We have the same compost rules, although I am a turner. I sometimes use pure compost for things in pots. It seems to require less water than regular soil.I can't imagine not composting.
The city people in BC have a useful program: cheap compost bins ($25). They sell those big black EarthEaters and other than cracking more often than not, they compost pretty decently. I like your idea though. Sounds like it might make me a Non Turner...
We've had the slimy stinky experience, and a rat situation once. But we're more or less fine now. Our city also offers cheap bins. I think a lot of Canadian cities do. And the city we lived in in the UK did, too. given the cost of landfill, I think it is a good use of tax dollars. (I think our city is also thinking of starting a kitchen waste pickup, too. They already take garden waste and compost it and resell it.)
Great tips.
I've had something living in my enclosed, black plastic composter but have never caught sight of it. I can tell though, by the nice rounding sleepy hollows. Pretty sure it's a rodent of some variety. I am hopeful that not planting sunflowers will give them less of an incentive to stick around.
Last weekend I dug up both my compost piles and restarted completely, moving one across the yard to be near the other. The compost looked perfect: light, fluffy, smelling like lavender. I covered all my veggie beds and planting areas with a couple of inches of composty goodness. Now this week I have discovered that in the last year, no tomato seeds composted, because every last bed has tons of tiny volunteer tomato plants coming up.
My advice: If you have a plastic worm composting bin in your kitchen with holes in it and you go on vacation and the weather turns unexpectedly HOT while you are gone, be prepared to come back to hundreds of worms who have tried to escape the bin through the holes despite their usual tendency to stay buried and have met their fate halfway across your kitchen floor in the dry heat.
It was really interesting to clean up.
I never got the bin restarted, but I have been thinking about trying again with an outdoor one at our new place as an activity I can do with my son.
Oh, and a tip we always used was to keep a bag (like the kind veggies come in from the store) on the counter and toss scraps in it as the day goes by and throw in the freezer. Freezer collects scraps without decomposing or smelling and kind of adds moisture due to ice and then you add them to bin when the bin is ready.
In Arizona we just heaped the compost in a box-shaped corner of the side yard and let it go. We watered occasionally but it was "lazy compost"; in AZ heat it didn't need much moisture to keep it good & hot. One spring, we found a nest of roaches in it (the horror!) and set it on fire to get rid of them, then went back to business being lazy.
Got a lot of good soil from it, too.
Since moving to FL I've just been burying the compost around the edges of our dinky backyard. Often the dog obliges me by providing a hole; she must have, you know, seen a lizard there once or something.
Fire ants!!!
I have been composting for years, but I haven't found a way to keep fire ants out without chemical treatment.
Suggestions?
I had to add a link to my ode to composting from a couple years ago: My Hideous (But Virtuous) Cache of Compost.
It's a little heavy on the literary references. :-/
Robin, I chase fire ants out of our compost pile with regular watering and a spray of liquid horticultural molasses. It feeds soil microbes. For whatever reason, fire ants do not like it and will clear any area you spray with it, at least for a few weeks/months. Good luck!
Mmm, worms, rats, lizards, a mystery animal, slime and fire ants! Compost is more entertaining than TV. And you can't grow tomatoes by putting a TV on them.
Loved the post...and the extra info in comments on fire ants. Actually, those critters are the #1 reason that I haven't tried this yet...other than "sheet mulching", which is a kind of composting.
As for "compost pile residents", our neighbor years ago had a very nice looking king snake. His pile was the traditional on-the-ground compost kind--very minimalist. The snake is the other reason why I'm a little nervous going that route...having found a baby rattler on our property.
If I do it, it's going to have to be in one of those turnable, recycled bin things, I guess.
I don't garden and don't want to start. Anyone in Austin want to come pick up a bin of food waste from me once a week? Email me. kellyfelner at gmail d*t c*m. Is there any other solution?
Kelly, that's a great, generous thing to do. You might try craigslist or Austin freecycle to connect with someone who could use your compost-makings. There seem to be a lot of gardeners on freecycle especially. I'll bet you could find a taker there.
Paula, I can understand the hesitation with the rattlesnakes on-site. A closed bin might be the way to go for you. Just watch out for slime!
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