Compost Time!

Hola and Happy Sunny Wednesday Everyone :)

I love to maintain our compost pile :) Knowing that we're not dumping food scraps or brown wastes into the land fields is def. helping Mother Earth, not to mention our EDIBLE GARDEN :) Its great for Veggies, Trees, and most Plants! So here's the process:

Step 1.
Save all of your fresh green food scraps in a bowl or simply use a bin with a lid. Eggshells and coffee grounds are okay :)
Do not add: diseased plants, cooked fruits/veggies, meats, fats or grease!



Step 2.
Begin with an empty hole.












Step 3.
Throw in your green scraps :)












Step 4.
Cover your scraps with the same amount of browns. Browns are considered: Dead Leaves, wood chips, dried grass, straw, saw dust, or prunings. Be careful not to add those dead weeds in your bin!

Step 5.
Water your bin thoroughly and keep it moist (not wet.) Your done for the day :)




Step 6.
Turning your compost pile :) In my experience, if I turn the compost once a day, we could get compost in a month :) The pix to the right shows two bins, we would love to have three, however, once again no room :( Our compost bins are located on our steep driveway, making it easy for me (with the help of gravity) to turn the more decomposed compost to the lower end of the box :) This system also allows me to continue to add a weekly pile of fresh greens & browns as the compost moves to the lower end :)








Step 7.
Once you notice your food scraps and browns have decomposed to a stage where you don't really recognize whats in the pile... You may want to move the more decomposed stuff into another box, as we do. Don't forget to keep turning your piles, this will help to decompose everything faster :) Oh and water!






Step 8.
Improvise Improvise Improvise :)
Smarty pants Bingwa came up with this easy solution on sifting out the big undecomposed chunks out of our compost. We use the carry trays that are given to us when we leave the nurseries with way too many plants :)







Step 9.
Wala! You got yourself some beautiful rich organic compost in about a month or less! Its super light and SOO ALIVE!! Now its ready to use :) We use compost to amend our soils, lay a nice thick layer in our raised beds, add it to our pots, and even make compost tea!! (Conne I promise next lesson is how to make your own compost Tea!! Pls say hello to your beautiful daughter :)





Pls keep in mind our bins are both in a very shady area. We understand we're suppose to have the bins in the sun, however, we simply don't have the room in the garden (our garden isn't very big at all). So we Improvise and we still get fantastic compost! :)

Tx for reading :)

Namaste
Milli :)