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Re: Compost

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html





>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>I was reading old messages about compost and the number of piles you keep
>going. Are any of you smack in the middle of suburbia? I've got a third of
>an acre (including the house) and all the back yards are just a sea of
>lawn, separated by the occasional chain-link fence.

Lucky you, I have 6,000 sq ft of suburbia....only about 1/7 of an acre. But,
I live in Canada, where lawn fascism is somewhat less prevalent, perhaps...

And my neighbors are happy to donate leaves, grass clippings, hedge prunings
etc to my composting activities.

Composting is supported by municipalities here, and black boxes are
subsidized. Here a Soil Saver can be had for 25 Canadian dollars from the
city of Pointe Claire, and other nearby cities have similar deals available.
Check with your local County; I know Montgomery County has a program down
yonder, and others may too.

A well managed black box can process all the kitchen wastes and some of the
yard wastes for an average family. If you need more capacity and have the
space, yet want to keep in step with neighborhood aesthetics, look to the
designs in Easy Composting, Robert Kourik and Jeff Ball, which has the best
photos of all the composting literature I know of and will give you some
useful ideas.

If worm composting catches your fancy, commercial bins like the Worm Wigwam
can process a surprising amount of materials. The ones at NIH are supposed
to be processing several tons of compostables each year, which is surprising
for such a small (3 foot high 3 feet in diameter cylinder) container.

See www.wormwigwam.com for the scoop on these.

As I noted, my own aesthetics are strictly pragmatic and doubtless I am a
Fing shooey failure and an art school reject, and indeed, could never color
inside the lines as a kid. I am fortunate or well placed in a neighborhood
with clotheslines, composters, cars being repaired, boats, etc....although I
must say that 'primer' is not the most widespread car color....LOL!

Anyway my neighbors tolerate my ugly 'Great Wall of Compost', which
disappears behind 12' high Bloody Butcher corn and various heirloom tomatoes
and sundry other vegetables in summertime. If I had more land, I could grow
hedges and obscure everything from view; my next door neighbor has a cedar
hedge started for that purpose and I have Jerusalem artichokes on that side
also.

In short, you may find you 'don't fit in' being a gardener and composter,
but I just want to tell you, not fitting in has an upside especially when
the others are all doing it wrong...LOL!

I do have a neighbor who is a rose judge and she makes tons of compost every
year, tucked away in a corner of her yard, not strictly hidden, though.



No hiding places for
>unsitely piles. Even building the raised beds caused a lot of comment.
>
>So I haven't started composting yet but have been collecting some
>materials. But in this pristine environment I was thinking about buying one
>of those $80 black plastic bins. Is this just a waste of money? Is it silly
>to do it at all if I can't do three piles? (And 3 x $80 is far too much
>money.)

If you want cheap aesthetic composting, you might try a simple design I
made. Take four foot lengths of 2 x 2s and four foot lengths of 1 x 6s and
make walls. You will need four walls for a simple 4 foot cube of compost.
Use two 2 x 2s as the posts, and nail or screw the 1 x 6 boards flush to
them;  you'll need about seven 1x6s, with some space in between.

These walls can be tied together for easy take-down and pile turning, or
removal of the finished product, and can be moved about or stored when not
in use. You can stain them, paint them, or linseed oil them. Materials up
here cost about 40 bucks, mine have lasted six years so far, aging to a
graceful gray color ( I don't believe in the evil paint, neither buying nor
applying, around a composting operation, but if you think you must, you can
paint the outside of the bin....dang fussy neighbors anyway, eh? :-)

This bin is more than five times larger than a black box and will process
oodles of stuff, especially when you get the worms going....and start
hitting up Starbucks!

Another way to go is compost fleece, which is essentially thick landscape
fabric, available in black and green, that you could use to cover compost
piles to make their unsightliness invisible. This stuff is somewhat
permeable to water and very permeable to air, and so allows you to compost
aerobically and invisibly, as it were. 80 dollars worth of this would cover
a lot more compostables than a black box, as well.

Finally, consider deep mulching as a compost method. Popularized by Ruth
Stout, this method lets you compost in place, right where the plants are
growing. This is both space and labor efficient, and largely invisible.

So there are options out there.

Good composting and courage,

Frank Teuton


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