First batch of johnson-su

2023 August 5

Filled IBC Tote cage to 39 inches with mostly dry grass clippings and some smallish wood chips from a chip drop.

2023 August 6

Removed air hole supports and covered. There was no air hole collapse. Also watered with 1.75 gallons.

2023 August 8

I installed automatic irrigation. Up to this point I had been watering with a watering can. I used spot spitters as recommended.

I bought the spot spitters from IBS, but they are also available in the Phoenix area from Sprinkler World and Ewing (call ahead to see if they have them in stock).

The spot spitters require a 1/8 inch ID spaghetti tubing but the standard 1/4 inch OD tubing has a larger ID than that. The 3/16 OD spaghetti tubing that they are intended for is hard to find and usually comes in 1,000 foot roles or larger. Instead I bought vinyl tubing from home depot with 1/8 inch ID for $6.02. I only used about an inch of the tubing per spot spitter. The vinyl tubing can be pushed over a standard 1/4 inch barbed coupler.

I noticed that if you push the hose all the way onto the emitter it doesn’t put out as much water. It seems better to leave a gap between the end of the tubing and the shoulder on the emitter to allow water to flow freely. Probably 1/16 inch is enough.

I scheduled them to run for 80 seconds every day. I measured the flow rate (put a spot spitter in a gallon bottle and time how long it takes to fill up) at about just under 5 minutes per gallon for a single emitter (I’m using 6), but you may get a different flow rate depending on your irrigation setup.

2023 September 8

The compost dried out, which is unrecoverable. It seemed like I either plane didn’t provide enough water, or the emitters put all the water at the edges. I dissembled the pile.