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If you love the bag, we appreciate your pictures! |
Ann Arbor, MII have an 8' x 10' raised bed of one year old asparagus plants (I put in the crowns in 2009, that is). They are planted in 3 rows, about 18 inches apart in 10 foot rows. During the summer, I put the full compost bags flat on the soil between the rows. Two wonderful outcomes: fewer weeds, and an ongoing supply of compost 'tea' for my asparagus from any water that seeps through the bags, through the compost, and into the soil! I intend to do the same this year as it's a great place to keep the full bags until time for screening. The 3 pictures are: the current bag-in-use hanging from a bench on my deck, about 4 feet from my back door; 2 pictures of the full bags (3 of them) awaiting spring near my old compost can. Interestingly, I now only use the can for 'overflow' of leaves or what's left after I screen the bag compost. |
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New Berlin, WII live in a townhouse condo with teeny backyard. I bought a compost bin at Menards to camouflage my bags in the garage. Inside the bin two full bags and one I need to close up soon. When it was warmer I took the bags out of the bin and smacked them around on the ground a bit to get the contents mixing and put them back in the bin. I keep a pair of gardening gloves nearby for the purpose! I hope these photos help promote your bags which are great! |
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Augusta, GAOur bag generally sits near our deck in the back yard to make it easy for me to dump kitchen scraps into it. My husband, Art, dragged it to the lower yard to get a picture of it. It was full when I started but it's composting well. Although the background shrubs and trees look great, the soil is really clay and needs a lot of compost and top soil. I love my bag!! |
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Madison, WIYou can see that I have two of them in a big flower pot in the raised plot next to the house (and one resting in the snow next to them) so I don't need to walk through the snow to the compost bins in the back of my yard. Note that I use the smaller bags as the others would be too heavy for me to carry I think.. I believe for me this application will be the most practical use of the bags... I did it last winter as well...Yes, i loved the idea initially (when I saw the write-up in the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINAL) and have found the bags to be useful--particularly in lousy Madison, WI weather--when I don't want to make numerous trips to my zillion composters in the far back part of my yard. As I said earlier, in the winter, it's a delight to just walk to the end of my driveway and add my kitchen waste to a bag... I did this last winter also and then just added the bags' partially composted contents to the big composter in the spring... I suppose I could have just left the bags as is to finish, but was on a "cleaning everything up" kick... |
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Ann Arbor, MIHi Nelson-- I hope spring is shaping up to be nice where you are. We've had a string of really nice days and I'm finally getting out to my gardens again! Here are 3 new pictures from today. I tried to 'tell a story' with them, beginning with the pile of full bags, followed by the bag contents pre-screening, and finally the results. The compost is wonderful. I feel like the more I use the bags, the better I get at it! |
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Flint, MIHi Nelson and Karen, I set my bags out and we took some pictures today that I wanted to share with you. |
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Whitewater, WIHello, I got the email from you in February, but at that time my compost bag here in Wisconsin was covered in snow! I just finally opened it today to plant things, and found I have some really nice compost after just a year of mainly just sitting in the bag, so I am impressed. |
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Recent Posts
Nov/Dec 2008 HortIdeas
Compost Comfort® Compost Bags
To us, this is one of those "why didn't I think of it?" ideas that makes a lot of sense: put materials for composting in durable fabric bags that are permeable to both air and water! It could make handling compost much less messy at all stages, from gathering the materials to applying finished compost to garden beds. Perhaps most significant, compost is extremely easy to "turn" by just flipping and shaking its bag. And, when needed, water can be added through the bag. There are two sizes of Compost Comfort® bags available: 9 gallons (1.13 bushels) and 18 gallons (2.25 bushels). For a large compost pile, you can pile up several bags. The bag fabric is Coolaroo® outdoor "knitted shadecloth" with a 10-year warranty against ultraviolet damage. Special long-life TENARA® thread is used for all sewing. The bags are made in Arkansas.
Jan 1 2009 National Gardening Center National News
Bag That Compost National Gardening Association Editors
Composting has many benefits, including enlivening soil, reducing food waste, and reducing the amount of organic matter going to the local landfills. However, many gardeners find composting a messy, back-breaking process. Even with compost bins and tumblers, filling, turning, and emptying those composters can take work. Now a new product makes composting a little more portable and easier. The Compost Comfort Bag is a UV-stabilized, polyethylene bag that is durable, reusable, and lightweight. Just fill the bags and stack them free-form in a pile or place them in a compost bin or tumbler. The bags have holes for air flow and watering to aid in the decomposition of the raw materials. Instead of moving the compost to turn it, simply flip the bag. When the compost is finished, open the bag and pour it into a garden cart to distribute or directly on the garden. Even if you have a composting system that you love, these bags can be used to store raw materials to be added into the compost pile later. The bags come in two sizes (9 and 18 gallons) and should last for years.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, March 8, 2009
Garden Variety: Convenient Composting Jan Riggenbach, gardening writer and author (Midwest Gardener's Handbook, Ortho's All About Perennials, HGTV Landscrape Makeover, etc.)
The challenge: When your compost is "cooking" in your bin or tumbler, you have no place to put new compost materials. You don't have enough space in your small yard for additional bins or a second tumbler.
The solution: Put your compost ingredients in reusable Compost Comfort Bags before putting them into your bin or tumbler. By using bags, you can have compost in various stages of finishing all stored in one place. The bags are available in two sizes: 9 gallons (1.13 bushels) or 18 gallons (2.25 bushels). Compost Comfort Bags are made of strong, durable fabric that will last for years, and the seams are double-stitched with rot-resistant thread. The open weave of the fabric allows entry of air and water, both needed for the composting process.
Pluses: Instead of tedious turning with a fork, you can hurry along the compost process simply by flipping the bag. Water runs along the fabric fibers for more even distribution, rather than pooling or running off. Having your finished compost already in a bag makes it easy to deliver where you need it. Even if you have no place for a compost bin, your plants can still enjoy the benefits of homemade compost if you stash a Compost Comfort Bag under a shrub after filling the bag with yard wastes.
Minuses: If you use one of the large bags to store finished compost, you may discover that it is too heavy to lift. Completely filled with damp compost, it can weigh as much as 50 pounds. (The bag will be much lighter, though, if you fill it with a mixture of green and brown materials for composting rather than use the bag for storage.) At about $40 for a large bag or $30 for the smaller size, the bags are fairly expensive, although you do get a price break for buying multiple bags.
Nancy Quay, Master Gardener, Ann Arbor, MI
Jul 8, 2009 (after 6 months experience)
I LOVE the bags! They are so easy and clean to use. I'm finding about a 4 month cycle although I'll bet overall it takes about 3 months (factoring in winter versus summer weather here in Michigan).
I am happy to recommend the bags because I think they're a major addition to the world of composting.
Another thought I had was how apartment dwellers with container gardens could even use the bags, whereas a 'fixed' compost pile would be impossible for them. The bags stay neat and odor-free which would be a major advantage for people in apartments or condos.
Apr 25, 2009 (after 3 months experience)
I'm enjoying using the bags very much although I don't yet know how long it takes to turn the bagful into compost. Our temperature here in Michigan has been pretty cold this year up to the past week, so I think the contents of the bags spent a certain amount of time frozen!
I have all three bags going. One I started with the kitchen scraps 'green' material, then added 'brown' leaves, etc. The second I started with the 'brown' and then added 'green'. The third I have going right now is an ongoing mixture of green and brown.
The first one is looking pretty good although not yet ready to be screened. It's been in process about 6 weeks. The second one has been in process about 4 weeks. The third has been going for about 2 weeks. I have learned to chop the kitchen scraps into smaller pieces which should speed up the process.
Overall, I am very happy with the bags because they are so easy to use. Even full of the mixture I can easily move them about and toss them over to keep the compost 'cooking'. They have no smell whatsoever, and they're so portable I have them in several locations around my yard.
Andrea Salsbury, Kansas,July 11, 2009
I purchased one large compost bag. I am pleased with the quality of the materials and how affordable the bag is considering how long it lasts. It has performed well compared to our compost tumbler and 3-bin compost system in terms of ease of use and time it saves us. It helped us collect materials in the late winter without having to make uncessary trips to our compost bins out in our garden. I'm pleased that the bag is environmental friendly as well as durable.
M. Tamborino, Hubertus, WI, July 21, 2009
I have a small compost pot in my kitchen that I use to collect compost scraps. I would take the scraps to a bin in the garage that in turns gets dumped into the bags to be taken to the compost bin. No mess! No flies!
Michael D., San Antonio, TX November 4, 2009
My mother started raising me as an organdic gardener at eight years old. The compost pile was a key element in the education. I purchased a used tumbler some years back and it served me well enough. untill it rusted out, But it had a draw back, in that I was adding kitchen and garden clippings to finished compost. I needed to compost in stages and your bags really solved that problem. You have come up with a great product.
We use the bags to compost in stages. Before we discovered the bags, we worked with one large bin to do all of our composting. This was inefficient because we had to wait long periods of time to let the fresh organic matter catch up to the matured compost. The bags allow us access the compost when we need it. We have about 4 to 6 bags in rotation which makes our vegetable garden and flower beds very happy!
Alice Jones, Street, MD, July 9, 2010
Last Summer I obtained several Compost Comfort Compost Bags from Nelson Wong's Less Work Gardening Inc. website (http://compostcomfort.com/16401.html ). The main features that appealed to me were the long lasting life-span of the bag's material, the way the bags allow excess moisture to drain from the composting material, and most of all the convenient portability of the bags. You see, I live on 3.1 acres of land which has several very prolific apple and pear trees. Each year during the Fall harvest season, I process thousands of apples and pears to make various fruit preserves. During processing, quite a large quantity of peels, cores, and rotten fruit accumulates. Trying to compost all of this debris into usable compost usually takes quite a long time when it is thrown onto my compost pile. Additionally, since I work full time, most of this processing is done in the evening after I get home from work. Previously, once a scrap bowl was filled, I often had to stumble around in the dark to take it to my compost bin in order to empty it. Now I simply keep a few bags near my back door and emptying my scrap bowl is a quick task done in a well-lit area. Once filled, the compost bag is easily left near the back door until the next day when I'm able to move it during daylight hours to where I wish to manage my compost.
I use the medium bags; so the bags are easy to carry without mess and make "turning" my composting material an easy and quick process. The bag material easily allows the bag's contents to be moistened, should that be necessary and the size of the bags makes it easy to simply pick up and toss the bags into a new pile when it is necessary to "turn" the compost in order to keep it well mixed and aerated; though, not much actual turning is necessary in order for air to reach a bag's contents even when they are piled up.
Another nice feature about using these composting bags is that once a bag is filled, its contents are not repeatedly contaminated with fresh debris, as is done when using a compost bin or tumbler and which usually slows down the ability to obtain compost that is uniformly decomposed. Each bag is able to assist with the decomposition of material that is all about the same age, since newer material is simply placed in the next available bag and not back into a bag that has partly decomposed material, as happens with regular compost bins and tumblers. This is a particularly attractive feature for "lazy" composters or gardeners who work full time and have a minimum amount of time to "play" in their gardens. Also, the contents of the bags appear to be composting at a faster rate than previous debris accumulated during past harvest seasons, another plus. One final plus is that when it's time to add the compost to my garden, I simply carry a bag to where I want it and either simply dump out its contents or scoop out handfuls and put the compost where I want it. No more first shoveling contents from a pile into a lawn cart before it is moved to its final usage site.
