Setting up a composting system - 2023 06 07

 

The new composter is assembled and ready for service. Mom read Pogo aloud while I tightened the 64 nuts and bolts to complete assembly.

Setting up the shade garden and worm farm has led me to take a close look at our composting system. Previously we had thrown all organic waste into the city green bin. The bushels of leaves that fell from the Lombardi Poplar were bagged up and hauled away. My priorities have changed and the value of this green waste has gone up significantly.

Our theory for shade garden success is that we are going to need a vigorous and vital soil habitat for the plants to draw maximum nourishment during the hours when they have direct sun. The soil on this property was severely impacted by a gigantic cedar hedge that surrounded the yard for 30 years. After the hedge was removed, there was major construction when we excavated to put a new basement under our 1911 house. This year we hauled 5 cubic yards of composted soil from the City. All these events have contributed to a soil habitat in early stages of building up microbial organisms. Our shade garden soil needs concentrated revitalization this year to provide nutrients for our vegetables and mushrooms.

My composting system is designed to feed nutrient rich organic compost to the shade garden. I am developing three streams to flow into the beds: 1) yard waste, 2) kitchen and household waste, 3) worm waste.

Yard waste is comprised of leaf windfall, grass clippings, and weeding. Our neighbour cleared out blackberry and lily overgrowth and I took the green waste into my garden bins. Now my bins are overflowing and this waste poses a threat to contaminating my garden with blackberry shoots. So I need a reliable way to break down this vegetation to compost before it takes up residence in my yard.

My neighbour gave me a lot of vegetation waste, I need to re-set my composting system to process it into soil.

Kitchen waste includes all foods from the kitchen, including a steady stream of coffee pucks from the two espresso machines operating 3 to 4 times a day : ) Household waste includes paper from the household - egg cartons, paper food containers and bags, also waste office paper.

Worm waste is the worm castings that result from our worm composting system. The worms are fed organic waste from both the yard and the kitchen, specific for their diet.

Today I am going to move my baby worms from the temporary bin into their new worm farm habitat.


This is the beginning of my comprehensive composting system. I have a steep learning curve because I really don't know how to make functional composting systems. I have years of experience with dysfunctional composting that never really yielded significant volume of compost. Part of that problem was that I never really understood what I was going to do with the compost after it was ready for use. More on that later.

I'm not sure what to do with meat and dairy waste at this time. We don't have much of it. I don't want it sitting in the giant city green bin for a couple of weeks waiting for pickup. More on that later, too.

What is very satisfying right now is that I am caregiving for my 92 year old Mom at her last stop in life. We are really enjoying my gardening adventures and they are something I can do while I look after Mom and also make a contribution to the economy of the household.


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