Saturday, January 07, 2012

Compost pile

When I first saw this apartment back in June, I saw the back yard area and I began dreaming grand dreams. In my mind there was a garden, with veggies and flowers, and a compost pile in the corner. I was eating salads that I grew myself, and all of the waste was being composted. Now, here we are January, and this is totally how the back yard looks....in my dreams.

I began clearing the "dirt patch" one day in September. I purchased supplies for a compost pile. And, after an hour

I took a break and never went back at it. Today is unseasonably warm, and my weekend plans involve a lot of cleaning and "re-organization" (or organization, since I never really did that to begin with.) I went through the fridge and was saddened by the amount of wasted food - lots of produce - and began to be very upset at my lack of composting. I began researching the old sites and resources I had found in June, and decided I wanted to go a different route than I had planned. I headed off to home depot to return some things (for a $17 store credit), and purchased something new (for $13 - don't worry, I more than
spent that extra $4 but we'll get to that!)

Here's what I need:
  • a 20-gallon trash bin, with lid
  • power drill (you could probably use a hammer and nail, but lets face it I'm lazy and have a drill)
  • "brown material" - this is the paper, I've got stacks of junk mail (not magazine like pages or anything plastic), light cardboard boxes (frozen pizza, soda, etc) and some newspaper.
  • "green materials" - this is my produce, I've got celery stalks, brussel sprouts, avocado peels, green onions, parsley, regular onions, and some small christmas tree branches. All cut up into unappetizing bite sized pieces.
  • fertilizer
  • soil
  • other ground clippings that I did save in a pile in the yard (and not bag up) from when I cleared the area in September
  • water

I began by drilling holes in the trash barrel, as this video clip instructed. I ended up with 40 holes - 10 around and 4 up. Then I started filling. According to this site the layering starts with an organic layer. This is the green and brown material. I decided to start with the pile of yard clippings I had outside. Hoping that maybe those has started slighting composting while they were in the pile outside since September. Then I put in a layer of the fertilizer I had, and then a layer of the potting soil I bought. The next organic layer contained all the veggies and paper I had collected. Everything I've read says to keep the compost wet, so after the first organic layer I "watered" it. Then I watered again after the fertilizer and soil layers.

Once it was all in the can, I put the lid on and rolled it over to the corner of the yard where it belongs. Hopefully the rolling was enough to give it a good mix.

And....with that, it's supposedly composting. Who knows. I read a lot over the summer, and nothing made it seem too difficult. Now I'm almost looking forward to the inevitable moment when I have some produce that's about to go bad.

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