I've Been Working On Some Compost

 

If you follow my other blog, then you probably already know this, but I've been working on some compost this past month.  In February I place a one gallon ice cream bucket in our kitchen to collect kitchen items, primarily coffee grounds, tea bags, banana peels and egg shells since we use up pretty much everything else in some form or fashion.  The ice cream bucket is the perfect size for the task plus it has a nice tight lid to keep smells under control and fruit flies at bay.  Once it is full I dump it in our compost bin, wash it out and start again.

 

Cardboard + any compostible kitchen waste goes into this bucket

I've always been really good at minimizing our trash and recycling whatever we can instead of absentmindedly tossing items into the garbage bin.  But now I'm on a mission to look at our recycling with new eyes and find that a lot of what has been going into our blue bin can actually go out to the compost bin instead.  Now I'm collecting all of our paper and cardboard.  I have a shredder for junk mail and personal papers that we don't want to go in the trash and all of that shredding is compostable as well.

 

Our compost bin is a simple two compartment structure that I built out of four by four fence posts and cedar fence boards.  One side is typically the receiving side while the other is the active working breakdown side.  I layer compostable items from the house with manure and bedding from our chicken coop as well as my daughter's bunny along with yard debris and other organic matter.

 

Even the paper from my shredder goes in

This will be amazing soon!

Once it is completely broken down and resembles soil I will use it in our raised garden beds as well as to add to our flower beds in the yard.  We had loads of landscape and gardening plans ahead and good organic compost is going to be a big part of what we plan to do.