Bulk composting

Post date: Apr 8, 2020 12:44:38 AM

Bulk Composting

There is a lot of organic matter that the garden generates. Plant trimmings, lawn clippings, beheaded bushes after flowering, and plants that have finished fruiting.

I pile these all up into a box like set up: 4x4x3. The volume is needed as I do this over an entire season. And volume generates heat too to cook the compost. This box sits in a shaded corner. And it makes enough compost for me twice a year. Just like that.

The leaves and stems are thrown in. Some of the bulky kitchen waste occasionally goes in - some water melon rinds, some peels when I cook for guests, and so on. I layer it with brown leaves from the yard.

Twice a year I harvest: April second week and September last week.

April second week is when my spring and summer gardens begin. The compost is made up of all plants and cuttings collected from September onwards.

The pile is covered in a layer of manure from a friends farm in early March, so we compensate for inactivity all winter. The picture shows the harvest.

I will sieve the compost, apply it on my beds. And then build another pile, to be harvested in September when I am ready to put the fall and winter plants into the beds.

Easy and plentiful. Except for covering with a sheet from heavy rains, I do not do anything to this pile. It gets done without turning. This is the bulk compost I harvest. Enough to feed the plants all through the season.

And then there is the tumbling bin with kitchen waste; and the Vermicompost super compost produced by red wrigglers. That story for another time.

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