Compost update

The big news is that the previously skanky compost bin, the one that was here when I moved in, the one that seemed like an insurmountable nightmare to correct, is now empty. Why is it empty? Because it’s contents, dark, crumbling, non-stinky and full of happy worms, are now filling two new garden beds along the fence. Aha! So this is what victory feels like!

There are happy eggplant, tomato & chili seedlings feeding very well off that compost now, and I’m beginning to layer new composting materials into the empty bin to produce another batch.

The other big compost bin, made out of a wheelie-bin that I cut the bottom off a few months ago and buried in the dirt, was shut down to new additions about a month ago, and is now ready to be used. I am so excited by how quickly this one has broken down! I give great thanks to the fabulous invention of the ‘compost aerator’, which is a giant wire corkscrew that I twist down into the middle of the heap and then pull out again to churn it. It makes churning easy, and easy churning apparently makes for fast compost*.

The layers of this bin are entirely composed of a) buckets of kitchen scraps followed by b) two buckets (same size) of dried leaves. Or, when the dried leaves run out, shredded newspaper. Plus a small amount of garden waste (I haven’t had a great deal of that yet), and a little water from the hose every now and then.

I’m planning on using this compost to build up the bed where I’ll be planting the zucchini & squash seedlings today, and depending on how much is left, in potato towers.

*Too Much Information Time: urine also makes for fast compost. Easy nitrogen source, speeds up processing, and is quite sterile. I can’t even think of it as at all ‘gross’, considering I quite happily put animal poo in the bottom of my garden beds and fertilize my plants with crushed fish corpses (urine is nothing compared to some of the things I have willingly handled in pursuit of a healthy garden).

*Question time: Avocado seeds. Do they ever, ever, ever break down? I pick them out of my compost and am building an enormous midden of them (my household eats A LOT of avocadoes). They are the only non-processed thing in there, and I am a bit perplexed about what to do about them all.