It's been too hot this week to do little more than splash some extra water on plants in the early morning hours before taking cover in the air conditioned house for the rest of the day. A very slow cooling of temperatures is expected over the next several days but, in the meantime, I'm not tackling any new projects. My only goal at present is to prevent what I can from dying.
However, I got a new toy last week I thought I'd share. Its purpose is to help me make compost. My new compost bins were put in service in April, replacing the compost tumbler that came with the property when we moved here in December 2010.
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| My husband built these bins using junk we had on hand which would otherwise have gone into the trash |
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| The tumbler we inherited slowly disintegrated until it was no longer serviceable. We tossed what remained into the construction dumpster during our remodel last year. |
I've been careful about what I put in my new bin but I discovered nonetheless that the material compacts fairly quickly, making it difficult to aerate, and regular aeration is key to decomposition. Cranking the old tumbler wasn't easy as it filled up but it was effective. When my new bin was half full I decided to turn over the contents by moving it from one bin to the other using a pitchfork. That was awkward, time-consuming and exhausting. So I went online to look for something that could help. I settled on the Compost Crank made from recycled materials in Tucson, Arizona by a company appropriately called LoTech Products.
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| This is the crank |
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| It came with a tag including very simple instructions |
And it worked just fine.
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| Shot of the bin before aeration |
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| The crank is turned clockwise, then lifted. I repeated this action a dozen times in different sections of the bin. |
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| This is what it looked like afterwards |
In retrospect I made a couple poor decisions when deciding what to include in the bin. Most compost recipes call for two to three parts brown (high carbon) materials to every one part green (high nitrogen) materials. I don't layer these materials as some experts suggest but I did try to keep the proportions of carbon and nitrogen materials as balanced as possible. This led me to add things like paper bags and coconut fiber basket liners to my mix both which degrade slowly. These additions might have been fine if I'd shredded the material to a greater extent than I did before tossing it into the bin. Still, I've had no problems with odor or animals.
Composting isn't fast but, no matter what you do, it happens eventually; however, my goal is to keep the process moving as quickly as possible. Do you compost? Are there any tricks you'd care to share?
Note: I purchased the Compost Crank on my own and have no relationship or association with the company that sold it.
All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
I've found the best tool to aerate compost is a mini rototiller. It does require quite a bit of arm muscle power to operate, but it's so much quicker than the screw-like tool, which I've also used. Something like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/MANTIS-Mantis-3000-Series-Cultivator-9-Amp-12-in-Forward-rotating-Corded-Electric-Cultivator/1000734366
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see you pop up, Alison! That's an impressive looking cultivator, although I think my bins are too small to make it workable to use. We had limited space for the bins so their size isn't optimal.
DeleteGood for you, Kris! Your husband is quite the handyman - your new bins look great! These days I'm lazy and just put everything in the green bins provided by the City of Portland. And then I buy it back from them as ready made compost. But, when I did compost, I went by the formula you stated; 2 parts brown to 1 part green. Or at the very least, half and half.
ReplyDeleteI've been buying compost by the bag lately myself, Anna, but I don't like its smell or texture as well as I liked what used to come out of my tumbler.
DeleteI don't have a compost bin, though I like the idea of it a lot. The crank you found on line is a clever idea. Its basically a giant cork screw, and certainly easier to mange than a pitch fork.
ReplyDeleteMy bins are smaller than ideal so the pitchfork approach was awkward. The giant cork screw works better in such a tight space.
DeleteI use a hot compost bin for my kitchen waste. You have to use shredded paper and wood chippings to stop it getting slimey. You don't have to turn it and it makes lovely compost very quickly.
ReplyDeleteI saw some nice units for hot composting online, Chloris. Maybe it's something to put on my Christmas wishlist, although wood chips are hard to come by unless I raid the piles left by the city.
DeleteI had a very successful compost heap in Atlanta for years. Florida has been a more challenging environment for compost, a lot more green than brown and instant rats if any kitchen scraps go out. I had one of those turners but found it worked better to have a pile not in a box. The best starters are compost or a couple of handfuls of cheap fertilizer, stir it in and water.
ReplyDeleteMy neighbor maintains a huge pile, which I think may have been in place for decades. I wish I had space for that. The back slope would be ideal but that's where the nasty fire ants are. I've thrown some compost and old potting soil into the bin but will try the fertilizer too.
DeleteI don't worry about any kind of composition of materials. I just throw it all in there and turn with a pitch fork when I think about it. It works for me. I take the bulk to the recycle place. Mainly I put leaves during fall that I mow and kitchen scraps and sometimes grass clippings if we wait too long to mow and some things that I pull and cut up. That stirrer looks like it works good. You could get way down in with it.
ReplyDeleteThe bulky stuff here goes into the green bins too, Lisa. I need a chipper to grind some of this up so I can throw it in my compost bin rather than sending it to the city. Luckily, the city picks up our green bin contents each week so we don't have to haul it there ourselves.
DeleteOur (new) bin has a little door at the bottom. I have begun to harvest rough compost from there. The lumpy bits go back on top for the next round. Avocado pips, corn cobs. But it does all rot down eventually. And the birds are happy to pick thru what I spread as mulch.
ReplyDeleteThe bins my husband constructed allow the slats to be removed at the bottom for harvesting but the decomposition process itself is slow unless I aerate the pile.
DeleteLooks like you have a system, and they all work given enough time. I have 3 bins, and at least one has usable compost while I wait for the other 2 to decompose. I try to layer green and then brown. Sometimes I use straw or wood shavings when I run out of brown, but mostly they were leftover supplies from when I had chickens. I also pile up clippings and cuttings from plants for a few weeks or more. Then I mulch them up with the lawn mower and then bag them. They end up being a nice very, very fine brown material, that most likely decomposes very quickly. Works for me, even if it takes time. I always have lots of worms in my piles.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked 3 somewhat larger bins, Cindy, but there simply wasn't room, at least on the main level of the garden. My husband throws in wood shavings on a semi-regular basis but my supply of brown material isn't as great as I'd like. I think I need a chipper or something of that sort to break down what I cut while pruning and performing similar activities. The lawn mower sounds like a great idea but I have no lawn.
DeleteYour spouse is so handy - those are impressive bins. I like that crank. I'll have to show it to my hubby, as he is the compost maker in the family.
ReplyDeleteI didn't fall in love with him as a college freshman for his handyman skills, Eliza, but it's definitely a major plus ;)
DeleteA clever tool. We have a very large garden that generates a huge amount of material. Some of it just gets chopped up and left in place. Everyone brings me their bags of leaves which alternating with my piles of weeds makes nice compost. Piles are too big to turn so they just sit there and do their thing until I'm ready to use it. Half finished piles grow great squash and pumpkins.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had that kind of room, Elaine - my neighbor composts material in the same way you described. Her only problem was that the pile got so high that it allowed the neighborhood coyotes a way to get over her fence into her back garden where it grabbed one of her small dogs! Technically, I could use an area at the bottom of my back slope for the same purpose. I do often leave debris I cut there down there but hauling materials from the upper level there on a regular basis would be a major pain, even if the fire ants weren't also an issue.
DeleteNo compost happening here, a fact I've always felt a little guilty about. But there's just not room!
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate that, Loree. My new compost bin was squeezed into the available space and it's smaller than would be optimal.
DeleteYour husband did a beautiful job building your composter. It looks more like a storage cabinet than a compost bin.
ReplyDeleteThat aerator seems like a great tool as well. I wonder if there are the same sort of attachments for a strong power drill.
My bins are bottomless trash barrels. Not so good looking but well hidden. Aeration: When they get full(ish) I pull the barrel straight up, put it down adjacent, and fork the stuff back into the barrel in reverse order. If it's done enough I leave it a while so the earth worms can migrate out of it, then toss the compost around the garden.
Also started just chopping stuff up and leaving it in out of the way places to turn into mulch on its own. This has worked better than expected. Keeps the weeds at bay, keeps clippings out of the landfill.
I've been manually cutting whatever I put into my bins but I think a shredder is something I need to look into, HB, as the smaller the pieces that go into the bin, the faster the composting process seems to be.
DeleteThat looks like a very clever bit of kit. I do it the hard way, turning one bin into the next with a garden fork. But it’s such hard work it doesn’t get done as often as it should. I need a crank!
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, Jessica, you have several bins. I think I'd be more favorably disposed to use the pitchfork routine if the bins were larger and I had more of them. The crank works well for my smaller space - and it's certainly simpler to use.
DeleteThat is an awesome tool - I had never heard of it! I'm one of those "just throw it all in" type of people with blatant disregard to carbon/nitrogen ratios. So far, like you, I've had no issues with critters in the compost or any type of smell. I've not had a problem turning the compost with a compost fork (when I get around to it, that is, which is only a couple of times per season, if I'm lucky), but I'll definitely keep "crank" in mind if I ever do. It's always exciting finding something that works well in the garden - makes the whole process so much more pleasurable.
ReplyDeleteIf I had more room - and a right shoulder that wasn't giving me twinges - I'd probably have stuck with the pitchfork too, Margaret. However, the crank has got me aerating the bin more frequently, at least for now!
DeleteHow spooky Kris as I've just treated myself to a new composter which is still to be set up. We had a compost bin for many years but were plagued by rats. There is about an acre of land behind our property which has not been been cultivated since we have lived here (1987) and has a stream running through it. Rats therefore are always going to present despite vermin control. Our new Hotbin was awarded the RHS Chelsea Garden Product Of The Year in 2019 and promises to deliver useable compost in 30-90 days so I am most excited at the prospect! All the waste is contained in an insulated unit. I'm just hoping that the rats can't lift the lid up ��
ReplyDeleteI looked at that Hotbin online after Chloris mentioned that she uses a quick-acting hot composter. There was one that looked similar available in the US but its price is about 3x the price of the larger UK model! So maybe I'll just wait until Hotbin crosses the pond...
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