Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The compost

Aaah, the compost! One of the many miracles of nature! First it's food and what you don't want to eat becomes stinky yuck, then you stir and you wait and out comes - earth to grow food on. How great is that!? ;o)

Well, I told you at the beginning of the year that we are looking into starting our own compost. Well, we have made some tiny steps since then.

First I thought I'd just try and make a tiny compost bin where everything can break down by itself like in a garden compost. I put the kitchen scraps in the bin and mixed it well with some soil.


I kept the bin upstairs in the attic which is well ventilated and it didn't really stink unless you took the top off (that I did a few times a week to stir the whole stuff).




I poked some holes through the bottom of the bin so that excess moisture could run out, but it wasn't really necessary.

I soon realised though that my plan was not gonna work. I think the bin was just not big enough to develop enough heat to break the stuff down.

I've been reading a lot about vermicomposting and how it is really ideal for small indoor composts, because the worms do all the work and therefore it doesn't stink and it works well in smaller containers, too. The problem is that the worms are really expensive if you buy them.

But last weekend, when we were back at my parent's place, the weather was really good and a group of people from their neighbourhood had started bringing out the fresh soil from their big shared compost onto a nearby field. We got ourselves a bucket and started digging up the little friends to take them home with us.



So now the bottom of our compost container ist filled with yummy compost earth and a small worm population that we will now try to feed well so that they will breed fast and soon be able to eat all of our kitchen scraps. (At the moment we have to be careful not to overfeed them).

I really hope this will turn out nicer than the first try and I must admit, I'm also quite in love with the cute little wormly-guys!




What do you think? Is it worth starting your own compost? Or would you rather wait until an easier solution presents itself? What do you do with your green waste?

5 Comments:

Squiggly Rainbow said...

I watched Gardening Australia last night on

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/

it was about composting, I can't wait to get ours started. I am not sure if the method would be different for different parts of the world though.

Rach x

Squiggly Rainbow said...

Thanks for sharing more of yourself. It is so nice to get to know you more!!! Love the hair-do's - I'm not courageous enough - I so want to shave it all off though!

You are inspiring me with you give-aways and allowing me to remember some things I forget are important to me as I am feeling swallowed up at the moment!

Rach xo

Kelly Casanova said...

Compost is an absolute must for us, in fact I've just been outside chopping stalks with an axe in readiness to compost. Whatever doesn't go to the chooks goes to the compost.
I love worms too :)

Elisa said...

Of course it is worth it! Our green waste from food went to the trash bin and was expensive and our green waste from the garden went to a space we kept putting it there and in the last 5 years it has transformed itself into: soil!! Well enough soil to grow pumpkins on!!

Well until now it was Ron who held me back from compost, but this year I am going to convince him he has ti buy us a thermo composter! A big one!

This will then be the year you Yaga and me will start with composting. We just have to remember not to feed the worms too much grass. I hope I will be able to get some worms from our neighbours. :-)

Oh, and by the way: today I got a mail saying there is a way for YOU to live even more plastic-less: at LUSH they have now solid toothpaste! Yes, you heard me right, solid toothpaste! These are neroli-and-mint tabs and you have to chew them and then brush your teeth with! Go check it out!

yaga said...

I think there are many different ways of composting, so it's important to not give up too early...
thanks, I was wondering if I was telling too much and being boring, but I generally want people to know who's writing here!
I can't wait to have the compost set up so that we can put all our food waste in it, it's saving so much trash!
elisa, that sounds fantastic and really funny, i have to try that. atm we're using toothpaste from weleda which comes in aluminium tubes. not sure if that's a great solution though.
gotta run girls, so nice to read your comments!!!!
love
yaga

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