POOR MAN'S COMPOST BIN UPDATE

Back in April in an attempt to improve my poor soil { sand } I constructed a cheap homemade compost bin. See blog entry from April 14th titled Back To Basics.

I have abundant leaves that fall from my Avocado tree as well as cuttings from the shrubbery that surrounds the back yard to use as material to be recycled in the bin.

I have been adding all the plant material into the bin instead of bagging it for the trash.

I have found that this is a real time saver when doing yard work. Just dump it into the bin and forget about bagging everything up.

I saved a used coffee container in the kitchen and save all my used paper coffee filters and used coffee grounds which are dumped into the pile also.

This is supposed to add acid to the compost and help to make my alkaline soil { sand } more better. { as we say in the south }

I do not put the weeds into the compost bin but still put them out with the trash. I figure that the weed seeds might survive and replant themselves from the composted material.


The bin has been full up to the top with material which has compacted and decayed until now it is half full.

The leaves appear to now be forming leaf mold and breaking down.

So far the poor mans compost bin appears to be working as planned. It will not produce usable compost in 14 days as some of the commercial advertised bins in the gardening magazines claim their products will. But this one costs far less and

appears to be composting just fine thank you.

I have now enlisted my son to help contribute to the good of the order. I gave him a heavy duty contractors garbage bag to fill up with his grass clippings after he mows his yard.

I am now adding the green clippings to the pile to fire it up. I can empty the bag of grass and return the empty bag to him to refill next mowing.

I figure that the cycle of recycling the materials will pay off with some natural compost filler to energize the garden.

Besides I am now saving a small fortune in trash bags which falls right in line with my goals for the garden. ---sanddune---

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