Compost Barrel
Jan. 2nd, 2012 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzBack in late summer before we'd moved here, I was so happy with my compost barrel (bought for what I think was € 17,99 at the Lidl). My mother had dumped copious amounts of weeds in there and we'd emptied the sad excuse of a pond (i.e. rotten leaves and evergreen droppings) in there.
But after we moved in, the compost barrel was mostly fed with kitchen waste: stumps of cauliflower and broccoli, potato and onion peels, apple cores, banana and tangerine peels, many used tea leaves and coffee filters (no cooked food!). There was hardly any addition from the garden and soon enough the compost barrel was starting to smell a bit. Not right out, thank goodness, but whenever I'd open the lid there was a smell of something rotten wafting up.
During the christmas dinner I aksed my aunt Chris about this. She spends most of her days in their enourmous garden. They grow maybe a thousand different species in there and if there's a strange plant sprouting up, I can call my aunt, describe the thing, and get the whole encyclopedia's worth of knowledge, interlaced with her invaluable experience as a gardener. This is why I don't consult Wikipedia; my aunt will tell me exactly how to keep or kill the damn thing and why I should. They eat asparagus, figs, ten different kinds of berries from their garden and they keep bees. I don't think they could get any cooler.
Aunt Chris advised me to stir things up a bit. She said that the wet leaves from the 'pond' had likely caused the air flow to stop, because the wet leaves seal off all ventilation. I had to bring more oxygen to the process. "You'd want a compost heap to ferment, in stead of rot."
A compost barrel is best started off with twigs, she said, so there's plenty of fresh air between the things that need composting. I frowned. We'd mostly thrown uprooted herbacious plants in there, and if anything, those are very wet by themselves. We'd also trimmed down the hydrangea a bit, but those were mostly flower crowns and would collapse instead of keeping the air in.
"Add straw." was the final tip.
I bought 3 kilo's of straw in Oisterwijk last week and this morning I set out to stir the compost barrel around a bit. I had no idea how to turn the bottom bits over to get them on top, but perhaps just sweeping things left and right would work too. I had a clear vision of me dangling into a compost barrel which was making soft "munch-munch" sounds while my legs flailed in the air.
When I pulled the top layer of kitchen waste aside, I noticed dark soil underneath. "I don't remember adding that much soil in there;" I thought. Only when I planted my spade into the heap and I heard twigs snap and I dug up the first bramble vine -- all hardened out and doing its best to take over the function of twigs -- did I realise that this was my first compost. The mid-August and early-September garden waste had already been turned into luxurious compost. It even smelled of rich forest soil!
I stirred the whole thing as best as I could and spread a layer of straw over the whole thing. Ready for the next layer of kitchen waste, but here's some tips from my aunt:
What not to put in a compost barrel:
Most vegetables and fruit are treated with poisons to keep off insects and disease. The potato will store most of the poisons in the peel, and for the citrus and banana it's on the peel itself. You don't want to recycle that back into your garden. These will go into the Community bin instead.
I am as pleased as a cat with cream on its whiskers. Go, compost, go!
But after we moved in, the compost barrel was mostly fed with kitchen waste: stumps of cauliflower and broccoli, potato and onion peels, apple cores, banana and tangerine peels, many used tea leaves and coffee filters (no cooked food!). There was hardly any addition from the garden and soon enough the compost barrel was starting to smell a bit. Not right out, thank goodness, but whenever I'd open the lid there was a smell of something rotten wafting up.
During the christmas dinner I aksed my aunt Chris about this. She spends most of her days in their enourmous garden. They grow maybe a thousand different species in there and if there's a strange plant sprouting up, I can call my aunt, describe the thing, and get the whole encyclopedia's worth of knowledge, interlaced with her invaluable experience as a gardener. This is why I don't consult Wikipedia; my aunt will tell me exactly how to keep or kill the damn thing and why I should. They eat asparagus, figs, ten different kinds of berries from their garden and they keep bees. I don't think they could get any cooler.
Aunt Chris advised me to stir things up a bit. She said that the wet leaves from the 'pond' had likely caused the air flow to stop, because the wet leaves seal off all ventilation. I had to bring more oxygen to the process. "You'd want a compost heap to ferment, in stead of rot."
A compost barrel is best started off with twigs, she said, so there's plenty of fresh air between the things that need composting. I frowned. We'd mostly thrown uprooted herbacious plants in there, and if anything, those are very wet by themselves. We'd also trimmed down the hydrangea a bit, but those were mostly flower crowns and would collapse instead of keeping the air in.
"Add straw." was the final tip.
I bought 3 kilo's of straw in Oisterwijk last week and this morning I set out to stir the compost barrel around a bit. I had no idea how to turn the bottom bits over to get them on top, but perhaps just sweeping things left and right would work too. I had a clear vision of me dangling into a compost barrel which was making soft "munch-munch" sounds while my legs flailed in the air.
When I pulled the top layer of kitchen waste aside, I noticed dark soil underneath. "I don't remember adding that much soil in there;" I thought. Only when I planted my spade into the heap and I heard twigs snap and I dug up the first bramble vine -- all hardened out and doing its best to take over the function of twigs -- did I realise that this was my first compost. The mid-August and early-September garden waste had already been turned into luxurious compost. It even smelled of rich forest soil!
I stirred the whole thing as best as I could and spread a layer of straw over the whole thing. Ready for the next layer of kitchen waste, but here's some tips from my aunt:
What not to put in a compost barrel:
- Potato peels
- Citrus peels (orange, tangerine, lemon, lime)
- Banana peels
- Weeds you don't want to grow back or reseed in your compost
Most vegetables and fruit are treated with poisons to keep off insects and disease. The potato will store most of the poisons in the peel, and for the citrus and banana it's on the peel itself. You don't want to recycle that back into your garden. These will go into the Community bin instead.
I am as pleased as a cat with cream on its whiskers. Go, compost, go!
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-02 10:29 am (UTC)To clarify, that's not supposed to sound snarky. But it's true, the pesticides problem is pretty much non-existent in organic fruits and veggies (especially citrus).
But, yay, compost! :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-02 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-02 12:17 pm (UTC)(I need to drop by some time and craft with you. Maybe have a bit of a walk together or admire your garden)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-03 08:25 am (UTC)I am unsure whether my new atelier will fit two people crafting, but we can always try!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-02 04:34 pm (UTC)Ow, and a happy New Year btw; and the best wishes for you and NoKey in your new home
no subject
Date: 2012-01-03 08:25 am (UTC)Best wishes to you too!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-02 09:06 pm (UTC)