My first compost post

I have never blogged about the composting I do in the yard so I have decided to start. It is a great way to reduce your household waste and immensely improve your soil at the same time. I will start by showing the compost screen I just built. For some reason I put a bunch of sticks & mulch in the composter. It turned my finished compost into a jumbled mess so what better to do then screen it.

I made the screen just big enough to fit over the wheel barrow rim. The frame is two layers of 1x2's with 1/4" hardware cloth sandwiched in between. The top side I mitered together by cutting the corners at 45 degrees and then I glued & screwed them together. Once that dried the hardware cloth was stapled on the back and then the second layer of 1x2's were screwed on over that with simple butt joints. With the glue drying time it took about 2 hours to make and cost about $25 dollars, mainly because hardware cloth is rather pricey. I will later add some articulating legs to the screen so I can set it up on the ground and throw compost through it.

This is my composter, it is called an Earth Machine. It has been in use for 6 years now and it works very well. The best part is the city sells them to any resident for $20 dollars every spring. The only draw back to this system is it is a real pain to turn the pile. Since adding the vegetable garden this bin does not have enough capacity for my needs. I will be expanding this year but I have not decided yet if I will get another earth machine or start a three-bin composter. The composter is behind the shed and this area will be improved this year once the new bin is added.

Below is a series of photos I took well screening the finished compost:

The bottom 2/3 is the finished compost and was accumulated
from last Spring & Summer. The top 1/3 is unfinished compost
from last fall & winter.

I separated the finished compost from
the unfinished and started to screen it.

I found pushing it through with my hands worked best.
Shaking it would probably work better if you didn't have
a bunch of debris in your finished compost like I had.

Here is the left over sticks & mulch from just two shovel fulls. That
will be the last time I put wood in the composter. This screen caught
a lot of the squash seeds too that should not have been in the
compost either. Live and Learn.

Here is the finished product, It literally is black gold. It was
light as a feather and has a sweet earthy smell. The veggies
will love it. This springs haul was 3 wheelbarrows full
or about 18 cubic feet.

I will keep doing a few compost post every now and again. Future posts will cover what I add to the composter, how I care for the composter and the improvements to the compost area once the new composter arrives.

Happy composting and if you have not started composting yet why not give it a try.