Can I compost without direct sunlight? - Yahoo! Answers

Can I compost without direct sunlight? - Yahoo! Answers: "Can I compost without direct sunlight?
My back yard has little to no direct sunlight due to the otherwise beautiful oak trees. I'd like to start a compost pile, but don't know if it's worth it without any direct sun to heat the pile. Any ideas or comments are appreciated!"

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
It really depends what you're composting as to how you should construct your compost heap or bin.

Kitchen waste is best in a wormbin which will be no bigger than a average dustbin.

The heat, you are referring to does not come from sun it is caused by bacteria and insects in the heap, the better the conditions ie good mixture of green materials high in nitrogen and High carbon materials such as leaves , woodchips.
The more it will heat up. If it starts to smell bad it is probably too much green materials.

As mentioned above a sheltered shady place will be ok. its stopping it from drying out or getting too wet The main priority.
Source(s):
I speak from experience I have my own allotment and run my own business , doing garden maintenance. And spent three years at a horticultural college

How to make compost on a bigger scale? - Yahoo! Answers

How to make compost on a bigger scale? - Yahoo! Answers: "How to make compost on a bigger scale?
i want to make compost as a bussines"

I agree with some of the mentioned above.

You would need to have permission from the local council , and possibly a licence to deal with waste. Not certain on the details.

This is something I thought of doing myself.

But my way would be , as part of a bigger company.

Like one charging companies to bring you the green waste. And processing it the machinery to do this is very expensive.

green waste. Woodchips from tree surgeons plus logs for processing for firewood.

Grass clippings , hedge cuttings from garden maintenance companies.

Waste manure from feedstock.

Soil from skip yards/ landscapers

just about anything You can process or compost.

As mentioned above , use the compost finished product to grow vegetables possibly even have some chickens , ducks.

It all depends how big you want to go.

It's definitely something we need more of to stop green waste going into landfills.

You could even grow worms and mushrooms as a byproduct to sell.

Possibly use a mixture of very well rotted compost and top soil to grow turf to sell.

But prepared for a lot of negativity , especially if the site , is near homes.

Passive Composting of Manure - eXtension

Passive Composting of Manure - eXtension: "Passive composting is probably the most common method used today because it involves simply stacking feedstocks and leaving them to compost over a long period of time. Very little, if any activity is performed on the pile once it has been constructed. Initial composting parameters can be controlled but are not usually maintained during the entire process. This process relies on mother nature to draw cool air and oxygen into the pile as the warm air is released. This process is commonly referred to as the chimney effect."

Passive Composting

Passive Composting: "Making Compost With Passive Approach
Making compost using the passive method is very simple. Anything that is organic from the kitchen or the yard is fair game. We are talking about weeds pulled from the garden, grass clippings if you don’t leave them on the lawn, leaves falling in autumn, and kitchen garbage (no meat products). The exception might be unshredded sticks and branches which take years to decompose and make working with the material in the pile very difficult. Although many books and articles describe precise formulas and ratios of materials for a compost pile, they are unnecessarily complicated. All that is really necessary is a supply of organic yard waste and a place to deposit it. Use a bin or a wire cage, or just dump the material in an open pile."

Vermiculture Growing

Vermiculture Growing: "Vermicomposting: using red wiggler worms (E. foetida) to decompose plant wastes into castings.

Why Use Vermiculture?

Worms are good for the garden soil for many reasons. Unparalleled as soil excavators, earthworms spend their lives ingesting, grinding, digesting and excreting soil--as much as 15 tons per acre goes through earthworms bodies in a year. These 'worm castings' are richer in nutrients and bacteria than the surrounding soil. Their underground burrows also create channels in the soils, which makes the soil more porous, allowing water to move to greater depths in the soil column. Worm burrows also allows for drainage after heavy rains reducing erosion.

Worms also help plants grow better. Plant roots require oxygen and worm burrows provide passages for air to get next to the roots deep within the ground. This is called aeration, analogous to what homeowners often do to turf lawn with heavy machinery. It should be noted that these deep tunneling worms also bring subsoil closer to the surface, mixing it with topsoil that has more organic matter.

Slime, a secretion of earthworms, contains nitrogen, which is an important plant food. The sticky slime helps to hold clusters of soil particles together in formations called 'aggregates.' Soil aggregates (clumps) lying next to each other permit air to move between the spaces."

Worm Bed Garden

Worm Bed Garden: "As much as I am a die-hard worm composting fanatic, I have always considered it as one “piece of the puzzle” in terms of creating sustainable systems - and oh, what an amazing little piece of the puzzle it IS!
:-)

I remember coming across a fascinating video online a number of years ago. Unfortunately I was never able to track it down again after that. It featured a ‘living machine’ system, containing a series of stages that all fed (literally) off one another - the waste of one stage essentially became the ‘food’ for another. It set up by Dr John Todd, a personal hero of mine who has been involved in this type of work for many years (he was one of the founding members of the New Alchemists back in the early ’70s)"

Farm Compost

Farm Compost: "It may seem ironic that the very animals you may produce your worms for would also be the predators you have to protect your worm farm from. If you just give the worms away to the predators, there isn't much point in trying to raise them for profit by selling them to the people or businesses that use them to feed the very same types of predators!

You must keep other things from harming your worm farm, of course. One of those things is the medication residue that is left in the manure you may get from livestock farms to feed your worms. Allowing children unsupervised access to your worm farm could be hazardous for your worms."