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.}