Good tips man. I would also add another good way to render weed seeds inert is to fill a 5 gallon bucket 3/4 with water, soak those weeds in there for maybe a week covered. This will cause a brief anaerobic reaction that will be acidic enough to break down the seeds, then you just take that stankwater and wet the compost with it.
Good tips. You are right. All the gardening videos don't really think about us who live in the desert. I live in Las Vegas. Super hot and super dry and hard cement dirt.
Hallelujah for this video! The overwhelming majority of compost videos talk about how "easy" it is to build compost, except neglect (or choose not) to mention that they are in zones 7 and below. Building compost in zones 8 and beyond is exponentially more complex because "greens" are scarce and moistening is expensive or in some places impossible, as water is of limited availability. Liked and followed.
Aw great, Thank you. Yeah, I noticed a lot of composting videos are for "green" areas of the world. So I stopped and looked up "Desert" area composting, lol and found your video! Thaaaaaank Gooodneeeessss, lol
Thanks bro...I live in West Phoenix!!! I feel you exactly....I HATE watching videos about gardening from people in Virginia or some shit like that so yeah I subscribed today!
Thank you so much for this video! I have been so confused about desert composting, I came to AZ from greener and wetter states and I new that what worked there was not going to work here. You have answered so many of my questions and now I feel confident to build a compost pile this weekend...
Perfect timing, and very helpful as I'm at this stage of planning my compost area - your 5 tips have helped me narrow down this task into manageable chunks ; ] ~Thanks for the help!
I get all the compost material I need from my wife's yardwork service here in Tucson. I am using pet kennels that are made up of 8 sides, 2' by 4', so I have the ability to make a 4 foot tall pile in a 4.8' wide octagon. The bars are good, heavy stainless steel. Great ventilation, and you don't loose a lot of material. I'm loving my Yard Farm! Been up and running for just over 2 months!
This video really covers why composting is not the same in all climates. The hair tip also great but hair products are also an issue. Clothes that don’t contain synthetic material. I added this video to my interesting by others playlist so other people may find it!
I struggled with sourcing materials too, best source I have found on clean hay and straw was the San Xavier coop. Clean brown cardboard shredded as a base for browns. I found a chipper shredder used, and work with my neighbors to chip their herbicide free tree waste. It’s pretty incredible how much it takes to get the soil charged with organic matter here in Pima County. However home generated hot compost is far superior to bagged big box store stuff. It is entirely worth the effort to home compost. Thanks for the video.
San Xavier has the best Hay prices. I really like their "Cow Hay", it's really cheap and great for mulch and compost. You can also sign up for an App called "Chip Drop" to arrange for local landscapers to drop extra wood chips on your property.
if your composting hay, alfalfa is what i use in my area ..weeds will not be an issue if you keep everything in a contained area while your composting ,the heat alone generated by the bacteria will kill off most seeds .. the remaining the fungus and molds will destroy if left long enough. just one tip.. dont mix your hay into the soil unless your planting potatoes or just breaking up heavy clay soils. it composts faster when piled up in a heap and the longer you let it set and keep moist the faster it will deteriate. .i wait till i see a lot of white mold mixed in the pile when i turn it about once every 3 days in the summer .. in winter turn it about every 7 days .. another thing i do is i mix about 2 cups of potassium nitrate with 5 gallons of warm water and pour it in the center of my pile slowly so it goes in the middle.. the warm water jumps starts the bacteria into high gear .. faster decomp...good luck works as well on hardwoods too
I've done bokashi in the past and still recommend it as a great method especially for folks living in apartments. I'm much more of a laid back composter at this point and don't do much other than dumping my food scraps and yard waste and turning it maybe once a year, but I still teach and recommend all of the different types of composting to others and I always recommend people find the best method that works for them and stick with it.
In reference to composting with weeds,, what i use is the common mustard weed in combination with wood chips that i got from Asplund who works for the Electric company in my area for free. I layered the sweeds in the middle of the pile and then i cover it backup and take about a half a cup of stump remover which is potassium nitrate and sprinkle it across the top of the pile and water it in,dont soak it to much but enough to get the center of the pile wet.Then i take clear plastic or painters plastic cover and cover the pile . every 4-7 days i uncover the pie and turn th e whole pile over with a pitch fork and repeat the process again. .........................right now my pile is approx. 50 percent composted and is really breaking down at a much faster rate than i had expected , i started this project in January this year and at the rate its going i expect the pile to be ready to use by this fall.Where i live the ground has a lot of Caliche and a lot of alkali. i tested my back yard and th e ph level was 7.8.i ordered a 50 pound sack of elemental sulphur from the tractor supply for about 60 dollars .. i could not find any other suppliers who even came that close to matching that deal..If you dont get th e ph of your soils down to a workable condition for your garden your not going to have very good results to begin with no matter how much composting you use.. . im going to plant nothing but root crops this year to help break up the heavy laden soil we have around here and plant things like squash and melons which seem to do well as for lettuce and those kind of plants the have a tendency to fry in the soil due to the high salt and alkali .. /.. the water you use is also important, the water ph level in my area registered at 7.8 also ..im tryin to fig out how w to lower that economically with out having to spend a whole lot of money in that aspect. If anyone has a good way to lower the ph in water pm plz and good luck.By the way I live south of carlsbad New Mexico .. where the soil is probably has more alkali than around Tuscon and clay type..in addition this is may now going into june ,my wood chip pile is gone and in the ground .. im using leftovers chips and alfalfa at 10 dollars a bale .and horse manure that has been sitting for 2 years in an old corral.. this stuff is hot!! i put some extra potassium last week and that was the wrong thing to do.. it burned my pile to ashes .haha .. keep an eye on your piles during the summer months they will burn up literally ..
This is a great way to get free materials for compost, ASPLUNDH and other tree trimming operations will sometimes offer to give out free wood chips so as long as you can score some good greens from mustard or other weeds that's all you really need to make great compost. Thanks for checking out the video, happy composting!
Good tip about the tumbler! I was going to get one to replace my in-ground chicken wire one, but it sounds like what I have may already be better than one that hangs above ground. I realize now that they wouldnt get access to the worms and other things that REALLY break the soil down... My biggest issue now is keeping it wet. We have all the water turned off because we are in NORTHERN Nevada, and it freezes... so I guess the compost has free refrigeration during the winter until it can start up again. Not looking forward to it stinking, though I hear that I am doing it wrong if it smells at all.... -_- Hence my video marathon today
I'm getting started on my compost. Glad I found your channel. Great info to the point no rambling or annoying music 🤭😀 How about rodents, is that an issue I'm in PHX Bell and 59th Ave no rodent problem that I can see but I wonder if composting attracts them and how to avoid it.
Bell and 59th, my old stomping grounds. Used to love going to arrowhead mall back in the day! Compost can attract rodents and insects, they are big parts of the composting process. You'll have fewer issues with rodents and insects if you turn your pile very frequently and bury any food scraps that you add. That being said, critters are just a natural part of the compost process so the best thing is to learn to coexist if possible. It can be hard at first but eventually it's not as gross I promise!
I've started composting my palm fronds, and I use the stems for shade for seedlings. I had many horses in WA sp am very hapoy i havent started using horse manure here. How much chicken and rabbit manure would be used-say, fir a wheelbarrow full of completed compost. Thanks for this info! New to desert gardening.
Exactly the info I was looking for- thank you! I noticed a little mouse pal pop up half way thru the video- are rodents a problem for you? Do they attract snakes that you've noticed? Thinking of building this in a shady area next to my house but don't want to attract unwanted critters!
Mice, roaches, and other critters can be common in compost piles, they like the warmth and readily available food scraps. If you'd like fewer critters in your compost pile, you can turn it every week or so and then you wont have as many. It's a lot of work but the only way I know of to keep critter numbers low in compost piles. The mice in the compost can attract snakes but in the garden snakes are preferable to rodents so we like to leave them be. We also have hawks that help with the rodents so we never have an infestation, everything just sort of balances out. The goal would be to not create infestations of any kind, but in order for that to happen you need to have a balance of predators and prey, so learning to live with critters is just another skill we have to learn as gardeners. Good luck!
This is an excellent video. Thank you. I live in southern New Mexico where we have rattlesnakes and pack rats. Does the compost area need a bottom barrier between the ground and the wire bin (such as what is demonstrated in the video) to keep varmits and snakes out?
You can try and keep critters out with fencing and such, but most critters can fit through caging and chicken wire. The best way to keep critters out of your pile is to turn it very frequently. If it sits longer than a week or two then you will start to get critters moving in. It's more labor intensive, but it is the only way I know of to keep critters out of the compost pile. Good luck!
I'm in our second summer here in NE Arizona and having good luck digging 2-3' deep planting basins and putting the compostable stuff at the bottom in layers. I call it deep dish lasagna. We have beetle grubs instead of worms.
Just an idea coming from this video alone (and from someone who has never composted): Since tumblers are too hot for desert composting, what if you bought a tumbler, ONLY to cook the weeds in to kill off the seeds? Then after a while add those weeds to the open compost pile? I have tons of weeds but not many other sources of carbons.
I'm in southern Spain where it rarely rains. I've had 2 composting areas for 2 years and still no compost. I do regularly water them but it's so very hot in our summers here that I think that the water must just be evaporating. I'm totally demoralised,especially as my soil is in extremely poor condition.
I'm sorry to hear that. Two things that can speed up decompostion are chopping the materials into as small of pieces as possible before composting and turning the pile very frequently. Unfortunately both of these things require the most effort so that can be difficult for some. I wish you good luck and perseverance!
Hii! Love your video! So helpful! Not sure if you look at these comments anymore 😅 but Im trying to do backyard composting in Tucson and I have tumblers from the previous owners and we've filled it up but there are just so many flies 😢 anything we can do?
Thank you I am in Sahuarita and this was super helpful. But one thing I keep wondering is Is compost a fire hazard in southern Arizona. Im asking because im in undeveloped land and worry.
sweet video. so a question for you. have you done any composting with Mesquite beans? we have three Mesquite trees that give off a lot of beans I would like to get started composting them if possible.
Yes you can for sure compost mesquite beans, you just want to make sure that your pile is getting hot enough so that you don't get mesquite trees sprouting all over. If you can, the best thing to do with mesquite beans is just leave them on the ground as mulch. The mulch will cool the soil and conserve water and overtime they will break down and return nutrients back to the soil. Good luck!
I'm going to make one of those bins from hog wire and hardware cloth that I have. I'm thinking of putting it down in the ground a few inches for rodent burrowing and covering it with hardware cloth. If not it just might be a rodent buffet out here in the high Az. Mohave desert. I started one in my green house to protect it from vermin but in turn had an infestation of roaches. I do use diatomaceous clay to warn off aphids and grape fleas. I can get rid of the roaches with it but I'm told it can also harm worms. What say you SW-VG's?? Any suggestions??
Be me. Move to Arizona. Buy land. Cheerfully set up plastic composting tumbler. Add kitchen scraps. Add worms. Next day find plastic bin is has been turned into a drying oven. Worms AND kitchen scraps cooked through. Moisture gone. Try again. This time put in shade. Add water. Leave worms out... just in case. Composting oven now a slow cooker... With STEAM function. Give up.
You'll get the hang of it, try using a big cardboard box, they work great! and maybe move worms into the garage or on the porch if you have some space, that might work better. You can always bury your plastic worm bin under a tree, that keeps them nice and cool all year, just gotta watch out for roots getting in. Good luck!
1. Your video is magnificent. Finally, someone's talking about desert composting--and not advising us to go to a nearby forest and rake up leaves. Your desert-composting tips are as good as gold. 2. May I please make a respectful suggestion? I want all desert-composters to see your videos. May I respectfully suggest that you try not to say, "y'know," so much, when narrating? I want you to get a million views, and I know my suggestion will help. 3. Thanks again for your wonderful video.
This is my home pile that I add food scraps and yard trimmings to whenever I have them, so it's a "cold" compost pile. As long as I keep adding material it will decompose at a pretty steady rate so the bin never really feels like it's getting full. I don't really pull compost from this pile, it's mostly for me to dispose of my food scraps and yard waste. Maybe twice a year I'll turn it because the outside of the pile tends to dry out.
so as far as the no black bin suggestion, I'm a little confused. I heard the ideal temperature for hot composting is 150, wouldn't this help it get that much closer? as long as you keep it wet obviously
I use one. It gets over 120 here. I run a drip irrigation sprayer inside the bin. This thing composts lightening quick. Veggie scraps. Cardboard. Grass clippings. Leaves. It all goes in. It turns into black rich soil unbelievably quick.
Hey NM. While compost should get to 150 degrees in a healthy thermophilic pile, it should only stay at that temperature for a limited time before the temperature begins to go down and other types of bacteria take over the pile. If the pile is heating up from the sun, it's not actually "composting" it essentially baking or cooking. Thermophilic piles are great, but they are usually constructed all at once and are very large, much larger than any compost bin available on the market. Most backyard gardeners and home composters who use bins or barrel type systems are not building big piles, but adding food scraps and lawn trimmings a few times a week. These types of piles do not heat up the same way large thermophilic piles do, this is a different type of composting. It is possible to perfect the use of black barrels, but it does take some getting used to which is why I don't recommend that method for beginners. Good luck with your compost!
Hi there...I have horses and want to start composting their manure before spreading it on my pasture. Any videos or tips for this in AZ? I've found some great info on composting manure, but not really anything specific to doing this in a desert! Thanks.
Hi Susan! one great way to compost horse manure is just to mix it about half and half with wood chips and wet it down. You could make a very big pile with a tractor and keep adding to it. It's best to compost horse manure for a long time and wash out as much of the salts as you can. I would also avoid spreading the composted manure on your garden and instead use it around your landscape plants and other parts of your property.
Is it ok to compost eucalyptus leaves and branches? I’ve heard they leach something into soil that prevents growth. That’s the bulk of yard waste other than grass clippings that I have.
Yes it's perfectly OK to compost eucalyptus leaves. There is some belief that because little grows around the base of eucalyptus trees that their leaves can be "allelopathic", but i think it has more to do with the fact that the trees out compete most plants trying to grow near them. You can also compost oleander leaves with no worries of there being any transfer of the toxic compounds found in the leaves.
Everything you say is true, but to say that the manure has salt, I don't think so, the soil of the Phoenix area is salty, 4 miles from my house is Morton Salt. The only thing that I have heard from experts is that we put a lot of water before planting in the hole so that the salt that can affect a new plant goes away a little later when it grows it adapts to our soil.
"Salt" doesn't necessarily mean Sodium Chloride or table salt, it can be any number inorganic minerals that dissolve in water. Magnesium, sodium, potassium, and chloride are all types of salts and the presence of one doesn't necessarily mean the presence of another. Phoenix tap water is full of salts and any compost made with that city water will also contain those salts, which is why many gardeners in PHX use water filters on their hoses. Manures, regardless of origin, have high concentrations of salts so when combined with salty or "hard" water they can accumulate to high numbers that can be detrimental to the growth of plants. If you want to know more about the salt content of your specific soil, you can send a sample to IAS labs in Phoenix and get what is called an EC or electrical conductivity test which measures salts in your soil.
insects and bugs are required for composting, they break down the materials small enough so that fungus and bacteria can convert it into nutrients for plants. That is one of the main reasons tumblers don't work, they don't allow for insects to start the process. Good luck!
In Southern AZ we're still reaching 100 degree days in late September. In Tucson it's a little wetter than Phoenix we get about 13 inches of rain in a good year, but it's usually a bit less.
I made this bin using Concrete Reinforcing Wire from home depot. I lined it with 1/2" Hardware Cloth also from HD to keep small bits from falling out. In a desert climate they work better if you also line them with some cardboard or something to keep the wind from drying them out. You probably could get away with just the concrete reinforcing wire and cardboard and leave out the hardware cloth but I like it. Good Luck!
I've been wanting to make some compost here in az and I always though it would be too much hastle.. thanks for the video.. unrelated question why did you blurr out the amazon logo once the van stopped? I had to stop the video and go back to see that again LOL
I've composted cactus before but it tends to be difficult to work with because some of the glochids and smaller thorns end up in the finished compost. If you're going to compost cactus it's best to use the finished product somewhere around the landscape like under a tree perhaps.
Cockroaches are important desert composters, we even have a few native species here in the Sonoran Desert. That being said, if you don't want them in your pile you can turn in very frequently, at least once a week or more. Unfortunately compost piles have all of the things cockroaches love, moisture, warmth, and food so you will need to work very hard to keep them out or try and learn to work along side them if you can. I wish you good luck!
Definitely! Guinea poo is similar to rabbit poo in that it is a great source of nutrients for plants and composting. You can also compost any hay you have left over and even the bedding materials like pine shavings or sawdust.
Hello, sorry I missed your comment! Using wood to build the bin shoud be OK as long as it's not treated with any type of chemical that is not food safe, so heat treated pallets would be OK. For making the compost you can use any plant materials that you know are not contaminated. Sorry again for late response, good luck!
