How can tell you have gone over to the composting dark side? When you are helping your hostess fix a meal and you are trying to figure out how you can take home all the kitchen scraps even though you are a thousand miles from home and won’t be there for a week. Or when you try to sweet talk your husband into filling your truck bed with seaweed on a beach trip.
My first try at composting was a pile of horse poo from a neighbor and my gardening waste in a pile on the ground. There are people that compost successfully like that. But, it became obvious that I was not going to have enough green stuff for my pile on a regular basis. I don’t have a lawn and I am pretty sure all of my neigbors use pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers on thiers. The pile was hard to keep damp, I was worried about what medicines the horse was given, and the pile took a long time to break down and I am not that patient.
For my second attempt I dug a hole in the ground into which I put my kitchen scraps covered by some left over hay from the goat enclosure, with some worms and a little dirt. This was easier to keep damp, broke down much faster and was useable in a few months. I dug another hole next to it so that I could stop adding to a pile at some point, let it finish up decomposing and still have a place to put new kitchen scraps.
I am in the process of digging out this pile and using it. I discard the eucalytus leaves that inadverdantley get into the pile
One day happened upon a plastic compost bin at a big box hardware for 60% off so I bought it. (Many municipalities offer bins for very reasonable prices)
I do the kitchen scrap left over hay method in this box too, with some other odds and ends like dryer lint, my hair, dog hair and chicken poo.
I have started to use my garden waste again in the holes I dug because I have the quicker compost so I now have a total of 3 piles going at any one time.
This is my little covered bowl I put under the sink for kitchen scraps. Larger would be better but it is what I have for now.
Compost bowl, the lid is in the lower right
The moral of my story is that you do need a combination of greens and browns but everyone has to figure out thier own ideal compost recipe depending on thier personal organic principals and what they have on hand.
My next stop on the garden path? Vermicomposting. I’ve started. That will be another post.
January 7th, 2009 | Tags: Compost | Category: Compost | Leave a comment
