Lazy Landscaper #2: In which I achieve compost
… I think.
As mentioned before, late this winter I decided to get serious about landscaping (among numerous other things.) I started researching inexpensive and easy composters. Despite some excellent advice from friends I wasn’t finding anything quite cheap and easy enough.
Then my friend Harriet Engle, who lives in a duplex next to my friend Roslee - both from the science-fiction club - revealed she was helping put a garden in their shared backyard. Since she seemed experienced I asked for her suggestions. She said she’d had success just getting a big old covered trash bin with wheels. Bingo! Thus was born what I call the Harriet Engle Rolling Composter.
(Before I went into any detail on this I asked Harriet if it was all right for me to use her full name. She allowed as she didn’t have any stalkers or outstanding warrants she was aware of, so it was.)
At Wally World I found just such trash bins, of 50-gallon capacity, for $25 each. Which definitely rang the cherries as far as “cheap” was concerned. Not too long thereafter I chanced to accompany my best friend Joe to Wal-Mart, as well as, more to the point, Joe’s pick-up truck. So I bought one of the bins and brought it home. I thought of buying a second - some systems recommend up to three separate composters - but decided I wanted to see how this one worked before expanding.
Harriet mentioned drilling holes in the bottom for drainage. I was initially concerned about compost dribbling out, but realized the quarter inch holes I intended to drill weren’t going to allow for much of that.
So I drilled my holes. Then I started layering in the weeds I cut down last fall, now thoroughly dry, in with the kitchen waste I’d accreted over eons. The whole I wet thoroughly with the hose and parked in the shade.
Soon thereafter I discovered aeration was a major deal. So out came the drill and I put some holes around the top to let the stuff breathe.
After a few days it seemed hot. Then it cooled off. I turned it. It refused to heat up. My Albuquerque gardening book said failure to heat meant I needed more nitrogen-rich material in the mix. So in went some more kitchen detritus, along with some green weeds I pulled from the backyard.
A few days thereafter I felt heat emanating when I pulled the lid off to check. Plunging my hand in - this being the rough and ready method, like pregging a horse - I found the depths uncomfortably hot to the touch. Which supposedly meant the compost was a-fermentin’. Yay!
A couple days later it was cool again. I also noticed that the heap had settled quite noticeably. My friend Larry Hays, Landscaping God, mentor, and general inspiration to me on the subject, confirmed my hope that this should mean I had, indeed, achieved compost. Indeed, he predicted as much as a third by volume would’ve converted.
Whoa! I couldn’t wait! Except I had to. To extract the compost, if any, I needed a screen to filter it. Especially since, lacking a shredder/grinder, I’ve put a lot of twigs and whatnot in that isn’t breaking down any too quickly. And I didn’t have such a screen. For all the noise being made about such matters these days it isn’t easy actually finding composting supplies.
I found compelled to make myself a Big Nasty Compost Screen, details to follow. Also I bought myself a second container to hold the hypothetical compost. Because a) I wasn’t sure the big rolly bin would fit in my car; and b) I was certain I wouldn’t have near that much compost anyway, I decided to get a smaller container. I settled on a 26-gallon trash can sans wheels.
As mentioned yesterday, I found myself too exhausted to do much with my new goodies. Last night I got a good sleep, so after doing some writing today I tackled the compost-filtering process.
When I emptied the rolling bin onto a tarp it didn’t smell that good. No huge surprise; I hadn’t turned it last week, since I wanted to combine filtering with turning, as I did today. And I commenced operations.
Emma came out to watch. For some reason she’s more sanguine about watching me do things when we’re outside; whenever I undertake any kind of physical project indoors she immediately seeks the shelter of her pen. However, the screening quickly fell into the category of Daddy Things Too Weird for Caninekind Ever to Hope to Comprehend; Emma is a highly intelligent dog, and perhaps nowhere shows it more distinctly than her ability to grasp that a certain number (a large one) of things Daddy does simply make no perceptible sense, so it’s not worth even trying. She shortly identified this as such as endeavor and went to lie across the yard. There was shade there, and anyway she had the buffering of distance in case she’d misjudged and Daddy’s special words came out.
However, a vile wind blew up, raising a big column of dust and alarming me with the prospect that my hard-earned, not to mention filtered, compost was going to blow away to Bernalillo. It also caused Emma to bail and petition to be let inside. I did, and then fortunately the wind died back and I was able to complete the turning/sifting without great further drama.
It wasn’t terribly efficient. Then again, it’s the first time I’ve tried anything like this. And on the whole, I’d have to say it was a success.
Larry will probably be amazed to learn that he’s actually been guilty of being optimistic: I didn’t wind up with a third of the original volume in compost. What I did wind up with was about a wheelbarrowful of dry, black, crumbly stuff that looks and feels like soil, anyway. At least 10 or 12 pounds of it.
I’m declaring that compost. Hence victory. Yay!
I mixed some more accumulated kitchen scraps about halfway in. When everything was back more or less in place I watered the big bin. I left the lid on the littler bin open a crack to let the finished compost air out a bit more.
Now we’ve got a gale blowing outside and it’s threatening to rain. I may yet have to race out and seal up the storage can.
But at least I got finished before the weather happened.
So, all in all, cool. The Rolling Composter works!
Tags: lazy landscaper, Life, Me
May 8th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
When you turn the compost, do you dig in with a rake or a shovel or something? Or do you turn the thing on its side and roll it around?
My neighbors have this little oven-looking metal thing, I don’t know how they turn it or sift it. That sifting thing is news to me, I never would have thought about that! I guess, well, I guess I didn’t know how one would remove the completely composted material from the pile.
It is something I am very interested in doing as soon as I have my own space to do so.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I spread a tarp on the ground and basically just tip the Rolling Composter’s contents out onto it. Using an old-fashioned hoe (insert Miss Kitty joke here) I pull out the stubborn stuff onto the tarp. Then I shovel it all back in in reverse order. A little labor-intensive, but it serves.
To sift it, I roll up the wheelbarrow and put the Big Nasty Compost Filter over top of it. Then after dumping the composter contents on the tarp I shovel it onto the screen in increments, stir it around with a hoe, shake it some, and then dump what remains back in the composter. I expect to refine these processes somewhatly with experience and inspiration.
There are myriad methods; this one I picked because it’s Easy and Cheap. Basically to get even easier - such as the composters that are basically oil drums on their sides set on mountings so that they can be turned with a crank to turn the compost - gives you a hit to the “cheap” side.
I’ve seen some of the oven-style things, I believe. They look pretty small. On the other hand that means it’d be easier to pick ‘em up and dump them into a second container, and then back, to turn the contents. Iron Man could probably do that with the currently half-full 50-gallon bin I use; I cannot.
Good luck on getting your own space soon!