Paula, the best place to put a compost pile is the place that is most convenient for you....close enough to add items, far enough away that smell/bugs won't bother you. NOT that I'm admitting my pile ever, ever, ever smells or has bugs, but there is a rumor SOME people's piles do :)

I don't turn my pile, I just pile it, and bury fresh stuff in the center, covering it back over. Grass clippings, horse manure and scraps sounds like the pile will be heavy in nitrogen, you will want something "brown" to balance it out. (straw, newspaper/junk mail, leaves....) Too much "green" or nitrogen will lead to a stinky pile, especially grass clippings. In the summer when I add grass clippings, I pour it over the entire pile, trying not to get it more than six inches thick. There's nothing magical to my number there, just a "feel".

Caveat: I live in the city, so I don't have a lot of the roaming creatures other people do.

Lisa

Paula,

I agree with everything Lisa said and just want to add that her yard is so beautiful and her beds so well-mulched that you don't even notice she has a compost pile!

I have several compost piles and only one of them is close to the veggie garden. The others are farther away and I never turn any of them because here in our rural area they tend to attract snakes. So, for me, composting involves piling stuff up all summer, and then raking back the upper layers in winter and removing the lower, well-decomposed lower layers to add to beds. I flee at the sign of any snake in a compost pile.

I don't generally put grass clippings on the compost pile because large quantities of them can become quite slimey as they break down. I add them directly to garden pathways and beds all summer long, and generally no thicker than 3 or 4" at one time. (I have a lot of garden beds, so I don't usually have enough to put them on any more thickly than that at any given time anyway.) They decompose over the course of the winter, and I scoop up the grass clipping compost from the pathways in winter and put them on the beds right beside those paths. I like that much more than hauling loads of compost from a more remote pile. You can either leave your decomposed grass clippings on top of the beds where they form a nice humusy compost layer, or you can turn them under in the beds before you plant.

I don't even want to think about all the critters that visit my compost piles looking for yummy treats, but they include deer, coyotes, foxes, bobcats (don't know if they are eating stuff there or sniffing out the scents of other animals), ring-tailed cats, possums, skunks, snakes, voles, field mice, etc. I know NOT to ever step into a compost pile or dig into it during snake season. It is a wonder I don't have several heart attacks every summer when I encounter big, ugly snakes around the compost piles.

The scent of all these animals around the compost piles drives my dogs insane. When I let the dogs out of the fenced dog yard to play, they run and sniff around the compost piles and then go nuts running in circles trying to find the animals that left those scents behind. All our dogs sleep inside the house or garage at night. Otherwise, NO ONE sleeps on our property because if you leave the dogs in the dog yard, they bark all night at the roaming critters and varmints.

It isn't impossible to compost in a rural area with a high wildlife population, but you have to be careful about turning the compost and about adding/removing material to/from the piles. That's why I only remove stuff in winter....any snakes living in/under the piles are too cold to strike you when you uncover them.

Dawn

Paula, A compost pile enclosed in tin on three sides especially if made with so much nitrogen may get gooey and smelly. Compost needs some air circulation. We enclose ours with woven wire.

We tried Dawn's method of sheet composting grass clippings in the veggie garden, but unfortunately our two acres of pasture grass--it's not a lawn, but a former pasture--has lots of annual winter weeds and summer grasses, and they got started in the veggie beds. We can't afford to put weed killer on all 2 acres, so the grass clippings from there goes into the compost pile. I did put weedkiller on my new fescue pathways in the garden, so the grass clippings from inside the garden goes to mulch the beds.

And like Dawn and for the same reason we don't turn our piles or mess with them in the summer--found a little copperhead next to it just last summer--just pile them up and a year later spread them. (When we get the greenhouse up, I am going to build a compost pile in it in Dec using chicken litter and stockpiled leaves. I'm hoping it will heat the house.)

As to where to locate it, ours is in our fenced in garden. We build it a little at a time, but spread it all at once so want it close to where we spread it. Compost can be heavy.

We've given up on compost piles and, these days, feed all formerly composted things to the chickens, hogs, and goats. Saves on feed and gives me manure for the garden so it all works out. LOL

Like Dawn mentioned, look out for snakes in the piles even if you're in town.

SEE??? That's why I asked!

We do live rural, Diane & Lisa. And I'd never thought about snakes...is it obvious I'm a new "country girl"? I lived in south OKC until 4 years ago. Never lived rural before .... sheesh! Thanks for bring that up Dawn!

And Dorothy - thanks for the advice on the sides of the bin. I had thought of that but it does make sense....

so....guess it's back to the drawing board! I'd hoped to have a couple of months to compost some horse manure...but maybe not....will just have to see.

Thanks again, y'all!
Paula

Oh, great. Thanks alot guys. I've never once even thought about snakes in my brand spankin' new compost pile. ...and I'm a barefoot gardener deluxe in the summer.

Ding dang it!

Carsons Mimi- meeee too..so the thought of snakes creepin around...OMG!!!! But seriously, if we pay attention to "snake season" as Dawn calls it and be aware...we might all be able to co-habitate peacefully....or not.

Out where I live, I haven't seen many snakes but our land has been cleared (almost too much). The only time I remember a snake was a bull snake about 2 years ago in the spring. We had friends from out of state visiting and it was a wonderful Memorial Day morning. We were sitting out on the back deck, drinking coffee and chatting when we suddenly realized that all the birds were making a HORRIBLE RACKET! Just about 20 ft. from the deck is a red-bud tree w/flower bed and bird houses all hanging in it. There was a BIG bull snake making his way up the trunk. DH shot and disposed of it in the forest behind us. My In-laws have the adjoinging 2 and a half acres and they have at least 3 or 4 snakes every spring and again in the summer...and their land isn't as clear as ours (hence the invasive watching, LOL) So yes, those warnings have hit very attentive ears.

I'm rethinking the placement and ingredients in the "compost pile". But I'm not giving up...there are containers and other placements as Mulberryknob has mentioned...I've just gotta get over my fears. WE CAN DO THIS!!!!

For what it is worth, I've been here in rural OK for 11 years now and even though I have maybe a half-dozen to a dozen scarey snake encounters each year, I haven't been bitten yet. Scared to death? Heck yes, but never bitten.

Our son stepped on a copperhead while getting out of his car as twilight was approaching one summer night in 2004. I remember it quite well because Tim's best friend, his wife, their two sons and grandson were all here and we were sitting in lawn chairs watching the dragonflies and frogs around the pond at sunset. Our son called out something like "Hey, y'all, I just stepped on a copperhead" and promptly got back into his car. He was lucky the snake didn't bite him, and Tim shot it because it was just a few yards from where we all were sitting. So, even if you step on one it won't necessarily bite you, but on the other hand, it might. I have stepped over rattlesnakes in my garden several times and have had them as close as a few inches from my hand, and have never been bitten. Still, snakes do bite and snakebites can be serious. Someone in our county gets bitten every summer, and if it is a young child, they usually are transported to OKC or Dallas/Fort Worth via a medical helicopter. Twice in the last 12 or 14 years someone on the property right next door to us has been bitten by a copperhead.

I am far more likely to see a rat snake or chicken snake in/near the compost piles or chicken coop, while the rattlesnakes are usually in the lawn or in my veggie garden. I see copperheads most often on the edges of the woodlands, but you do have to be really careful when you use leaf as a mulch because the copperheads blend in with those leaves really well. Every now and then we see a water moccasin in the creek or in one of our ponds.

I spend so much time outside in the summer that every now and then one of our local electric co-op guys will stop and tell me "We've seen a lot of snakes out this week, so be careful". LOL

Finally, remember what it is that snakes like to eat....mostly rodents. You really cannot do anything to prevent field mice or voles from roaming loose in the wild, but if you have cats, the cats help keep rodent numbers low and that helps keep snake numbers low. Our cats have completely wiped out our mole and gopher population and they keep the field mice and vole levels very low.

Also, you can keep field mice and voles from visiting your compost piles to a certain extent by keeping a bucket of leaves or grass clippings handy and by pouring some of those on top of fresh veggie/fruit peels and other kitchen compost ingredients when you add them to the pile. If you just throw your kitchen compost ingredients on top of the pile, they will attract small critters looking for food. If the field mice and voles aren't coming to the piles, the snakes won't stick around lying in wait for them.

Dawn

I am so afraid of snakes that even a long worm makes me shiver; I can't even look at pictures of them in books. For that very reason I have made my first compost pile completely contained in a big lawn cart that I wasn't using. It has a hole for drainage in the bottom & I keep thinking I will make more holes but so far it has worked. I got a nice load of compost last spring & the best thing is I can wheel it where I want it. Turning it isn't as easy but I get in there with a garden fork & transfer it to a wheel barrow & back. It is off the ground a couple of inches on the bottom, but there is that hole, big enough for a snake. If I see one, I'm moving to Alaska!

EEK! I hate snakes. Now I'm gonna be watching the ground everywhere I go LOL.