I'm with the guy who fears for the ankles of anyone near that thing while it's running. A galvanized steel washtub might do the trick: it would also be MUCH MUCH LOUDER WHICH IS AWESOME.
Thanks. This looks like a great "get around to doing it one of these days" Project. Meanwhile, I'll most likely just continue to apply the electric rotary lawnmower to piles of stuff to be composted -- or to justify being lazy by merely piling-up the stuff and letting Nature take over for a year or so, which involves less of a Carbon Footprint. (On the whole, I like compost better than tilled-in green manure, if only because good/hot composting destroys a lot of weed seeds & pathogens.)
I've lusted a proper leaf grinder since I've had leaves to shred. The blower/shredder requires two passes and the mower doesn't quite cut it. OTOH I use a push mower rather than a motored one and buying a powered mower to make a hack would give me a bad case of cognitive dissonance.
If I ever make such a thing, I'll look on Craigslist, or freecycle, or some such. I suspect an electric one will do as well.
There are some things to be said for using it to mulch for compost, esp. if one had limited space. It can be moved to where the pile is to be, smaller = faster composting, etc.
Could use a light electric weed trimmer with one of those plastic blades instead of the string. It wouldn't chop as much at one time, but it would have a much lighter usage footprint.
Yup, I'm with you on that, mostly. (Except that I'd say "chop" rather than "mulch", which I tend to reserve for "a layer of something on top of the soil", and that I think of "green manure" as producing/adding its own nitrogen as it breaks down, whereas woody/dry/brown material tends to temporarily borrow some N from the soil.)
I suppose the device pictured appeals to the "Oh, cool & ingenious Toy!" that's so strong in the nature of many people I know.
But of course there's a size-related difference in practicality that can also operate to form preferences. For small home gardens like ours, shredding & composting first, then either using the finished/sifted compost as a mulch or immediately working it into the top foot or so of soil works swell. For a larger area or farm -- where a roto-tiller or tractor-drawn disk harrow is routinely used -- that's pretty much out of consideration. There are also the factors of soil consistency, and climate. Some soils need to have coarse organic material worked into them, for aeration and water-penetration, much more than others do, and in warm-winter areas like SoCal the beneficial physical effects of coarse, uncomposted additives tend to be longer-lasting than those of compost. I tend to compromise, screening and applying compost almost as soon as the pile cools enough to be comfortable to work with.
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Date: 2009-04-21 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 05:09 pm (UTC)But that's me. I like compost better for the weeding, and because I don't acrifice some of my hard won fixed nitrogen to rot the green manure.
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Date: 2009-04-21 06:21 pm (UTC)I've lusted a proper leaf grinder since I've had leaves to shred. The blower/shredder requires two passes and the mower doesn't quite cut it. OTOH I use a push mower rather than a motored one and buying a powered mower to make a hack would give me a bad case of cognitive dissonance.
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Date: 2009-04-21 06:29 pm (UTC)There are some things to be said for using it to mulch for compost, esp. if one had limited space. It can be moved to where the pile is to be, smaller = faster composting, etc.
So the dissonance can be mitigated.
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Date: 2009-04-21 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 05:45 am (UTC)I suppose the device pictured appeals to the "Oh, cool & ingenious Toy!" that's so strong in the nature of many people I know.
But of course there's a size-related difference in practicality that can also operate to form preferences. For small home gardens like ours, shredding & composting first, then either using the finished/sifted compost as a mulch or immediately working it into the top foot or so of soil works swell. For a larger area or farm -- where a roto-tiller or tractor-drawn disk harrow is routinely used -- that's pretty much out of consideration. There are also the factors of soil consistency, and climate. Some soils need to have coarse organic material worked into them, for aeration and water-penetration, much more than others do, and in warm-winter areas like SoCal the beneficial physical effects of coarse, uncomposted additives tend to be longer-lasting than those of compost. I tend to compromise, screening and applying compost almost as soon as the pile cools enough to be comfortable to work with.