Playing in the Dirt

So you know that large green bin that was turned into a compost bin, it turns out that I have many of those bins lying in random places in my house. So I decided to use them as giant pots. This way, the plants could be in the part of my backyard that gets the most sun (porch), and if I ever needed to leave I could take my plants with me in the back of a pickup. To make these giant bins into pots, all I needed to do was fill them with the compost that I had procured at the farm. Then I took the plants out of their plastic containers and planted them in the tubs alongside their plant friends. The whole process was quite simple, and fun. Nothing like playing in the dirt. Now lets see if I can nurture these plants into adulthood and then eat the fruits of my labor.

Dirty Work

Now you may or may not have noticed, depending on your ACT scores, that composting takes 3 weeks or so to create some soil. That means, if you want to start growing the plants you just bought at a farm, you need to get some soil or compost. Today, I went over to Allendale farm to do just that, procure some compost. It's a dirty job, but someone has got to do it. At first I was mildly overwhelmed, who would have thought there are so many varieties of soil and compost? So I went for what looked like regular compost, that is approved for growing organic vegetables. I wanted to give my vegetables a nice taste of compost before they begin eating my compost. After the nice people helped me load 3 bags of compost into my car (surprisingly heavy bags), I was ready to begin planting.

Composting: Stirring Your Way To Soil

Now that you have a beautiful compost bin working, its time to fill it and actually make some compost. Composting requires two ingredients, better known as greens and browns. Greens are high in nitrogen, and include things like kitchen scraps, green grass clippings, weeds, and green leaves. Browns are high in carbon and include dried brown leaves, dried grass, and straw. Both are necessary to feed the microorganisms that convert the pile of trash into soil. The ideal composting mixture is 4 parts browns to 1 parts greens. Ratios outside of 4:1 take longer to compost, and do not give the microorganisms the nutrition they need. The microorganisms also need water and air, which come easily in the form of rain and wind when you are using an open bin composter. So once you collect 4 parts dead leaves and 1 part banana peels and rotten romaine lettuce from your kitchen, put them in the same chamber of your compost bin. Every day, until soil forms, your job is to go out to the compost pile and stir it around. Most of the microorganisms will be inside the pile, cooking the trash at 160’. You want to make sure all of the leaf and lettuce scraps make it to the inside of the pile so they too can be cooked. The compost usually takes 2-3 weeks to fully cook into soil, so you best be out there stirring it often until a soil like consistency is achieved, that means no pieces of lettuce or tomatoes are visible in the compost. Many composting enthusiasts’ websites recommend using tillers or large forks or other fancy tools to stir their compost. I decided, as usual, to recycle again, and went in the backyard to procure a large stick which I have dubbed my stirring stick. So if you need me during the next 3 weeks, I will be out stirring my pile. Soil, here I come!

Composting: Turning a Plastic Bin Into a Maker of Magic

I spent a good portion of today researching composting bins, and I came to the following conclusion. You can either drive out to the hardware store and spend money on a compost bin, or you can fashion one on your own out of wood, chicken wire, or recycled plastic. So, I did what I usually do in all situations, I recycled. In my shed, we have these large plastic shipping bins. I do not know why they are there, they just are, its something I’ve accepted. Anyways, I took one of these bins and made it into a compost bin. This required no effort, all I had to do was announce to the world that this lone green bin now had a purpose, and it was composting. Most composting systems have chambers, that way you can always be adding more rotten tomatoes and dead leaves in. So I built two chambers in my green bin, with some tools known formerly as old plastic bag, hunk of cardboard, and shiny duct tape. I put the cardboard in the plastic bag, so it wouldn’t start composting itself, and then duct taped it in place. I must say, the whole thing looks quite beautiful and I’m quite excited to start using the compost to power my garden.