You might call your local city/county public works dept and see if there's a refuse transfer station nearby. They often have an area to dump yard waste(trimmings and such).

You need bigger compost piles. The volume is more manageable if you reduce the size of material you add -- i.e. don't throw the whole stems in, crunch them up with the mulching mower first.

I could no more throw away compostable material than cut off my right arm.

People here haul them to the dump- there is a place for dropping it off. If I had to do that and didn't have a pick up truck, I would get a utility trailer for that purpose.

We have a lot of land and there are areas I haul stuff off too but I also drag off huge, heavy tarps filled with stuff all the time! I have wondered how hard it must be when the average homeowner has to dispose of clippings.

I've created a three story building sized brush pile down the road.... actually, several of them.

Our landfill has a special section where you can dump yard waste free of charge. It's inconvenient and sometimes takes several trips if we are doing a lot of edging or taking down bushes, but there is really no other choice. The trash company won't take it. If they see even a tiny amount of trimmings in the regular trash, they will leave the whole can behind.

Totally Confused

I agree that you need a bigger compost pile. I have more than an acre that is probably 2/3 planted in gardens. I generate ALOT of refuse, and I compost all of it but big woody sticks (more than 1/2 inch in diameter) and weeds with seeds on them. In late winter, I top dress beds with the compost and there is NEVER enough of it. I'm with mary. You are wasting a valuable garden resource by throwing it away. (As a matter of fact, in the fall, I cruise neighborhoods and pick up bags of leaves for my compost pile!) P.S. I rarely turn my pile. I just let it sit all year. Once it goes on the beds, it completes the process very quickly.

Not all of us have a yard large enough to allow for large compost piles. Or live in a community that is receptive to the idea. Sometimes you have to do the best you can within the confines of the options available to you.

Totally Confused

I wish I could have a huge compost pile but I just don't have the room! My yard is pretty big but most of it is devoted to the gardens (hence my problem!) and there just isn't enough room for anything but a large-sized bin behind the barn. I accumulate several car-sized piles of brush every year, and that doesn't including any lawn clippings, so a compost pile that would accommodate all of it would need to be gigantic.

I'm going to see if my town has an area of the dump where we can get rid of all this brush. Thank you so much for the suggestion, I hadn't thought of that before!

I process most of my yard waste with my 16HP John Deere riding mower. Now, John Deere obviously doesn't approve, and a couple of family members get a little nervous about it "you're going to ruin that thing! You can't grind THAT up!"

Well, I've been doing it for something like 15 years now. I pull out all woody branches over about one to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. And, I also try not to grind pumpkin or squash vines unless they're really dry, as they just wrap up around the blades.

But, it's amazing what will grind.

I haul most of it out into my lawn, start with the blade fully up, then gradually lower the blade as I make repeat passes. The final pass is done at about 2 inches, and then I put on the bagger and suck it all up. If it's really wet and heavy, it may have to dry in the sun for a day.

Afterwards, the heavy sticks and a few stalks that won't grind go into the garbage cans for municipal yard waste pickup.

The ground up material is used as mulch.

It's amazing how a giant pile of brush and stalks can turn into a little bit of nothing this way.

Yeah, I know, NOT an approved method, but it sure makes short work out of it.

I agree that it would be nice to compost all waste that comes out of your yard, but sometimes it just isn't practical or 'do-able'. I have a cold composter half hidden in the back yard for green kitchen scraps, grass clippings and leaves. Next to it I have an old bin holding more leaves.

The neighbors have a 'Green Can' and if there is room in it at the end of the week they let me put in stuff. The trash people do not check the trash cans here, so I also put green matter in there too (cuz' the worst thing you could add to trash is decomposable matter?!).

Sometimes it takes awhile to get rid of the pile-ups, but it does all get used or tossed eventually!
CMK

We get curbside yard debris pick up every week with our garbage service. We have a large green plastic trashcan on wheels for this. All kitchen food debris goes in it too. A new system, they are going to compost it all to keep it out of the landfill. We've been doing it a year and are happy with it. We have a tiny trash can for trash that is picked up every other week, alternating with recyclables in another big can on wheels. We can put as much yard debris in big paper bags from Home Depot out at the curb for free. Used to pay three bucks a bag but they've changed that. This new system has been great, previously I had a lot more yard debris than would fit in the smaller can provided and would use the neighbors and have to pay for extra bags almost every week.

There are several local bark/mulch/compost/rock suppliers that will take in yard debris for a small fee. We have a truck but you can rent them at Home Depot for twenty bucks. We take big stuff there and then bring home compost.

We have two black plastic compost bins too. We aren't good with watering and turning them but they do some work for us...

I have a tiny 'yard' of about 15 feet by 45 feet - yes that is the whole area outside my house, not just the 'garden'. I have a compost heap even in this tiny space. It is made of wood and sits unobtrusively behind a shrub. I can't understand how anyone with a large yard does not have room for compost heaps. If you have several on the go it doesn't matter how long they take to break down because there's always one to add to.

I also have an allotment about 2 x the size of my home garden and I have four compost heaps there, 2 pallet bins and 2 plastic bins. Cold composting is a no brainer and is far less trouble than bagging up waste. Don't listen to all the compost obsessives who frighten people off with their wittering about greens and browns and C:N and temperatures and 'doing it right.' Any pile of organic matter will give you compost if you just leave it alone. A yard with a barn(!) is definitely big enough for a row of compost heaps.

I agree with donnabaskets that this isn't refuse - it's a resource. .... and I'm wondering if you ever spend money on 'amendments' which your yard could be providing for you free of charge.

OP - where do you live?

I haul mine into my woods. I know, I'm fortunate in that regard. I live on about 9 acres, most of which is wooded, and it's that really messy New England woodland, with lots of underlying brush, and even a swampy area, so my refuse just blends right in and degrades easily. We also recently put in a firepit which is a little over 36" in diameter (actual fire bowl, not the outer dimensions) and that is handy for burning, although with our ice storms and wind storms and trees which don't root strongly in the granite which is everywhere, we have more downed trees to cut up and burn than we know what to do with.

That said - some towns have special facilities for yard waste. And, some people even want fill. Someone down the road from me is looking for fill right now for an excavated area near their house. Sometimes local newspapers will have requests like that in the classifieds.

I compost everything, including yard waste and kitchen scraps and still somehow never have enough compost to go around and at least 1 of my compost piles always seems to have room. Some things are reduced in size by the lawn mower running over it as denninmi described and then composted. Most of the autumn leaves never make it to the compost pile; they get run over multiple times and then raked back into the lawn or used to mulch flower beds. I can process all my stuff that needs composting from all my gardens as well as periodic additions of manure in a space that's a little under 3 1/2' x 12' and can be up to 4' high (except for really large branches which go into the woods) and I actively garden what's probably more than an acre of beds, mixed borders along with a large veggie garden. Can you widen your compost area behind the garage?

My mum lives in a suburb where you can put sticks and other yard refuse out for recycling, either bundled in less than 4' lengths or in brown yard refuse bags. (I do most of her gardening.) In my small rural town, there is an area of the town transfer station where yard refuse is collected and composted for those who don't compost.

When I cut back half a dozen butterfly bushes, pampas grass, many huge lantanas, and 18 knockout roses, it generates a ton of brush. I don't really think if it as future compost but as woody, thorny sticks- brush.
For ten dollars, a huge scoop, I can buy the brush turned into nice mulch. Well worth the money.

That's a small portion of what is cut back each year, btw.

I have a place where I dump all used potting soil and then when needed use it to amend planting holes but a 20 foot compost pile would be unpractical.

I use a compost bin for kitchen scraps, but for garden refuse there is a compost pile behind both the front and back garden. They are just a pile on the ground, rarely or never turned, approx. 5x10 in size. After a few years, I usually move the piles and expand the garden into the area where the compost pile used to be. The plants tend to grow great in those spots!

When cleaning up the gardens, I don't usually rake out or remove everything. I will use shears to chop up the smaller stems and grasses while cutting them down, or cut up the small shrubbery trimmings and let them mulch in place. Also I let some of the leaves stay in the garden to mulch the larger perennials and shrubs.

You could mow or shred stuff up to make it smaller, or mulch more things in place; create some lasagne beds if you want to expand or rework a bed, or for the veggie garden each winter. How about a wire mesh bin, where you can pile the organic layers up higher in a smaller footprint. Wetting the stuff down might help compress it too.

I'm lucky enough to have plenty of space for my compost piles (8 acres). But within the city limits they have yard refuse pick-up which goes to the municipal compost site. Some other cities pay to truck their compost-able materials here. The compost is then blended with peat, bark fines, perlite etc. and sold as premium grade potting soil.