Thanks
@Rasta Roy .
Then I will haul 10 tonnes to my buddies. Start the next batch
. How many tonnes of grass would you suggest
@greasemonkeymann, about 5? so about 50% of the current total?
Im thinking add 1 tonne of bio char per 10 tonne compost mix, I might have a source on some already made naturally by giant forest piles that caught fire under the surface, but if not, we could make some in a field as well. Just enough as we need.
wow man... that's gonna be the mother of all piles
so lets do some math here... a typical sawdust carbon ratio is roughly 500-600 to 1.... yea, that's right.. VERY high in carbon.
so the typical ratio of grass clippings (fresh, if dried it'll be a higher ratio) is 17/1
so in order to get that pile to the needed to the normal composting ratio it's gonna be a LOT of clippings.
we discussed a fungal driven slower type pile right?
so you'd want to go at a higher carbon ratio for that, which considering the sawdust is possibly THE highest ratio of carbon to begin with i think it'll be relatively easy.
a 6/1 ratio of grass to sawdust will get you a rough ratio of around 86/1, that would have a pile go fairly slowly, and waaay more fungal composting
BUT that'd take damn near a yr to finish probably.
remember that's by weight, not volume, as the sawdust is fairly light, so you don't wanna do it by layering via inches/depth
if the grass clippings were fresh i'd guess the layering would be probably close to like an 2 inches of grass to every 6 to 8 inches of sawdust
but that's a guess, i don't know how fine/dense the sawdust is.
another thing to consider is that you may be able to find other sources of "greens" possibly for free
examples would be like chicken manure (around 7/1), coffee grinds from coffee shops (25/1) ,grocery store expiring/rotting fruit/veggie scraps (varies but around 15/1, to 40/1, (honestly better for worm bins but they'll work in composts too)
may even find deals on rabbit manure and the like, I've heard of people getting a whole flatbed load of rabbit manure for like nearly nothing
steer, horse, or other manures could be used too, but those are less rich in nitrogen, and higher in sodium content (neutralized in the composting btw)
if you are a lil confused on the ratios and the math it's simple
take all the carbon and add it up, take all the nitrogen and add it up, then divide the carbon by the nitrogen number.
so for example the sawdust is 500/1, so an 6/1 ratio with grass would be 602/7
that's the 6 parts of grass clippings (17 parts of carbon x 6) and the nitrogen added up (6)
so that's 102/6 ratio of carbon to nitrogen
add the 500/1 ratio of the sawdust and you have 602/7
then divide the carbon by the nitrogen
that's a 86/1 ratio, which is "lean" by composting standards, but it'd be a cold fungal driven pile that'd take longer but would entail less turning. BUT slooooow...
you'd need nearly a 11/1 ratio to properly get a good thermophilic compost going
honestly a sawdust pile is gonna take some time man, it has the highest carbon ratio of nearly anything you'd compost, shit even newspaper is like three times the ratio that sawdust is.
usually composters will advise people to go verrrrry light on wood inputs in a compost pile, solely because they take SO long to finish and it's hard to construct a pile with a lopsided ratio like that, especially with a fluffy input like sawdust.
think about it, that's 11 kgs of grass to ONE kg of sawdust... granted grass is heavy, but still, that's a helluva ratio man
i'd be looking at richer inputs ideally, and chicken manure is one that comes to mind, or fish product/slaughterhouse stuff
bloodmeal, fish meal, and the like
but those usually aren't free
