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My Compost Bin And I
John writes "There they were, staring at me with a last glimmer of hope. I tried to turn to avoid the cries of help they echoed, but they were too much for me to bare. Minutes later, with an insight of knowledge, I quickly devised a plan to rescue these dying souls. And out of the bitter remains I found around my place of refuge, I constructed a home for them - somewhere where they could be in peace - a compost bin. The vegetable scraps rejoiced! Their time of suffering was no longer, for my divine plan had taken effect. "
I recently bought a house. One of the first things I did was build a compost bin and buy a greencone. Between that and recycling, I have very little garbage each week. Another benefit is no smelly garbage in the house since everything that rots or decomposes goes in either the green cone or the compost.
Actually, you're both wrong. The Trash Heap's name was Marjorie. The Trash Heap has spoken!
Cuba is about to start the nation's first-ever sugar cane harvest in which a sugar mill will not make SUGAR, but instead will be generating electricity from the biomass.
Actually, as THC is a vasodilator, marijuana does improve circulation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1) Who cares about the compost getting wet when it rains? So long as the drainage is fairly good, a bit of rain won't hurt.
2) It looks like it is sitting in the sun. That's going to really stink in the summer. Instead of being a nice place friendly mold/fungi/insects to hang out, it is just going to attact wasps and roaches in the summer.
3) How do the worms get in? Worms really help to make good compost. They mix it around, while eating much nasty bacteria.
Not that I'm an expert in composting or anything. He should have just cut a couple of 6 inch holes in the bottom of his box and sat it on some soil.
Well, yeah. That's why you get a Green Cone. They're deceptively simple; there's some very cunning engineering in there that makes your compost decompose properly. It's not just a bucket.
Basically, it's a solar-powered convector. There's a big air space inside, and baffles to route the air into the compost. The air is drawn through the material, maintaining high oxygen levels and preventing anaerobic decomposition (this was the problem you had; without proper ventilation, you get anaerobic bacteria, which produce assorted unpleasant substances including ketones, which smell to high heaven). It's largely sealed and even if you leave the lid off, they don't smell.
If installed properly --- it's got to get sunlight --- it basically requires no maintenance. You put waste in. Nothing comes out. The decomposed material is absorbed into the ground under the Cone. They say that in a particularly bad year the bacteria might not be able to decompose everything, and you may need to empty it... but this will only happen every couple of years at most.
They are seriously neat gadgets, and are a stunning example of high-tech designs implemented in low-tech materials. They're definately worth checking out at their website. If I didn't have a flat I'd buy one like a shot.
...
The same sort of technology is coming into fashion. In Australia I've seen lavatories built this way. These have a solar-powered fan to force the air through the waste; air is sucked down through the lavatory, through the sewage, which is kept dry, and then vented out a chimney at the top. No water needed. No power needed. No maintenance needed, except for someone to come and clean the human-accessable bits every now and then. In fact, you can make money out of them --- the processed sewage is top-grade fertiliser.
The best reason for recycling: Laziness.
... in smarter houses, this is often a wide ceramic vessel with a lid), the less refuse Younger Son must carry to the garbage collection spot down the road.
... we're not.
:)
The family compost heap at the family's northern holdings consists of two "wraparound" things -- rubbery, tough material with lots of holes in the sides which is basically collapsable, but stays up once there is a bit of material stretching the sides apart on the bottom. (Think of a botttomless, topless, pliant tube, with holes all over it.It exists as a shapeholder only when there is stuff inside of it.)
Once in a while (ideally -- in practice we rarely do this, or feel the need to), you pull up the tube, relocate it, and pitch (as in pitchfork) in the pile of compost. you have left over, thus mixing it up, ensuring the different layers all get to know each other, etc.
How is it Lazy? Simple -- the more that goes into the kitchen compost pot (in our case, actually old orange juice cartons fully opened so they have a large mouth
In the 8 or 9 years this system has been in place, I think we've emptied the resulting stuff only once -- super nice soil. Perhaps twice, but the point is the same. The point is, it is for our purposes a nearly bottomless sink for all the organic detritus we can toss in -- banana peels, dead plants, egg shells, mussel shells (ideally sundried and crushed), bread scraps, dead tea leaves, corn husks, onion peels, etc etc. Never noticed a bad odor, and have never seen rats or racoons near it. A few bugs, esp. when fruit items are left un-mixed-in, but that's OK. Acceptable tradeoff.
If we were active gardeners instead of merely occasionaly putterers, we could probably both turn and empty this pile more frequently and get nice soil out of it more often, but
So there you have it
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
As for composting, that leaves us with leaves. My municipal government's website suggests: "Try running them over with a mulching mower". Since I got a shiny new mulching mower this year, I tried it. My verdict: kick ass. Easy and fun; and no more raking. Leaves are shredded to tiny confetti that sinks into the grass. (As long as you don't let them build up too much between mowings.)
So now, I don't throw out any biomass, and I don't have to break my back tending to piles of dirt.
As others have pointed out, too much moisture is bad. Also, the roof can help keep in heat (although this one doesn't look great for that). Heat is good. Heat speeds up decomposition, discourages weeds, and kills off pathogens.
I made a composter out of a plastic 55 gallon garbage can with a locking lid. Holes in the bottom and sides, none in the top. When I'm paying attention to moisture levels and adding at the right nitrogen/carbon mix, it gets hot enough to steam. The locking lid keeps out raccoons, too.
Yep. It's my fault, it appears I neglected draining off the excess "worm tea" for too long and catastrophically unbalanced the micro-ecosystem. The other, smaller, worm bin is still happy, so I have an ongoing source of critters.
No? Racoons do have their share of fleas (I worked trapping them one winter as part of a masters project, and got first-hand evidence of their infestation), and they also have plenty of other diseases & pests. How about rabies, ascarids (a roundworm; which can cause blindness in humans), leptospirosis, canine distemper, and assorted other nasty diseases for humans and animals.
Leave urban wildlife alone - they aren't pets, and shouldn't be encouraged to live near your house, for your own and your pets' good. Just because they're cuter than rats doesn't mean they're less dangerous.
That said, you're right, many nasties can flourish in compost heaps, and the whole thing can be obnoxious to neighbors. But done properly, most compost heaps, even with food, can be almost scentless. And finally, even grass clippings can be a problem, as flies love them as they decompose, something about the scent they give off being similar to the fly's own pheremones.
In short, compost piles are great, but they need to be implemented properly. A good source of information is always your local Extension Service office, which can be found under the county listings in your phone book.