Composting

I have gotten a lot of questions about my composting system lately.  It sounds kind of complicated but once you make your own system work for you it's quite easy.

First, I have a jar on my counter (that I got at Home Goods or similar store) with an easy-opening lid that I put my compost items in.  I put in all of my kitchen scraps minus fats and meats.

Once this jar is full I dump it into a pail I keep outside next to the porch steps.

Then once that pail gets filled or the stench becomes unbearable I haul it down to the compost pile.

It's a simple three-sided structure made out of stakes and chicken wire.  My husband takes a pitchfork to it once a week or so.  We add leaves in the fall and other garden refuse at the end of the season.  I don't worry too much about the ratio of things in there - it seems to do just fine on its own.

Melon-looking thing growing

I always get things that grow in my compost bin.  I learned the hard way that it's best not to transplant these things to the garden, however hard it may be to resist that temptation.  The reason is that most of the seeds that grow from your compost could be harboring diseases, are a cross-breed, or are not a particular cultivar that would be appropriate to grow in your climate zone.  The first year I had the compost pile I was so excited to find a melon-like thing growing that I planted it in my garden.

Well it produced a lot of vines that took up a lot of space and nutrients, but the small melony-looking thing that it made basically was rotten mush inside.  Yuck.

I learned my lesson