Saturday, July 18, 2009

Beginning Composting

Our township gave away (well, paid for by my taxes) 95 gallon yard waste containers. My mother had a 65 gallon container with a small hole in the bottom which she wanted to get rid of, so I took it.

An hour later with the drill, it looks like it was used for buckshot practice by somebody who can't aim very well. I can't tell you how many holes are in it...one every inch to an inch and a half all over the container.

I tossed in some leftover sod after bashing off the soil and ripping it apart, followed it up with a pile of lawn weeds and a bit of shrub cuttings, and shredded some plain paper junk mail to get some browns into the pile. Half an ounce of molasses got added with some water as well to start the process.

I'll initially turn the pile in the next week to mix everything once I'm done weeding the gardens again, but after that it's going to be relatively unturned. Every once in a while I may get around to it.

I'm hoping that, filling it by August, I have compost next spring.

1 comment:

reppend said...

Great idea for a compost bin! Couple questions.. What size holes did you drill? Also, can you give us another update as to how the compost turned out and how well it is working to date? Did you ever add anything else, besides the green and browns, to help the process along? Any worms?

Thanks!