Wed 22 Jul 2009
I’m tired of buying bagged compost.
We have had a synthetic fertilizer free landscape for the almost two years we have been in our first home. I really started gardening this year (pictures coming soon!) and I’m using compost to jazz up the tender new plants. Rusty and I decided to look into buying ourselves a composting system, and this week I got ambitious.
I did a lot of reading on GardenWeb’s Compost forum and figured out that I can make this as simple or as complicated as I want to. I decided to go simple, for now.
I went to Lowes, looking for metal chicken wire but found an alternative that looks just like it, same size holes, but lighter and easier to cut - it’s some kind of recycled plastic that’s 3 feet high. I’m going to put that on the ground in a circle that is at least three feet wide and fasten the edges with zip ties. Then I found stakes that were four feet high so I can snake them through the holes in the plastic netting and stake it into the ground. I can fasten the edges with zip ties. Done.
When you compost, I’m reading that it will go faster if you combine “brown” and “green” materials. For browns, I will have shredded paper from work and will bring in the cardboard containers to shred too, which my town won’t take for recycling (cereal boxes, etc.) so I’ll finally have a use for those. Shredded newspaper and fall leaves are also good browns that I will be able to get my hands on.
For greens, I’ll have lawn clippings, things that I prune like flowerheads and coffee grounds. I already have a garbage can full of this stuff, so I’m assuming one of the two bins I create will be full the first day.
From there, I could do things like add water to make it moist but not wet… Turn the pile… Sift the pile… Poke holes in it with a pitchfork for air circulation… But I don’t know if I will. I know I won’t have ready compost this year, especially since it’s pretty much dead over the winter. I can be patient. I’ll have something to look forward to picking up again in spring!
I will update with pictures when we build them and update as I go with the progress. :)
Last Update: 9-19-09
Well, I was right, it’s easy! I measured the bins 3 feet around…
I used many more zip ties than I had intended. I spaced them about three inches apart because I realized that once the material was in it, it would separate unless I reinforced the seam. I set my bins at their final location and drove the stakes into the ground about a foot. I also secured them with metal U-shaped stakes at the bottom so nothing could tip it over. It’s been weeks later and so far, I have had no critters in or around them. Probably because, of all the things I put in there, I don’t put in food. I don’t want that kind of trouble!
I was gung ho the first week or so, with taking temperature and trying to sift the pile. Then I all but gave up! With fall and winter coming, I thought I would keep piling on the material and in the spring start doing some more sifting. The compost will break down, just slower.
Since smaller pieces make for faster degradation, I bought a cross cut shredder on sale at Staples. I also rip up leaves that go in there too.
That’s about it! Feel free to ask any questions if you like, by comment or email. I hope this helps!
