I'm thinking being out in the boonies and not having to deal much with too many neighbors (we do have one grouchy one next door) is a blessing. I can throw all my weeds, fall and spring clean up, etc. on a pile in the timber where there isn't any poison ivy and see what happens!

And Rick you always manage to make me laugh

I do have some leeway since it's woods and wetlands behind my property and compost pile, etc kinda blends in. But the frontyard and side garden bed - I feel pressured to keep it neat - sort of.

My crazy neighbor on one side is compensated for by a nice guy on the other side. I thought he was VERY standoffish for a long time, since he was almost invisible and fled inside if I started walking his way.

The we spoke and he explained that his legs hurt so bad that he never risks getting stuck in a conversation where he might have to stand in one place even briefly.

Much later while pulling tough weeds from clay, I did a back-flip, almost cracked my skull, and lay there for a minute getting my breath back. He came limping over to be sure I was OK!

Good neighbor!

I'm glad you have at least one good neighbor there, Rick! Have you ever thought of moving to a more rural area without an HOA?

I have a compost question. Years ago I bought a Gardeners Supply compost tumbler. It's a huge thing that can be rotated daily. I followed all directions, filled it with chopped green and brown and kept it damp but not wet. Tumbled it daily. Nothing happened. Even today, 9 years later the stuff inside is exactly like it was when I loaded it in except now it is home to a few spiders. Arizona is dry, but I did dampen it and tumble it. What happened?

I don't know, but can speculate:

1. AZ: maybe the Sun gets so hot that it kills compost microbes faster than they can eat the organic matter?

2. Worms and insects never could get in, or they die the first time it dries out or gets hot.

3. I DOES let plenty of air in, doesn't it?

(I don't think you keep it too wet, or you'd mention the stench and slime.)

Try keeping it in shade, and watering more often so it never dries all the way out.

Maybe tumble it LESS often?

Scatter a handful of decent soil in the tumbler every week or so, to be sure it has plenty of microbial and larger living things to eat the raw material.

Can you spill some of the contents onto some real soil for a few weeks, to allow everything living that it needs, to migrate from soil into compost? Then feed a shovelful of "real living compost" back into the tumbler every week or two.

I've never used a compost tumbler, so I'm just shooting in the dark.

I think you're the first person I've read about whose compost did NOT (eventually) rot. When it happened to me decades ago, my heap was mostly pine needles and, I guess, far too acid to do anything. Then one year I limed it, and it imitated the Wicked Witch of the Whatever, when she got wet. It dissolved almost overnight.

Maybe one of your ingredients is (somehow) a potent killer of microbes (like very acid or very basic). Could one of the ingredients have had a lot of persistent herbicide? I never heard of that killing soil fungi, but maybe.

Someone who uses a tumbler may have a much better idea.

Maybe dump it all out and let it be rained on a few times to flush any speculative contaminant.

>> Have you ever thought of moving to a more rural area without an HOA?

Well, I live in an over-55 manufactured home park where we RENT the tiny spaces, but OWN our own homes. And my manufactured home is old enough that only cost me $25,000.

Around here, any lot with or without a home on it would sell for at least ten times that much, so not in this lifetime. The one time I DID own a real stick-built-house on a lot, the work to maintain the lot was HUGELY more than I could do myself while working 9-6. All I did was whack weeds, not garden.

In that case Rick you're better off gardening

Yup! And now that I'm older, 9-6 leaves me with even LESS energy. But I have grandiose plans for when I retire.

Hopefully I can even get "Attila the Gardener" to approve of my yard.

She has a gorgeous garden on a corner lot. I call her "Attila" because she only gives a purchased plant two chances: it can either thrive right away where she put it, OR get a second chance in a second location. After that: it's dead and gone.

She was polite once or twice while I was doing more work outside, but the only thing that really got her ADMIRATION was the time I bought a cubic yard of crushed stone (grit-size). She ran her hands through and through that while enthusing like it was gold dust. I offered her a few wheelbarrows-full, but she didn't take me up on it.

No compost bins here. And I simply throw whatever weeds I have in a pile. It all breaks down eventually.

Thanks for your thoughts about the composting in the tumbler. Dumping it out for a while might get it started. I may have tumbled it too much. I don't think I had any herbicides in there.

When I was a kid we had a huge lawn, and my dad dumped all the grass clippings in what we called "the back half" of the property. Those piles of clippings only got rain and no other treatment, and they composted beautifully in our Arizona weather. I used to play in it, and was amazed at how it turned into "black gold"!

Rick, I can see why you stay! You have a good deal, and definitely don't need to try to buy and move.

Once I have time and energy to take full advantage of my yard, I have an almost perfect situation for myself. (Except for crazy neighbors and the power-mad park owner who hates cats.) Cheap!

Because it's on a corner /cul-de-sac, I have a bigger yard than my neighbors, which is nice, but it IS a manufactured home park, so even my "larger" yard is tiny compared a "real yard" that would be too much work to maintain.

And now that they are assassinating trees, the entire front is gaining sunny spots.

Rick I hate to see them assassinate trees (unless they are diseased or dead) On the other hand - new options for sunny plants

Legalily said:Rick I hate to see them assassinate trees (unless they are diseased or dead) ...

I really agree. The park is currently (or was) really nice, green and pretty with lots of trees that have been there longer than the houses. Now some parts look like any other, grim, sterile lifeless "trailer park".

Sigh.

Kind of like a new subdivision in the middle of a field - no trees for several years

RickCorey said: The park is currently (or was) really nice, green and pretty with lots of trees that have been there longer than the houses. Now some parts look like any other, grim, sterile lifeless "trailer park".

Hate it for you.... What about your yard?
Washington state should actually have fast growing trees..... Maybe plant some and then put a cage around them?
I tried transplanting some mulberries at my house to the property line where the stupid electric personel killed everything, and caged them to protect from herbivores.... But alas, too dry for success.

As far as compost goes... I toss weeds in pile, it's too dry here to worry about seeds.... Except for a couple of real trouble-makers.

When I bring plants in, they are always accompanied with enough seeds for years of a couple of born-pregnant evil invaders....

You might want to google mulberry weed and chamberbitter.....

From seed to flowers is like 2 weeks.... And a month after missing one of these dudes, thousands of progeny!
Those specific plants go into the barbeque.

But.... Chenopodium, amaranth, Sesbania, senna, and many others are actually encouraged.... I need all the help in soil building I can get.... And besides, I have songbirds like mad at my house.... Eating seed from my weed thicket.... I dug out the blackberry briars last winter and spread horse poop all over my front yard... The chenopodium promptly sprang up.... And now.... Seed covered brown stalks fulla birds! Yay!

But.... Any wet stuff from inside the house gets buried next to the weed pile(s).
Eventually I level the piles leaving the compost several inches thick.... Which actually helps to prevent weeds, they're all buried too deep to come up!

stone said:
Hate it for you.... What about your yard?
Washington state should actually have fast growing trees..... Maybe plant some and then put a cage around them?

The cage wouldn't protect anything from my major pests - the neighbor and the park manager that seem to hate all living things.

My yard still has great, old pine trees in back, where it would have been expensive for them to cut them down.

Bah hum bug on your neighbor and park manager

RickCorey said:

The cage wouldn't protect anything from my major pests - the neighbor and the park manager that seem to hate all living things.

My yard still has great, old pine trees in back, where it would have been expensive for them to cut them down.

That is disturbing.

A lot of cities are passing urban forest protection ordinances.....
Maybe something to look into?

From Seattle
http://www.seattle.gov/transpo...

Thanks very much, but it looks like "City of Seattle" and "public places".

The park I live in is on private land, and outside Seattle city limits.

But that would have been good ammunition.

I could come up with some ideas, but they might get you in trouble

Same here.

I lived in New Jersey for 10 or so years. Many things occur to me that would be "inappropriate" in civilized surroundings.