellent,
Keith! Thank you for all the hard work that went into compiling the
information for the rest of us.
(sweet smell)
> If you scratch away the leaves and litter under a tree in a forest
> until you get to the soil, does it smell similar?
Similar, yes, but our compost smells sweeter.
> With thermophilic composting it's quite easy and common to produce a
> finished product in less than two weeks, dark crumbly humus with
> little or no trace left of the original materials. It's a powerful
> process when it gets above about 55 deg C (up to 65-70).
I can't imagine ours gets up that high.
> I think it's the worms that are doing the work for you as much as or
> more than the composter is.
Likely, but as we say in Southern California: "Whatever works!" In
spring, song birds flock to our garden to feast on all the worms.
Whenever we get a heavy rain, several specimens (some of whom are
quite large) wind up on our driveway where they dry out and die if I
don't get to them first and throw them back onto the soil. Someone
told me once that earthworms can drown if the soil isn't draining
properly, and poor draining IS a persistent problem around here.
In the main part of our garden, we've built up about 10 cm of topsoil
over the past three years. Beneath this, the heavy clay subsoil
remains. My experience should serve as a warning to everyone who
builds a new home. Paying attention to the soil and making sure the
excavators don't remove it all will save a LOT of work and headache
later on.
> Keep on growing fertile soil Robert and I'm sure that in time the
> trees will do it for you all by themselves.
I'm working on it, Keith. I just hope that they survive until I get
the gardening thing figured out!
robert luis rabello
"The Edge of Justice"
Adventure for Your Mind
http://www.newadventure.ca
Ranger Supercharger Project Page
http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/
_______________________________________________
Biofuel mailing list
Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages):
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
