Fifth Season Gardening

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  1. We built a bioreactor here in Atlanta Georgia… Put rubber caps on the six pipes during filling to keep debris from going down worked quite well they’re called 4-in Fernco rubber caps.. of course typing the tops with duct tape would work as well

  2. Used some old hose, slit down the middle to cover the cut wire projection from the screen at both top and bottom, to prevent tearing the cloth.

  4. Using ground leave as the primary component, wet in trough and loaded as in the demo, over 3 days, added some seed compost, some greens and ground alfalfa between every foot layer…pulled pipes on day 5-6…never got thermophilic response that I am accustomed to seeing peak over the first 5-6 days, then decline over 7-10days.
    Pile remains moist, no smell….HELP…any suggestions…not sure while no thermolphilic response?????

  5. Hmmmm. To my best knowledge, I don’t think the bioreactor pile will heat up as much as it would with a regular compost pile simply because oxygen is constantly supplied to the middle of the pile. Just ensure that proper moisture content is maintained and give it a little more time to begin breaking down. Hope the reaction starts soon. – Mike at FSG

  7. Hey, I’m thinking that you do want a hot period to start, not only to inactivate a lot of the seeds, but just to get a better ultimate breakdown within a year, so the process will nest well into your seasonal routines. Last year I had the same cool start that Boyd observed, and had used similar ingredients. After nine months, when it came time to plant out my new trees, I pulled our bioreactor apart and found a pretty good moisture level but not an expected extent of breakdown. A third was fine compost that passed a quarter inch screen, and the other 2 thirds material I will just use as mulch.
    Last week I picked up horse stall waste that is roughly half manure, the rest being straw, shavings and wood chips. I mixed this with garden waste in equal 6-inch layers. (My garden waste is a little on the woody side.) The manure is the main difference. I think it kickstarted the process this year. I saw temps over 130 within 2 days and they have been 140 to 160 degrees F everywhere in the pile on days 4 and 5. With this start, I hope to get a much greater fraction of true compost. One other difference: I kept the top end of my vent pipes capped until day 5.
    Maybe if you don’t use manure, at least find a rich source of microbes that you mix in very well, to be sure you get off to a good start.

  9. Can you store what you have left for another time? and if so, how do you store it? Also, are the worms alive in the compost, what happens to the worms?

  10. Thanks for your question. You can absolutely store what is left over for another time if that’s what you’d like to do. If you prefer to use the whole batch…just about any tree or shrub will benefit from a couple of inches of compost added to the top of the soil. Just be sure to keep it pulled back from the trunk. As for the worms, they should be happy in the composter and will move to where the temperatures are best for them. When it comes time to use the finished product, you can either leave the worms in what you spread to disperse them. Or, you can keep some of them aside for the next batch. We’d recommend a bit of both. Good luck!

  11. Hey you all. I am just about to fill a bioreactor myself, but I only have fresh wood chips and leaves. Meaning they are not dried. Do you have a suggestion of what will happen if I put them into the container as they are (but soaking them before) together with 1/5th of dried leaves from a nearby forest?

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