How do you go about composting? Our previous home had a somewhat secret area (away from the neighbors) whereby we could just pile up our scraps and it was easily turnable, but that is no longer the case.
Well, there are several methods.
1. Hubby sets up chicken wire forming a circle toward the back of the property on the utility easement area of the lot.
He piles it full of leaves and what ever else happens to be available-like stalks of wheat after he harvests them for the wheat seeds. We have a big patch of volunteer polk greens that he tosses in at the end of summer.
2. There’s a garbage bag method. Where you put a bunch of leaves in a garbage bag, and poke a lot of holes in it, and then let it sit from fall till the next spring for leaf mulch.
3. I have a plastic composter that looks like a garbage can with a swinging lid. It has lots of air circulation though. I put all the kitchen stuff in there along with leaves and shredded paper. It is a pain to turn though.
You have to take the bottomless can off, and seperate the compost from the decomposing. It does have a sliding door at the bottom which allows access to the completed compost in an easier fashion.
4. I have some drain tiles about 1x1 and 2 feet tall. I dug a little trench and set the tiles a few inches into the ground, threw in some twigs, and then added some kitchen stuff peels etc. covered with leaves and topped off with the dirt I removed before setting the tile.
These can be placed side by side, and you can plant some flowers on top, so they are neat, and kinda look like planters grouped together.
5. When I was a kid, people used to just dig a hole in the ground, put some stuff in it, and then cover it over. Kinda like a garbage grave. They were careful to remove the top sod to add on top, so that there wasn’t a bare spot.
Next week, they would dig another little patch next to it. This also was usually in the back yard next to the property line.
6. It is possible to use a raised bed, just incorporate the leftover crop like corn stalks, toss on some coffee grounds and leaves even cover it with some cardboard to keep it looking neat. Till it under in the spring.
7. There are several worm composting methods that can be used in the house. They have several stackable boxes that are used and as the worms digest the stuff on top, in falls through into the bottom, and you get worm castings and liquid nutrient.
Several of these models claim they are ok for having in the kitchen-I would relegate them to an unused corner of the basement if I had one. IIRC, Gardens Alive sells a worm composter.
If you do a web search, there is all kinds of stuff about how to do compost. You can make it as complicated as you want.LOL
I have a plastic garbage can that I use for composting kitchen scraps, coffee/tea grounds, straw and another place in the back yard for leaves, tree trimmings, etc.
A friend is using red wigglers in her keyhole garden. I give her our watermelon trimmings and she says her wigglers “just love watermelon”. She’s so funny.