You Down with IBC, Composting?

I slept off and on for most of the morning watching Phillip run his rabbit dogs through the window.

Checking on the pond the water level had changed.  I put a shovel in at the waterline to better monitor the level.  Just a stick in the ground wasn't really cutting it.  I took a five gallon bucket to see how much water was flowing from the hose left overnight.  A five gallon bucket and a pressure gage are essential to planning irrigation of crops.  Start your timer as you start filling up the bucket.  Do the math when the bucket fills up, and you have your number.  I'm getting about 7 gallons a minute delivered to the spring a little distance up the hill from the pond.

A pressure gage available most hardware stores for about $10 and easily shows the pressure after being attached to the end of a hose.  There are pumps that vary pressure between a range.  For example a pump will pump up to 60psi when the level hits 40psi.  This is show in the model designation of a 40/60 pump or something similar.  The other type of pump is more efficient and newer in design.  A constant pressure pump will pump the determined pressure regardless of how much usage there is.  The pressure does not fluctuate.

A while ago the neighbors, Freddie and Laurie gave me an ibc tote that originally contained wood glue.  At the time their factory had a list that people could sign up for them.

I planned to use it to move water to different points with the use of the tractor.  Having approximately 300 gallons of water anywhere is definitely a benefit.  I hosed out much of the glue and put a little bleach in hopes that would sterilize it.  The next morning I came out and let out the water.  I don't know if it was the bleach or that I forgot to remove the top as the water flew out.  I came back later and the plastic part had compressed to half of the original size.  I will get pictures of that tomorrow.

After much thinking about what to do with the container two options remained.  Use the basket to move split firewood or use it to hold compost.  After starting construction on the holz the other day, it pretty much narrowed it down.

This idea works well with an idea I had several years ago.  A mountain house rests on the ridge and uses compost in the flatter parts down the mountain where row crops are easily planted.  The plan was for a compost fall where through the use of pulleys or hydraulics the compost would be transported down the hill through a series of boxes.  The top box would dump into the lower box with a little help from a pitchfork and the pattern would continue down to the fields.  Four or six boxes would be minimal I think.

I loaded up the metal frame with the rabbit and chicken bedding.  A lot of care can be taken in balancing Carbon and Nitrogen ratios.  This is not an example of this.  You can see the darker under layers that have been decomposing for about three months.  Ideally I should have put them on top of the new stuff but the old stuff was in the way of where I wanted to put the metal frame.  I hope I can get some more of these.