Good post, Rot! I am in complete agreement. This summer I began experimenting with what I call mini-composting: Smaller DIY composters I can use just for my kitchen stuff and small garden waste throughout the summer. For a variety of reasons, some bullheadedness, some poor luck, I never completed the experiment. (Next year, by golly, I WILL drill those holes in it, and I WON'T forget to water it!)rot wrote:..
Whether slow composting with little to no turning or hot composting turning at optimal frequency, the best way is the one that works for you. Some folks like making the optimal mixes brewing their teas while others just like to pile it up and let it rot.
My slow bins are in an out of the way place on pavers where the worms crawl up and do the work for me. I start with 4 to 6 inches of dry woody stuff on the bottom and add all sorts of junk over the course of a year. After it's topped, reduced and topped again a few times I just water for around a year. I just applied one of those and it was like shoveling a giant brownie.
My hot bins cook the weeds and the seeds and provides me with compost here and there throughout the year. After the hot ones cool down, I'll seed with worms and by finishing time I usually have more worms than I seeded. The hot bins get turned once a week. About two months from top to finish on those.
The two different types work for me. I don't work them that hard. They fit into the way I do things and the stuff I have on hand.
Make it work for you and not the other way around.
to sense
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What you have described is the way I will be composting next year. I'll have my monstrous piles and my monstrous wire cages, but I'll also be playing with compost on the smaller scale with my DIY bins. No matter how we do it, we are all achieving the same goal: feeding the soil.
BTW, I loved your imagery: "it was like shoveling a giant brownie."
