Organic Gardener's Composting eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Organic Gardener's Composting.

Organic Gardener's Composting eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 224 pages of information about Organic Gardener's Composting.

Though advertisements for these machines make them seem effortless and fast, shredders actually take considerable time, energy, skilled attention, constant concentration, and experience.  When grinding one must attentively match the inflow to the rate of outflow because if the hopper is overfilled the tines become snarled and cease to work.  For example, tangling easily can occur while rapidly feeding in thin brittle flakes of dry spoiled hay and then failing to slow down while a soft, wet flake is gradually reduced.  To clear a snarled rotor without risking continued attachment of one’s own arm, the motor must be killed before reaching into the hopper and untangling the tines.  To clear badly clogged machines it may also be necessary to first remove and then replace the discharge screen, something that takes a few minutes.

There are significant differences in the quality of materials and workmanship that go into making these machines.  They all look good when freshly painted; it is not always possible to know what you have bought until a season or two of heavy use has passed.  One tried-and-true aid to choosing quality is to ask equipment rental businesses what brand their customers are not able to destroy.  Another guide is to observe the brand of gasoline engine attached.

In my gardening career I’ve owned quite a few gas-powered rotary tillers and lawnmowers and one eight-horsepower shredder.  In my experience there are two grades of small gasoline engines—­“consumer” and the genuine “industrial.”  Like all consumer merchandise, consumer-grade engines are intended to be consumed.  They have a design life of a few hundred hours and then are worn out.  Most parts are made of soft, easily-machined aluminum, reinforced with small amounts of steel in vital places.

There are two genuinely superior American companies—­Kohler and Wisconsin-that make very durable, long-lasting gas engines commonly found on small industrial equipment.  With proper maintenance their machines are designed to endure thousands of hours of continuous use.  I believe small gas engines made by Yamaha, Kawasaki, and especially Honda, are of equal or greater quality to anything made in America.  I suggest you could do worse than to judge how long the maker expects their shredder/chipper to last by the motor it selects.

Gasoline-powered shredder/chippers cost from $700 to $1,300.  Back in the early 1970s I wore one pretty well out in only one year of making fast compost for a half-acre Biodynamic French intensive market garden.  When I amortized the cost of the machine into the value of both the compost and the vegetables I grew with the compost, and considered the amount of time I spent running the grinder against the extra energy it takes to turn ordinary slow compost heaps I decided I would be better off allowing my heaps to take more time to mature.

Sheet Composting

Decomposition happens rapidly in a hot compost heap with the main agents of decay being heat-loving microorganisms.  Decomposition happens slowly at the soil’s surface with the main agents of decay being soil animals.  However, if the leaves and forest duff on the floor of a forest or a thick matted sod are tilled into the topsoil, decomposition is greatly accelerated.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Organic Gardener's Composting from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.