Category Archives: Compost

Building a Vegetable Garden Planter

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Two days ago I set about doing something I have never done before; build something from scratch.  Well, I guess a number of years ago back at school I did build a wall mountable bike rack and tool tray for a project, but that doesn’t count as it was designed and thought out, plus I had a teacher to guide me. Building something from nothing is very satisfying and upon completion of this little project I was very proud of my efforts.  So as you can tell from the title of the post, I built a Garden Planter, in which to grow vegetables. Continue reading →

Compost – 8 weeks in

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Ok folks, my apologies for not keeping you more upto date on the goings on of my compost, but here it is.

Firstly I was completely amazed that after 4 weeks of composting my garbage accumulation had dwindled so drastically.  From putting a garbage bin out for collection once a week, I had reduced this to just once every four weeks.  Yes, one bag between 2 people every 4 weeks.  This is great for so many reasons, but most notably the reduction of plastic bags needed for garbage. Continue reading →

Compost – Two Weeks In

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For those interested in my composting activities, I have now had the bin for two weeks.  I have added one bucket of green, followed by one pile of card and paper once since the first addition at the start of the process.  As we are vegetarians, there is a lot of green produce that we have left over after making various dishes, therefore filling a fairly substantially sized carton each week seems to be pretty easy.

Any sealable container will do

Coffee grinds, banana peel, onion peel, avocado skins and so on.  we just keep adding it to the bucket and as it now seems, we are filling one a week.  I just went to add this weeks bucket to the compost and noticed that the flies who were congregating a few days ago are no longer there and the pile seems to be decomposing rather well.  I did aerate the pile half way into the week and re-covered with small pieces of card, which may have done the trick.

I am a little concerned about the amount of card I am putting in, but on speaking with a local compost helper, I seem pretty happy that I have been ripping up the card into really small pieces.  It takes time, but I feel it’s worth it to get the ‘recipe’ just right!

Has anyone else recently started composting and had any challenges they would like to share here?  I would love to hear from you.

Let the Composting Begin

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About 5 years ago I bought my parents in England a compost bin.  They definitely hadn’t asked for a compost bin, but the impulse for the purchase was there.  I installed it, posted instructions on the fridge and crossed my fingers that they would adopt the procedures.  Sure enough, with a tiny bit of encouragement they did and in the process saved a huge amount of space in the normal garbage.  They also have great compost to spread on their garden resulting in beautiful roses and other types of attractive plants. (For those in the UK wanting to compost here is a way to easily get started)

I am happy that I was able to encourage someone to do this and in hindsight now realize that that this occurred due to my lifestyle.  In the past my lifestyle seemed to involve to moving rom place to place each year, which is not conducive to composting. But now it’s my turn.

Some of you may remember my apartment compost experiment with my ‘worm bin‘.  Well the sad news is, it didn’t work out.  My colony of worms didn’t get on with the noise and vibrations of the loud city street and I think I failed to get the correct balance of content.

Compost Day

I have been in the market for a compost bin for a while but was waiting for the right time to begin.  In preparation, I had been freezing green food scraps, accumulating a large enough amount to get the bin started. On June 21st, I received a compost bin and after reading countless internet articles along with the instructions enclosed, I was ready to set it up.
I dug out some stones to reveal the ground, creating a place for the bin and then following the myriad of various instruction, placed a layer of green scraps followed by a layer of brown.

The Brown layer covers up the green, to keep out fruit flies

For compost to work, you need nitrogen (green food waste), Carbon (brown leaves, card, egg cartons, sticks) and oxygen.  If there is an imbalance then things go awry. Too much nitrogen, you’ll get flies, too much carbon, it will be too dry, not enough oxygen, it won’t decompose.  So with all this in mind, I have begun the process.
I have my fingers crossed and hope that my reading has prepared me to a level that creates some great sweet smelling compost.
One thing is for sure, it has already halved the amount of rubbish accumulating in my bin, which therefore has halved the amount of landfill I require to take up.

Nature is a wonderful tool when it is used correctly and we give back to it.

I would love to hear from anyone else who is either starting out or who is a seasoned pro at composting, any help posted below would be gratefully received, not only by me, but also by any other readers of the blog.

Thank you, wish me luck!

For more info and for those on Vancouver Island, read the acrd page here.

{Post Edited: previous post said I received the Bin on June 6th, whereas in fact it was June 21st.}