Compost Happens

Screening out twigs and rocks

Compost happens, but sometimes a good compost bin helps it along.  We originally put our bin in the southwest corner of the yard, but it was shaded by the neighbor's big pine tree.  It wasn't getting very hot in that location, so we moved it to the northwest corner, where it catches more direct sun for longer periods of the day.

This year Cindy used the cover crop she grew last winter as mulch in the raised beds, and then put the excess into the compost bin, layering it with straw, since we don't have any leaves to use for brown material.  We shredded some of our old files and put some of the shredded paper as brown matter, too.  It's strangely satisfying to think of your old bills and financial statements decaying away to provide food for the table.

Chopping up the green material was a chore; she first tried chopping it by hand with various clippers, but her hands got really tired using that method.  She finally bought an electric leaf chopper that uses monofilament line to chop the material into finer pieces than she could do with the clippers.  It was messy, with pieces of shredded greenery all over the place, but it got the job done.

All that nitrogen rich green material got the pile in the bin cooking and it was amazing how fast the pile shrank as the decomposition process proceeded.

That worked really well, and in about a month she had enough dark, rich compost to spread on the raised beds before planting.