How to compost grass clippings successfully using a washing machine tub! Aerobic vs anaerobic test.

hi guys Kristen Altamira shockula today's video is just a little experiment on grass clippings on small scale composting I've just mowed more lawns here at the back of the shop and when I say lawns I really mean weeds just around all my junk and if you're interested in having a look at my backyard and its amazingly disturbing state and the cleanup process I'll put a link up here I'm doing a series on cleanups but look these grass clippings I just mowed around the back of the house which was kind of more grass it's Buffalo and all sorts of other weeds and then there's a couple of spots near the drain pipes that are quite lush some broadleaf weeds and then at the back nature strip that's dried off a bit so there's some more dead grass and some Bolly grass it's gone up to here so what I think that will provide is a really good mix of nitrogen and carbon now when you read about composting you read that you know you should have layers of rich nitrogen or greens and then layers of Browns this is kind of all mixed up so I reckon that'll compost world just on its own the whole point of this is just a quick easy composting method for your grass clippings and I went to look around my compost bins and there are more currently running worm trials in all of them so I thought all right let's try something different quick look around I find this old washing machine barrel now I often sell these as fire pits but these more modern ones have a plastic section around the top some were filled with water some have a like a plaster or concrete type compound and the white gives the barrel balance and allows it to spin properly so because that's plastic this one's no good for a fire pit and even if that was removed which it can they're just screwed in the remaining barrel then is quite flimsy so that actually gives it a bit of strength so they're not really any good for fire pits but as a little compost bin they may be perfect you'll see it's got good aeration as holes right around all the sides and the bottom and where the gear box came through I just put a bit of a mesh screen over the top so that all the content stays inside and I've propped it up on blocks so there's going to be really good air flow and what I'm thinking is the compost should heat up as grass normally does but because it's got really good airflow it shouldn't need to be turned or tumbled the heating process are believing in composting is bacteria working away and a critical part of that reaction is oxygen and that's why if you have a pile of grass clippings in a bucket or in a enclosed container they will go smelly they'll actually go anaerobic and the normal compost process with the good microbes doesn't happen and you get a different family of microbes I think in anaerobic condition but it does get smelly it gets sort of slimy and it's not at all Pleasant so we'll try this method I should have enough grass clippings here to fill that washing machine barrel and we'll just keep an eye on it and see how much it heats up and whether it actually does make nice compost reasonably quickly ok I've used all of the grass clippings as you can see it's filled it up domed at the top I didn't compact it too much I want the air and the oxygen to stay in there so I could have pressed it down and probably even got a little bit more in but I didn't want to compress it too much so now all we need to do is leave it let the microbes get to work and we'll stick the thermometer in tomorrow and just see if it's starting to heat up okay it's 24 hours later the as you can see the grass has sunk down a little bit it's got a really nice sort of a pleasant smell to it [Music] it does feel a little warm on the on the stainless steel and if we have a look at the thermometer she is cranked right up into the hot zone 140 degrees Fahrenheit 60 Celsius that's a really good temperature it will be interesting to see how long this little experiment holds its temperature normally a small pile of grass like this would probably heat up for a day down half maybe two and then cool down because it uses up all the oxygen now because this one is vented underneath and around all the sides it might continue to cook a bit longer so all I'll do now I'll just spray a little bit of water on the top to keep it damp because it being hot it will kind of dry out and that will stop the bacterial action anyway so we'll give it a little bit of water and we'll check the temperatures tomorrow hopefully it's still hot and now we're up to day two of this washing machine barrel composting experiment it's the contents the grass clippings have slumped in quite substantially today and there's a quarter are not as strong but a more noticeable aroma and sort of a sweet silage type smell so that's some brilliant have a look at the temperature it's actually even hotter than yesterday so that's really good I think the extra oxygen coming through the holes in the barrel is really helping because I would have expected a small amount like this to start cooling down the second day so I'm feeling around the barrel but actually you can actually feel the heat around the base so that's excellent I'll leave it for another day and have a look bin alright day three quick update on this little composting experiment it was in straily endure the thermometer and it's as hot as it's been I think it's about the same as it was yesterday but that's an excellent temperature as I've said the grass clippings are slumping down even further and you'll see they're kind of pulling back from the sides so they're breaking down very quickly still a sweet kind of silage type smell so that's good I can still feel the heat through the middle so day three and it's still nice and hot is really I think that's starting to prove that the oxygen flow through this barrel is really helping it I'm absolutely sure if I did this little composting experiment you know enclosed tub or barrel without the airflow it would have cooled down by now and probably gone quite stinky because it would have ran out of oxygen so we'll check it again tomorrow we're now up to day four and if we have a look at the thermometer the temperature has finally pulled back and still in the active zone just under 120 Fahrenheit or about 46 Celsius and it's not surprising that's pulled back because there seems to be hardly anything left the the pile of grass clippings doesn't really afford a lot of room for the thermometer working it's probably less than half considering it was piled up fairly high when we first started so that's really good in that it stayed hot for a good long extended period of time considering the size of this pile there's no nasty smells I'm tempted to dig into it but I won't just yet we'll leave it another day or two and just watch the temperature drop back a bit and see if it slumps down anymore but then I will dig it out and we'll have a look and see what it's like but before I do post this video I've actually decided I'm going to do a a comparison test with this closedrier barrel it's round about the same size and there's no holes so to be really interesting I would expect the grass clippings will certainly go anaerobic and probably start to smell a bit there are some holes at the bottom of the dryer barrel but I'll put a piece of vinyl or something over that too to block the airflow and this really will demonstrate the value of of EFT flow through a composting situation and why the tumble ones work because when you tumble Li the material you're introducing oxygen the large compost bin style ones that are around I kind of need to dig over every now and again which is a bit of hard Yakka but auric and this is a great use for washing machine barrels and I might even start marketing them as as little compost bins because of their aeration characteristics there may even be a good little worm farm option too because of course your worms need oxygen through the the material that they're working on alright well I'll keep checking this for a day or two and next time I'm onna lawns I'll do a trial in that draw a barrel and then we'll do a comparison at the end of this video okay day five we'll do one final test on this little composting experiment the temperature has finally pulled right down so it's barely warm at all but as I mentioned in the last section there's hardly any materials left so I'm gonna tip it out now given that it's supposed to rain tomorrow I figured we'll have a look now or before it gets some drenched and we'll see what the end product looks like so I've just upended the barrel into this tub here I'll have a look through you can see that it's could have been molded still is a little bit warm inside I can feel a bit of warmth mm-hmm but um it's not stinky it looks like it's breaking down nicely it's actually compacted itself a little bit grass around the edges going a little bit slimy but generally it's it looks like it's starting to break down really nicely you know certainly not unpleasant and that's reduced in size substantially from what we put in this barrel initially and the sieve the little strainer I put on the bottom must be in here somewhere I'll find that in a minute but um yeah it's it's been a really interesting experiment so I think well we'll get a bit of a measure here without it being compacted it's pretty well filled that tub wet so I could probably just spread there around my garden or get added to an hour's just a slow cold compost bin to rot down further with the mold and bacteria going on here I reckon I reckon the worms and get into it now and the heats disappeared mostly so probably really good won't occur so I might spread a little bit that on a spot I've got and let the worms get into it but we'll certainly do a comparison test remember this was five days we'll do a comparison test and I've decided I'll use the same barrel rather than the drier barrel to keep things everything to keep everything sort of identical all um perhaps align it with something to stop the airflow and then we'll do a comparison test but I'll have to wait till I'm a more lawns next so I decided to put this the blue tub of grass clippings that had been hot compost and into my little compostable worm farm here because they'd reduced from I think as you remember three full tubs at the start down to one tub in five days I thought we might as well follow the degradation of these grass clippings to the end and see how long it takes so they've been in this little drum for almost three weeks and if you have a look here the worms have just gone ballistic in these now and I knew they would because the mould had started on the grass had started breaking in with the heat and you know the worms are getting into them beautifully there's um there's spring towels in there as well all nature's little compost as a hard at work you know that tub full of grass clippings has pretty well been reduced to a thin layer because see under there there's eggshells which was in here before I added them so there's only a thin layer left here and it's being broken down very quickly let's have a look under the other map there's sliders and there's mountains of worms so what a great way to process your grass clippings five days in a hot compost situation which has the bonus of killing any weed seeds and then into a little compost situation keep it damp and the worms will get into it beautifully and I'd say in another week or two that'll be pretty well totally just worm castings so that's worked really well but we will do the comparison on a similar amount of grass clippings in a washing machine barrel which doesn't have aeration so it's similar size similar conditions but just not the aeration and just see how it compares just to show you how important the oxygen is to the composting process okay time to do the comparison test now of mode more lawns again same three tubs same quantity same materials with a grass if your broadleaf weeds and the barley grasses come up to head so there's sort of some lush type grass and there's a bit of drier stuff so similar mix to last time and we're going to use the same barrel and I've actually lined it with it's actually an old windscreen reflector they are just sort of lined around the inside and just cut a few pieces to cover the base so the good thing is that it's any fluid to any leachate that happens to develop and drain through so and yet we'll pretty well stop the airflow so just about everything's going to be identical so we'll fill up the tub and we'll set the test going and there we go she's fully loaded and that should look pretty similar to where first test it some fall over the top piled up a bit not it's too compacted so there should be a bit of airflow around it so we'll stick the thermometer in tomorrow evening 24 hours later and then we'll do it consistently each day for a bit and see how it compares with the initial test so day 1 of this second composting test and you can see that the grass has slumped down substantially and the temperature is very hot it's just over 150 degrees Fahrenheit about 65 Celsius so that's probably even a little bit hotter than the first attempt and I can smell wet that sort of sweet silage type smell I can feel the heat it's even a bit warm around the side but it has been a fairly warm day here all the same wearin just into summer almost into summer now so you know the ambient temperatures a little bit warmer the last time we did it however that's to be expected I would imagine though that the oxygen is going to be used up fairly quickly so the interesting to see what happens over the next two days we'll check it again tomorrow evening alright time to do the temperature test on this composting experiment day two and we've got a bit of a hiccup I've had dum a terribly windy hot day today it's been a total fire ban it's been over 40 degrees Celsius which is well over 100 Fahrenheit and the wind has brought down my apricot tree so no major drama that I've obviously got to prune a few branches back so we can test the temperature alright so now we've made a bit of room stop the thermometer in and it's um it's hot it's off the scale as far as the three segments go 160 fahrenheit 70 Celsius that's very hot the grass has slumped down a lot it's pulled in from the sides it's definitely hot mind you it's as I just mentioned it's been extremely hot here today so whether that's got an impact on it I don't really know that but certainly really hot but it'll be interesting if it keeps the heat and that's what the test is going to be there's no ventilation it may actually cool down and turn anaerobic we'll check it tomorrow night okay we're at day three now and if we have a look at a thermometer the temperature's pulled right back the grass has slumped down mostly in the first two days and it hasn't got much further so what was initially about the same for the first two days of each composting test day three is a huge difference as in the original test day three was still very hot and day three here is pulled right back day four and the other one was about the same as this and continued to slump down of it the smell was much the same it's not bad at this stage but we'll leave it a couple more days and then we'll tip it out and do a comparison but certainly it hasn't stayed as hot as long which is pretty well what I expected day four on the composting test now and I'm actually away today and I had a friend take some photos so he's a couple of photos to show that the temperature is right back infected that's pretty much just the ambient outside temperature so it is heat seems to have gone in this but we'll check it again tomorrow and just do a final check so day five and I figured this would be my last check but for some reason the temperature struck right back up into the hot zone I don't really know why I certainly didn't expect this this was don't we only went five days on the initial test and I chipped it out and it was pretty cold but this one I've just stucked at the moment as you can see there and it's right back up almost to as hot as it was there's obviously been some heat generated because the grass on the top looks to have sort of been dried off a lot the smell has gone a little bit off it's got a bit of a sort of a sickly smell to it now there's clearly a lot of hot heat in there and if I have a quick peek in a little bit I can feel the heat with my fingers it looks very wet and bit slimy so I'll have to do some checking on this clearly the oxygen was all used up and it cooled down which I expected but I didn't expect it to heat up again now whether because it's anaerobic now because I've assumed there's no oxygen perhaps there's another strain of bacteria now that I've taking over and they're generating their heat in anaerobic situation so I'm not sure I'll do a bit of reading and I won't tip it out tonight I'll check it in tomorrow and just see where we're at thing all right we're up to day six on this experiment and it's still holding its heat it's um quite hot the grass is compacted down further but a couple of noticeable changes that no longer has a sort of as nice sweet solid smell it's actually starting to smell bad there's flies and little bugs hanging around more so than what we had before so I did a bit of reading and apparently an anaerobic situation can actually generate heat as it breaks down so clearly that's what's happened we've gone from an aerobic composting and then once the oxygen running up the heat died down and now it's some those bacteria have been killed off and different bacteria and I started the air their process and it's some generating heat again which certainly surprised me but now that I've read about it it makes a bit of sense so we'll keep monitoring this for a couple more days just to see how long it stays hot there's certainly not much volume left but it's going to start to smell bad and I'll talk a little bit about and aerobic composting in the next section so we'll check it again tomorrow okay and just like that it cools down just one day and this has dropped right back into the steady zone which at 30 degrees Celsius it got to about 30 here today now it probably wasn't quite that hot so there's the pain certainly enjoyed in the grass is looking disorderly yuck it's starting to essentially go off which is your anaerobic situation since no oxygen can circulate through so what we'll do now is we'll tip it out into this blue tub which I tipped the other water out into you remember on the first experiment and we'll just see what we've got all right so quantity wise we've got a similar size this one actually went seven days instead of five but if we look into it now it's actually very wet it is moldy but it's it's quite slimy and it does smell it smells rather unpleasant so this is clearly lack of oxygen there's new types of bacteria getting in here and they're breaking it down and it is a form of composting and aerobic composting but I think they call it digestive compost or something like that it's essentially a beautification where you know there's been juicers droop out the bottom that did a sort of a leachate this is really slimy it's rather unpleasant to deal with there's lots of flies starting to hang around it so that's what's happened is we ran out of oxygen the bacteria that were thriving in the oxygen-rich composting situation all died off and it's very dense now it compacted down in the middle and then a new strain of bacteria that can live without oxygen started their work and it creates a very unpleasant product and it would continue to rot down it takes quite a long time this method and I believe it becomes very acidic and what I read about anaerobic composters essentially it it needs to sit for nearly 12 months the advantage is you can put anything in there and you keep a lid on something to keep it airtight and you won't get the smells but it's rather unpleasant to work with until it's finished and then I believe it's very acidic so not suitable to put on the garden straightaway the worms certainly won't like it and it needs to revert back to an aerobic type bacteria to sort of neutralize the acidity so that's what I believe well from what I've read that's how I believe it works so experiments successful in it this little washing machine barrel makes an excellent hot composting tub for the aeration when I blocked the aeration off it hot compost for a couple of days then dropped off quickly and then started to heat up in a different sort of composting format as we've discovered which isn't at all pleasant to work with I need to go and wash my hands now they smell quite bad and it would only get worse if you were going to leave something in this form of composting you'd need to have a lid on it have an airtight container but um yeah the experiment was to see how this tub goes and it works really good for grass clippings composting when you get the airflow through so I'm going to be using that for my grass clippings it would also help to add a bit more carbon there wasn't a lot of carbon with these grass clippings they're very high in nitrogen but it was a good subject to do a test on for this barrel so okay thanks for watching this video kind of went on a bit of a tangent but we followed it through and we I think hopefully understand a bit more about composting now and I'm certainly going to be pulling these barrels out of washing machines that I get in the e-waste scrap okay we'll catch you in the next video bye

Channel: The Ultimate Recycler

Views: 55,180

Keywords:

Id: 3zP5a0ZVvWQ

Length: 26min 31sec (1591 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 12 2019