BackYard Composting

Hi Susan, Great to hear from you. You definately want to take advantage of the grass clippings and leaves and such, especially stalks and dead plants from your garden, refeed the soils. Put a large box (as large as you expect your compost to be for the year) in the corner of the yard, and another one beside it, make the box's so that the front opens and drops down. Consider a cover for the rain and the snow, remember on warm days to water it.

This compost will get fairly warm but my dad does this and his is full of worms that over the years just found their way into his box so the worms can go warm you just don't want to cook them. Me I am impatient I would throw some worms in their as a starter. He is in Alberta where it gets pretty cold but the depth of the box and the wood frame protect the worms. (by the way red worms are great for fishing)

The second box is for cycling your compost. After a few months or more depending on the worm population (a no worm box could take 12 months to compost) take a pitch fork and move the contents from box A to box B, do this in layers - for example estimate the full box into 6 or 7 levels, take the top level of A and put it on the bottom of B until all of A is upside down in B. That will speed your composting along.

When your compost is finished and mostly broken down empty box B about 8 to 12 inches a day, even better if you go through what you are removing with gloves to see if there are any worms in it, and throw them back on the pile. Also throw anything that has not composted back in the pile. The worms will keep digging down each day to escape the light, when you get toward the bottom just leave the worms there and throw stuff you have been saving to compost right on top of them. Remember no pesticides or chemicals and let grass sit in those bags for awhile to begin to get mooshy.

If you want to take the compost you have made and make some super soil take an icecream bucket (or any bucket) of compost, throw it in your wheel barrow then add a bucket of vermiculite and a bucket of wet soaked peat moss and mix it all up, process all your compost that way. You will have the most incredible soil as you work this into your garden and your garden will require less water, holding the water better.

Now if you want to get into raising fishing bait, I would suggest you set up boxes that will be in the home or a garage where water wouldn't freeze, in contained boxes. You really could get a bunch of worms in a fairly small area and have them eating all your fruit and vegatable scraps and you BF's too if necesary.

But if you don't want to mess with Red Worm Farming, do put all those peals and cores and egg shells and such from your kitchen in the compost pile, remember to bury food in the pile so the criters don't smell it and so it breaks down faster. My theory is when you take the fruit and vegatable scraps and put them back in the soil you are taking vitamins and minerals from around the country and adding them to your garden and your diet, goodies that would not otherwise be in your soil.

Please e-mail me with any questions or input, thanks appreciate you.

Happy Gardening, Dan Hamon e-mail dkhamon@hotmail.com