User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

an actual compost bin!

For years and years, I have just used my wire grid compost bin and been satisfied with it. For some reason this year, it's been scavenged a lot more by some critter(s). In the past I had a little bit of that, occasionally would find stuff in the pile disturbed a bit. This year it is like every morning I would find the contents of the compost pile strewn all over. Don't know what is different, nothing in the pile I wouldn't have put there before.

So coincidentally as I was starting to think, gee this isn't working so well any more, a friend of mine told me the County was having a sale of rainbarrels and compost bins cheap. I already have two rainbarrels, but I got a new compost bin. Black plastic cylinder, lots of air vents, maybe 3' in diameter and 4' tall, with a locking lid and a slide open door at the bottom for taking out finished compost. Only problem is no vents on top to let rain in, so I may have to water it more than I'm used to... We will see. All I can say so far is that it does contain the composting stuff a bit more compactly and it seems to contain the heat more too, started heating up right away when I loaded it up.

I think it is this one or something very similar:

https://www.earthmachine.com/the_earth_machine.html

The county sold them for $35 each. I thought that was a pretty good deal.

So I am now the proud possessor of a two bin system! I kept the old wire one for the finished/ almost finished stuff, that the critters won't care about because it is mostly soil and have the new one for the working stuff.

bogydave
Senior Member
Posts: 197
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:11 pm
Location: Alaska

Happy composting :)
Last edited by bogydave on Mon May 16, 2011 11:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.

rot
Greener Thumb
Posts: 728
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:15 am
Location: Ventura County, CA, Sunset 23

..
Yes. A good deal.

I trust you'll let us know how it works for you over time. Thanks in advance.

to sense
..

cynthia_h
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7500
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 7:02 pm
Location: El Cerrito, CA

Congratulations! We got our compost bin way back when from the City of Berkeley for a similar price. It's still working, many years later.

I hope that some of the "critters have torn up my stuff again" frustrations you've experienced this year will diminish. :)

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

toxcrusadr
Greener Thumb
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:50 pm
Location: MO

The door at the bottom is considered fairly useless by most owners, but it's easy to just remove the bin from the pile, set it up next to it, and fork the top of the pile back into it to finish until you get down to the good stuff at the bottom!

$35 is a great deal. That's probably the wholesale price, it's about what our city program charges for them too. Sad that a hunk of plastic like that retails for $89.99.

ACW
Senior Member
Posts: 152
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2010 7:20 am
Location: London

bringing this back up.
I despite having a tiny garden have 3 of these on the go
I am not in a hurry to make compost ,so its done in an lazy way.
at the moment One bin is almost full,and come spring I will start removing from the bottom.
the next is just starting there is a mix of leaves twigs and cardboard, several time during the week or at least once I will bring down the kitchen food waste,dump thatin and cover for the next few months with the collected leaves odd paper scraps and news paper
Kitchen waste is veg peel,coffee grounds,tea leaves,add to that some plantain and sweetpotatoe skins from work ,coffee from odd coffee shops.
It takes 3 or more months to fill the bin with this mix
later in the year newspaper takes over from the leaves
I take from the third long done bin seive and the big bits go into the bin thats being loaded,sorting out the odd bits of plastic and odd bits of cutlery that end up in thekitchen waste .
Lazy unscientific ,but working well for me.

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

Whatever works! As tox noted, I never found the door at the bottom very useful. When I was using that bin, when it was time to work with the compost pile, I just pulled the bin off it.

I don't have that bin any more, left it behind when I moved. Now I have one wire bin and two homemade bins from wood posts fenced with old lattice that was here. Currently one of those is a pile of fall leaves; the wire one is the bin I am gradually filling (since the dogs can't get in it), and one is the old stuff getting used up.

Sounds like there's more you could be composting. Do you use any paper napkins or paper towels? They can go in the compost bucket (I keep a tightly lidded bucket in the house to collect compostables until they go out to the compost pile). Plate scrapings (except meat), left overs that don't get used up in time, bread that goes stale. Also of course all the yard trimmings - deadheaded flowers, prunings, pulled weeds, etc. We have a fire pit in the backyard. Since we only use it occasionally, I dump the wood ash from that on the compost pile (ash is very alkaline, so too much isn't a good thing).

PS - I noticed your signature line about shady backyard. How is your front yard? :D I had the same problem at my previous location, so I covered a 10x5 area of the front lawn in cardboard and then built a raised bed on top of it and grew vegetables there. I was amazed how fast/huge they grew compared to trying to grow in too much shade! And I actually thought it looked quite nice, less boring than lawn:
front yard bed.jpg
(Unfortunately the house is now leased out on a lease-to-own plan and the first thing the tenants did is rip out that bed and turn it back to lawn... :( )

ACW
Senior Member
Posts: 152
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2010 7:20 am
Location: London

Front yard is a tiny foot wide 6 ft long single bed against a wall ,shaded by ahuge Lime tree,not the fruiting kind.
There I manage to keep a fuschia and spring and summer bulbs going but its shared with others living in the house and our rubbish and recycling bins. flowers gett pickes and I am sure veggies would go walkies!
At least my little shady patch at the back is "mine" to do with as I see fit.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Nice deal. Plastic composters here cost over $100 and they don't make a whole lot of compost.

It is nice you could plant a vegetable garden in the front yard. I have to be sneaky about it since vegetable gardens are not allowed by the design committee. However, they have no idea that roses, garlic chives, nasturtiums, calendula, pansies, and day lilies are also edible. Honestly, I don't really eat most of them, since I do have to use short acting systemics on the roses, gardenia and hibiscus planted there. I just wanted to plant technically edible plants there.

The actual wording is "no vegetative plants are allowed in the front yard facing the street or any adjacent property"

I have wanted to tell them so much that "vegetative" technically means all leafy plants and not just vegetables and that grass is edible. They also have a new requirement for 50% grass in the front yard. I would not have any if it were up to me. It is high maintenance and more work than having flower beds there.

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

I hate the idea that a "design committee" or HOA could tell you what you can or cannot do with your own property (outside of course of real health and safety issues for the community). I have never lived anywhere like that.

toxcrusadr
Greener Thumb
Posts: 970
Joined: Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:50 pm
Location: MO

I'd be tempted to tuck a couple of pepper plants amongst the marigolds, or some cuke vines next to some other ground cover. If anyone complains, it's a nice looking flower bed, not rows of vegetables, "so stick it in your compost pile!" If they get huffy about it, call the entire rule into question on the 'vegetative' point.

It's called an edible landscape and if we had more of them, everyone would eat a bit more healthy. If anyone one the HOA committee is a little plump, you can tell em they look like they could eat a few more vegetables themselves. heehee. OK don't do that.

Then when they change the rules to 'vegetables' instead of 'vegetative', start growing fruit. :-P

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7392
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Many years ago I accidentally learned that heat increase composting speed many times over. I had a 55 gallon drum with both ends cut out setting next to the garden in full sun that was my compose container. About first of May I filled the drum with lots of garden plants that were laying in a pile plus tree leaves and lawn grass. I put a sheet of plywood on top of the barrel and a month later I notice the barrel that was full to the top was now 1/2 full and the barrel was very warm setting in full sun all day. I painted the barrel and plywood top flat black filled it full to the top and 1 month later it had composted down so there was only 6" of compost in the bottom. Wow the compost looked nice, rich, black, like potting soil. I had 52 trees at that house and tons of leaves in a big pile so I got 30 of those 55 gallon drums painted them all flat black lined them up in a row in full sun full to the top compacted tight with all the tree leaves I could force in there. I sprinkled a little soil on top each drum of leaves, some wood ash then put on the plywood top, that was first of July 1st then 30 days later there was 6" of the best looking compose in the bottom of each barrel I ever saw, wow. I had enough compose to fill about 2 barrels. I did the same thing again in August and got 2 more barrels of compose. That was a lot of work for only 4 barrels of compose put that in my 50'x100' garden I could hardly tell it was there. That is when I learned not to put compose on the whole garden just compose the plants that need it. That was about 1980 I was young and had tons of energy. I tried compose with a 6 ft diameter wire fence cage it works good and is easy but compose all the good compose material is on the bottom you have to stop filling it and wait to be able to use it. Setting right on the soil the compose pile fills up with millions of worms. These days compose on a BIG scale is too much work for me it is so much easier to throw all the organic material all over the garden leave it lay there all winter then till it into the garden soil in spring. For 5 years I had the city bring me 6 trucks of compacted tree leaves and cover my entire garden 3 ft deep in compacted leaves by spring it was 1 ft deep and I tilled it into the garden wow that was nice soil but all those leaves would not grow anything it needed several bags of ammonium nitrate. It was a lot of work to till 12" of leaves into the garden.

If you want a cheap easy compose bin get a truck bed liner for $50 on CL..

https://nashville.craigslist.org/grd/6085491311.html



Return to “Composting Forum”