Business Opportunity

[Corley5]

Have a deposit on the buckets to encourage them to bring them back to be refilled

[Bro. Noble]

This thread reminds me of an experience I had as a youngster:

My folks left south MO. in the mid 50's when Dad got a job at Caterpiller in Peoria.  We lived in a subdivision where the soil had all been pushed off leaving a steril clay.  Making a garden is something country people in the Ozarks do,  and the folks did their best with what they had to work with.  After a few years of very limited success. Dad got a brillient idea while driving by the Peoria Stockyards :  He decided that the pile of stuff where the truckers cleaned out their trailers after hauling a load of hogs to slaughter would be just what his garden needed 8) 8)

Only one trip in the family auto with the trunk full of bushel baskets of dirty sawdust and straw drew strong protests from the fellows in Dad's carpool :D

I had just turned 16 and was easy to talk into jobs that involved driving,  so plan 'B' was adopted.  We hooked the aluminum fishing boat behind the car and I drove it through Peoria filled with Pig manure :D :D  At each stoplight,  I drew a lot of flies and dirty looks :D :D

[Tom]

what I want to know is..   If you store some of it in the barn with something to keep it damp, will it produce another batch of mushrooms?

[Engineer]

Tom,

Short answer to that is no.  I've tried.  The compost somehow becomes exhausted of spores (mycelium?) after which it is removed and disposed of.   I suppose you could re-introduce mushroom spores after proper processing and sterilization but it's probably not worth it.

I know the compost I used to get consisted of whole grain wheat, barley, some straw and horse whiz.   I wouldn't want to be a mushroom....  :( ;)

[Ianab]

what I want to know is..   If you store some of it in the barn with something to keep it damp, will it produce another batch of mushrooms?

Probably not, the mushroom live on the decaying vege material in the compost, once they have used all the usefull bits there's not much left for them to grow on. Putting more spores in wont help. Using it to seed some fresh compost would probably work though.

Cheers

Ian

[getoverit]

can you mix your sawdust with it and sell that as mulch as well?

I'm still trying to sell this 10 cubic yards of sawdust... maybe somebody will happen by that needs it ;D

[Ron Wenrich]

I tried that a number of years ago.  I had a Dustbuster, which is basically a debarker head that you pulls the slab through the machine.  It produced a very coarse sawdust.

I bought a load of spent mushroom soil and mixed it, about half and half, if I recall.  It turned the dust a lot quicker than other composting methods.  I did get a few mushrooms off of the mix, but I don't know if they were the good type or something els.

I'm not so sure how good the stuff is for gardens.  Isn't most of the organics already spent? 

I used to deal with a guy who marketed sawdust.  He was going to try to compost it.  But, he said that he had some stuff that would make gardens grow like wildfire.  Turns out that it was dust from particleboard, which is high in urea.  He said it really grew tomatoes.   :D

We used to sell bark mulch and load it with a bucket put on the forks.  We never had a problem with hitting a truck or trailer.  You get good with practice.  The biggest problem is when all the mulch comes out in a bunch and hits the truck bed.  It sets some of those smaller trucks down pretty hard.

[DanG]

The stuff we get here is still pretty hot.  It releases a big cloud of steam when you scoop it up.  It actually works best in the garden if you let it sit for a year before using it.

Remember the pics of my garden last fall?




I grew all that and more with one small scoop of this compost.  The white dot is a 5 gallon bucket. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

They do use sawdust on fields planted with blueberry to sour the soil. If you plant blueberries on a good field around here they don't do anything and barely survive. A blueberry has to be one of the hardiest plants and I know it ain't the climate. I sampled the soil here on the house lot a few years ago and it was richer than potato fields and the blueberries I planted never lived. What I'm always afraid of when using sawdust is some bad grub making their home in it and eating the roots.  :

[Onthesauk]

Each Spring I put down about 6 oz of azalia/rhododendron food on each of my blueberry bushes and then 4 to 6 inches of sawdust and water it all in.  I'm gardening in clay which is not suppose to be the best for blueberries but they do great with all the sawdust.  I used some manure and sawdust mix one year when I was first getting them established but all that did was attract the robins and they then hung around and ate the berries.  Still haven't found a good way of keeping the birds out.

Steve

[Buzz-sawyer]

Knowing that your fire ring needs tended and the fridge in the back needs emptied, recycled aluminum needs tended too, you are plenty busy....
Being that I am lazy at heart, and always trey to do it simply....why not get ahold of a hay bale conveyor....around here they are usually free or cheap.
Then build a pit with a tapered walled shoot...that can be opened closed....
these conveyors are for small square bales...and run on a 1-2 horse electric gearmotor...
Have it set up drive through style...no backing up...pull up to line hit switch and put out hand.

[Cedarman]

We load all kinds of mulch, logs, and lumber on trucks and we unload 3 or 400 pickups a year of cedar logs.  Keep your loader clear of the vehicle and slowly empty the bucket.  Insurance is a must to let you sleep better at night.  You are right to be concerned about it.  But keep it simple. You will get more comfortable as you do it. 

[Skytramp]

simple, fix the brakes,
     Or you could put down a wooden guard rail for them to pull up beside and to be doubly sure, affix another one for a stop block for the front tires of the tractor.
Sky

[dancan]

just get them to sign a waiver before they enter your loading area
one of the farms that i buy drop apples from dump the bins in a hopper set up and then you back under it and load apples roll , i don't know if compost would slide.

[DanG]

Thanks for all the advice and ideas everybody!  But, I've decided not to get into this right now.  I talked to the guy that's getting out of it again, and his reasons for getting out are my reasons for not getting in.  He runs a wholesale nursery with no walk-in customers, so he asked compost customers to call before coming by.  They WILL NOT do it, but just come on over when they see fit.  The guy makes a lot of deliveries in his core business, so he isn't always there, and folks raise all kinds of hell if they come by and the gate is closed.  I'm not always here either, and don't have any set business hours...never open and never closed.  I don't need the grief. :

[crtreedude]

Good plan DanG (or is that good DanG plan?)

I always consider it a success to kill a business plan. I know that is strange - but business ideas are a dime a dozen - or so they seem.

Recognizing one that ain't worth it is worth a LOT - both in time and money.

[Tom]

It sounds like the price would be right for fill and pasture improvement though.  Can you get the same price on a "just call" basis and not be in a retail business to sell it?   

A little, here and there, pulled around with a box blade could sure make for some pretty pastures in the future.

[DanG]

Yes I can, and I am considering just that.  The biggest problem right now is, how to get that semi-load onto the property.  I have to be real careful pulling my 20' gooseneck trailer in.  I gotta extend the culvert in a big way before any big rigs can come in.  The road is only about 20' wide, with deep ditches, so there isn't much swing room.  When I get that worked out, I'll go ahead and buy a load, then just sell to friends and sawmill customers.  I won't have any trouble getting my money back, and have a big pile left, to boot.

[UNCLEBUCK]

You run a nice garden DanG , looks nicer than the victory garden show. It takes a wise man to change his mind  ;) I guess it would be fun to buy the stuff on site and sell it at the same spot and give a small comission to the first owner but then the distance everyday might make it wrong and then the previous owner might see you making good coin $$$ . 

[Rockn H]

Dang, I bet I could pull my 53' dry van in towards the new house place and back it right back across the road and right down beside the barn towards the tracks.   That is, if there ain't a scrap pile in the way. ;D   A 22 yard dump should be able to make the turn through the gate if he (or she) :  were allowed to hit it at an angle before they had to straighten up.  Let'em make a 45deg turn instead of a hard 90.