If you are interested in composting, one thing you don't need is one of these black plastic compost bins. Our house came equipped with two of them. What a wasp wasteland and fruit-fly frenzy! An anaerobic mess!
Kitchen scraps had been tossed into two of these bins for who knows how long and the compost was suffocating. Oxygen loving bacteria can't live in sealed plastic so the anaerobic (stinky) bacteria dominate.
Compost needs to breathe and it also needs roughly 20 parts carbon (the brown stuff: leaves, newspaper, dried grass clippings...) for every 1 part nitrogen (the green stuff: kitchen scraps, slime).
We created a cylinder with chicken wire and bamboo stakes (which where previously used for deer control at our old place). Now air can cycle through the pile. We also layered in most of the leaves that had fallen into the backyard.
I'm not saying our method is perfect. I can let you know how things went in the spring. One good thing about this compost pile is it eliminates garbage. Our kitchen scraps don't end up in black bags. Our leaves don't need to be taken away as yard waste. We even added failed transplants, some rotten cardboard boxes (with the tape removed) and other organic trash that could be found around the yard. The smell is very much improved.
If anyone still feels like they would like a black composting bin, I can offer both of ours to you completely free! I hear they are good for keeping rats out.
No comments:
Post a Comment