I'll work for free compost!! :) We're just starting out, so I can't wait to have this "problem"!

Along the lines of Sunny Days' comment... time to invest in a "Compost for Sale" sign!

After a busy winter of stockpiling horse manure, leaves and woodchips to the tune of 40ish cubic yards, I thought I would have the same "problem". However, I seem to be using it as fast as I can find it.

Very cool! From the sounds of it you should be set for the next two years. I know you are a very experienced gardener and composter, but I'd like to offer a little advice - cover the ramial mulch with a plastic sheet and see if it starts to compost itself. And, thanks for sharing! Fun!

Ya I started out asking the refuse collector guy for a couple of small truckloads of leaves in the fall. Now I get around 500 metric tons of the stuff annually. Making compost is just plain fun!

toxcrusadr: Maybe it's time to construct a silo in your yard to store all that compost....

Claire

A silo, that would be awesome...the neighbors probably already think I'm crazy. The guy giving me leaves is cool but has a new kid and no time to mess with it. The people on the other side have a yard and patio right out of Better Homes and Gardens, very fastidious...I'm sure the wife peeks out the window like Mrs. Kravetz wondering what my latest heap is... LOL

The ramial mulch has already started heating up. The wife noticed steam coming off the top of the 4-ft tall pile this morning. It was 50 degrees out.

Lloyd, I can never hope to achieve your level of compost wacko. :-D

Lucky you!!! I'm in the city, while it's not impossible to get a lot of compost materials, or worm food, the choices can get pretty limited at times, a whole lot of tough carbons, and fresh green grass clippings are a pretty rare treat for my squirm, as 99.9% of local homeowners and landscapers seem to use fine-mulching mowers, now and few of them bag grass clippings anymore here. I have about 3 locals who have resisted the trend, but they tend to wait awhile between mowings. In the meantime, I can get WAY too much of ficus leaves one month, too much oak leaves the next month, too much pine needles, then too much sea-grape leaves and too much tithonia, then too much old mulch clean-out, and so on. Most of it all has to be chopped, shredded, crushed, soaked and composted to some degree before my worms get to enjoy it.... One question: How is your city compost? Ours has stopped because it was just awful stuff, for the most part.

Our city compost is not bad, it's pretty well composted and screened. There are bits of sticks (less than an inch long) but they don't seem to be a problem. They do use clean unpainted drywall scrap in it, which is good for the clay hereabouts, but it makes it fairly dense. The City tests the product now and then for nutrients and metals and posts the results on their web page. If I had a drum type compost spreader I would put 1/2" on my lawn in the spring but it's too much to try to spread by hand.

Grass Clipping Neighbor dumped another big load a couple weeks ago without checking with me so I had to deal with it. I was out of leaves at home but had an old half composted leaf pile at my rural property so I hauled the grass up there. Layered it with the half done leaf mold and pine sawdust from a torn discarded bag of compressed livestock bedding rescued from the farm store. That pile heated up immediately, reached 140-150, and is now shrunk by half. It's going to be great stuff by fall.

Still dealing with the shrinking piles of City compost and the ramial mulch but we're almost done putting it where it belongs - back on the soil. :-D

tox, I've long been curious... do you know if the chemicals used in drywall manufacturing are persistent, environmentally adverse, or carry any health concerns?

You may be at the point where it is time to say "no" to organic material for a while, or else...

Last few years I had people dropping off their grass clippings to me all summer. Mostly I spread it to dry and then used it to mulch. But this year there is only one person bringing clippings, about once every ten days. I really miss the contributions, but it is good that more and more people understand the sense of letting the grass clippings return to their own lawn.

toxcrusadr what you have is the exact opposite of problem and Richard Brennan that is an awesome compost !

I do have steamy compost envy. :-D

I also have rather fastidious neighbors so I have a pretty good sense of when to say No. Also, some of my soil (veggie beds in particular) are getting very high in certain nutrients so I'm cutting back on the composting. Used to have a triple bin and would fill the truck with grass bags on trash night...no more. More people are mulch mowing anyway so there isn't as much going to waste.