fish fertilizer

[Too Tall Toms]

About a week and a half ago, I sent an email to a local trout hatchery/farm asking them if I could have some of their fish "parts" left after processing. I just got an email from them asking me how much I need and when would I pick it up?

Wow.....how cool is that? That stuff is going right in my compost bin.

[Too Tall Toms]

I got two 5 gallon buckets of the fish scraps. Now all I gotta do is bury that in the compost bin.

[NBrink]

Hope you don't have racoons in your area...

[Too Tall Toms]

I've never seen one raccoon around here.

I just got done burying the fish scraps. I dug a 2ft deep hole in the pile and poured the scraps in and covered it with the compost I dug out.
After I was done, there was a nice manure/coffee ground smell coming from the pile.

No way any animal will smell the fish.

[Too Tall Toms]

When I buried that fish in the compost bin on Monday, I stuck a thermometer in the middle of it and the temp dropped way down to about 50 deg. Tonight, I uncovered the compost(I had it covered during the rain) and the temp was up just over 110 deg.

Wow!

[lakelady]

thats a great idea. They say the Indians used to put a fish in the planting hole, and I've really wondered about that.... my luck, the cats would be digging up the plants .

[Too Tall Toms]

I got home from work tonight and I was checking out the compost bin. It was still at 110 F so I fluffed it up somewhat and added water. That should bring the temp up.

I also noticed a foul odor coming from the bin. I KNOW it's because I didn't add enough browns to the pile. I have a big bag of leaves that I'm going to shred tomorrow. I'll add that, turn it, and put the load of rabbit manure on that(to cover up the fish smell) and I'll top it off with more shredded leaves.

That'll pretty much be it.....I'm putting the compost bin into "hibernation" until spring time