Composting

With my newfound love of gardening, I started to look into composting as well.

I've been going the traditional route of using store-bought soil for my garden. Nothing fancy.

Then I started thinking. Could I compost?

What exactly is composting?

Composting is a natural way to recycle decomposed organic materials. The process creates compost, or rich soil.

I can then use this soil for my garden, ergo recycling nutrients back into the Earth.

Not only that, but it allows us to reduce our waste, close the nutrient cycle (goes back into the ground, and into the foods that we grow), and prevent air pollution that causes climate change. (Original article can be found here: https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/100-things-you-can-compost).

I wanted something like this. It's a tumbler bin that is rust-free, BPA free, and most of all, convenient to use.

Steve is against it.

I'm frustrated because whenever Steve wants something, regardless if I think it's ridiculous or not, (whether it's PRACTICAL or not), he will get it.

Shall we revisit the plow truck debacle?

He says it's too expensive for something made out of plastic and is that small (17 gallons). I remind him that for ME, it's also the convenience that makes it worth it.

With this already set up, all-in-one unit, I could easily go out after dinner, throw scraps in the drum barrel, give it a couple of turns and be done.

Steve suggested that he build me a 3-walled "thing" (???)  and get me a pitch fork to turn the materials over.

Um? Not exactly what I was thinking.

Remember that I work full-time out of the home?

After work I already have things to do - many times, without any help.

All the things I want or need to do, need to have a convenience factor built in. It just does. It may cost a bit more in the upfront, but I'm also of the mindset of "time = money."

This is where Steve and I differ. Not that it's a bad thing. Just different. He would rather spend 100 hours fixing something, than buy a new one. I'd rather buy a new one than spend 100 hours trying to fix it. (In my eyes, if there's a chance it can't be fixed, we've just potentially wasted that 100 hours - but it's jobs like this that make Steve nutty. He does NOT like not being able to fix something.)

ANYWAY.

The main things to keep in mind to have a successful compost are air, combination of ingredients and turning the pile to aerate it.

So what goes INTO a compost bin?

We need to make sure our compost pile is balanced.

To do that, we need to include:
- dry or brown things that contain carbon (leaves, straw, paper)
- wet or green things that contain nitrogen (food scraps)

We will need to make sure:
- we make the scraps small - the smaller the pieces are, the easier they will decompose. I read this is especially important if we plan on using our compost for a vegetable garden.
- the compost pile stays moist (what a gross word) and aerated.

Check out this link to see the 100 things you can compost.

Instead of the "buy it new for convenience sake" tumbler bin, we he decided to build one for me. I guess it'll give me more material to write about, versus just buying one ;)

Steve scored a food-grade 50 gallon barrel today for free!

Then we will build a base, lay the barrel on its side so we can effectively turn the materials over (without using a dang pitchfork!)

Hopefully, it will look similar to this (who wants to take bets that mine will look like NASA built it?):

Image credit: Pinterest