Well I started my composting world today.
I found myself moving into a nice place in northern California with 2.5 acres and I thought what a great time to pick up my own composter and begin the process or creating my own compost for my garden.
Below is my documentation, facts and process of making real, home made, organic compost in my own backyard.
First made sure I had the following items:
EQUIPMENT:
- E.R. Composter
- Good location
- Kitchen scraps
- Lawn clippings
- Soil / Dirt – (optional)
- Gopher wire – (optional)
- Fertilizer – (optional)
From what I’ve read you can kind of “throw the kitchen sink at it” Ha, what a metaphor! So I tried to add and layer as much as I could to my new compost mix. More on the mixing and layering below.
ASSEMBLY OF THE COMPOSTER:
Well the assembly of the composter was certainly very easy. Once the panels were out of the box assembling the 4 panels took litteraly about 1 minute, maybe 120 seconds if you are taking your time.
The 4 panels are all universal with a male and a female size and there is a handle on every panel, so really there’s not too too much thinking involved.
Simply slide the pieces together and voilá! You have yourself a composter.
Simply locate it and go.
COMPOST SITE SELECTION:
After getting all geared up with the items listed above, now is the time to pick my location and start my compost mix.
Once the site location was made, I laid the gopher wire down on the ground and placed the composter on top of it.
(imagine whistle while you work music playing in the background)
So now i was really ready to go and start building my compost pile.
THE FILL:
As I mentioned I started with the items listed above. I probably could have or should have read more about how or what I should to do start but, hey, I had the composter together and was ready to get started, what can I say ~
So I started with a 6 inch base of some dried out grass from a mowing a couple of days before…
I loosened up some soil in our back yard the day before with a pitch fork getting it ready to add to the compost mixture…
More grass then some fertilizer my roommate graciously donated to the cause…
And now the good stuff, a couple of days of kitchen scraps! As you can see, banana skins, avocado skin, grape vines, coffee grinds, left over tomatos, etc etc.
One more layer of grass, fertilizer and kitchen scraps…
A flower for good luck, appreciation and prosperity…
And here she is…As you can see it’s only 1/4 full, allowing room to add more ingredients to the mix as the days go by.
And family approved as you can see…
PLAN / CONCLUSION:
So now that it’s all set up I plan to add kitchen scraps, (man it’s amazing how many kitchen scraps a person can generate), other lawn trimmings and fore-mentioned ingredients every few days.
I also plan to turn the contents of the compost brew about 1 time per week (if i change the frequency i will document it in that week’s posting) using a garden hoe.
I will update my garden compost project every week or so, so please do check back and follow the process. I will also be addressing issues that arise on the compost project on the Vespro Forum. If you have questions, suggestions or tips that might help other Composter or Garden folks please do share them there as well.