 |
| Opening the bin |
 |
| Mostly gone! |
 |
| In new bin to reheat and age. |
So in this experiment it's been a lot of collecting food scraps-- 4771 pounds in 4 months to be exact! It took
3
months to fill the Residential Bin, and I'm now on to a new phase. A
month ago I pitch forked the entire bin out into a different bin to turn
it and let it age. All food scraps except for a few avocado pits and
egg shells were gone! I knew stuff had been "disappearing" quickly, but
it was so wonderful to see that it had all been transformed, and all so
quickly! The straw was still visible, but I'm hoping this second round
of thermophilic action will take care of it. I'm going to let the new
pile heat up again then age for a few months. I went out to Swampy Acres
and got some pine pellets and I'm going to try that out for chicken
bedding. I'm sure sawdust will compost faster than straw, but I'm
slightly concerned about it compacting too much in the bin. But how do
you know until you try? So I'm going to try.
I'm also experimenting to see what happens to Bio Pac boxes and bio cutlery. I have a feeling that, if done right, Rainbow Foods can have a self-sustaining compost of it's own, i.e. it can supply the whole mix of browns and greens. I need to find some sort of shredding machine for the boxes/paper..... The Rainbow compost bin is also full and I'll be turning it out into a new bin
once the top half cools down a bit. So much material is added to that
pile at once that though it's full there's still a lot of digesting to be done in the top half.
It's only taken a month and a half to fill.
Neat Facts:
A whole, unrotten spaghetti squash will be half a paper-thin rind after two weeks
Small Biobags are completely gone in a hot pile after two weeks
Produce stickers remain completely unchanged indefinitely.....
Oh, and did I mention that I'm also composting for the Wild Oven Bakehouse? Daniel Martin runs a neat bread bakery downtown and calls me when he has leftovers. What I'm so jazzed about is the fact that he doesn't have many leftovers! If bread is still good but not in prime selling condition, it goes to the Glory Hole, the homeless shelter downtown. If they can't pick it up or can't use it all he calls me. My chickens eat well and the compost grows. Every business should network like the Wild Oven does!
It's spring--what better time to start your pile? I recently made a new bin using some--gasp--purchased roofing. I threw down $45 and I made a clear cover for my newest compost bin. I have enough left to roof one more bin, so it was a pretty economical impulse buy. My plan? I'm going to harness the heat from the pile and the light from the sun to grow my seedlings in flats directly on the compost surface So far, so good--kale seeds took 3 days to sprout! We'll see how they like growing there for a few weeks. I have a tray of oregano, a flat of two different kinds of kale, and a flat of two different kinds of sunflower. Yes, sunflowers can grow here! Get out and try something new!
