I LOVE gardening...and I love love love makin' compost! Cool new tool!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have always loved to garden, but between finally owning my own home, losing weight, and having Adderall, I have finally cut loose and gone crazy this year. Having a FAAAAbulous time.

3 weeks ago, I scored: the city of LA subsidizes composters…I got 2 $90 Earth Machines for $20 each.

I have tried to compost before, but it just didn’t happen. Slimy, icky…just not happening. These composters and my careful balancing of nitrogen to carbon is keeping the compost cooking at max temps day after day. I open it up, give it a stir, and steam comes pouring out. SO much fun.

And I just got the GREATEST TOOL EVER!!! It is a compost aerator…ohmygod it is fantastic! What a beautifully designed tool! It looked great it in the pictures, but they don’t even do it justice. It’s fantastic. Solid metle construciton, toothed panels, solid heavy handles… my compost is fully oxygenated, right down to the ground.

How much fun am I having? I can’t even tell you.

I love sitting in the garden and mixing up the perfect soil… a little compost, a little sand, some worm casting… a pinch of this a dash of that…tra la la… Yeah, I know. I am revisiting childhood, playing in the mud. And I am not the slightest bit embarassed. I’m thrilled.

My fellow gardening dopers know. It’s peace, tranquility, satisfaction. Go into the garden and there’s always something to do. Some seedlings to transplant, soil to prepare, plant to groom, pest to eradicate, compost to chop. And the mind just enters this great zen plance.

Heaven.

2

While my husband is a delighted gardener, I only tolerate working in the garden because of the results. Otherwise, dirt? Worms? Nas. Tee.

But I’m glad you like it.

3

Hey, I’d love to get some of those for my new house! I’m in L.A. County, but not City. Who should I call?

4

Eew. I don’t make compost, but I, too, LOVE LOVE LOVE gardening. I never knew I had a green thumb! But every vegetable grows under my tutelage. Flowers: not so good.

5

Mmm, compost.

It’s all about the soil, people.

6

No call…they have bin sales the second Friday of every month at the Griffith Park Composting Education Facility:

http://www.lacity.org/san/sancpost.htm

they also sell the biostack, but I think the Earth machines are great.

7

Stoid, does the compost smell bad?

8

properly done, compost doesn’t smell. Other than a nice “rich dirt” sort of smell.

9

If you have a few extra bucks. The Envirolet - A must have for (well-off) compost enthusiasts the world over.

10

So unfair, I want to compost stuff too! Stupid apartment. Have you seen those composters that have a handle and you can turn them like cement mixers? Is that what you have Stoid?

11

Damn, something Stoid and I can enthusiastically agree upon. Compost (and composing) is great.

Of course, I make mine without manufactured plastic, earth-resource depleting, petrochemical-using compost tumblers. But that’s okay.

Tell me, have you gotten to the true compost wacko stage of taking your neighbor’s bagged leaves and grass clippings?

12

Too much nitrogen. Add some leaves, straw or shredded paper.

13

Plastic, yes. Tumbler, no. I had to have something securely and completely enclosed because I have dogs.

Oh my god, I can’t believe you said this! Today is trash and gardener day, and I just, for the very first time, raided my several of my neighbors’ garden waste cans! I SCORED!! I got SO much stuff I had to stop… the grass clippings were so abundant that they were ALREADY hot! Nice to know my fellow compost freaks are on the same page. I intend to keep raiding the cans until my composters are full.

I am so excited about getting the finished product. Give me a year and I’m going to have the most awsome soil for miles around.

And no, it does not stink, it smells great.

14

That’s what chicken wire is for.
(it’s dark, PLATO is down, so I’m going to take my Lab for a walk in the alley. Maybe I’ll find some compost fuel.)

15

Chicken wire wouldn’t do nuthin’ cept shred my puppies lips and tongues as they licked and chewed around it.

My puppies loves them some rottin’ veges…

16

Oh I have always always wanted to compost since all those years ago when I saw Martha (the Martha) do it in one of her gardens.

Oh! To not live in a desert, what would I give?!

17

Composting newbie here, maybe you experts can help.

I have a tendency to buy fruits and veggies and then forget them in my vegetable bin until they are rather brown and squishy, so I thought if I started composting at least I could manage to get some benefit out of that stuff. I decided to start small and I ordered a small composting bucket from Gardeners.com. I’ve bought some other things there which I am happy with but I think I might just send this bucket back. It’s just a small rectangular bucket with a hinged lid with a cut out on top and a carbon filter that goes in there. There are no other instructions with it.

I thought that I’d get some instructions or that there would be something I had to add to the stuff I’m composting. It’s just a bucket with a hole without instructions, I could make my own and still not know what to do with it. It’s meant for kitchen scraps, so it can be kept inside, but can I keep adding stuff to it or do I have to just throw a bunch of stuff in and just do one batch at a time? Do I mix it or shake it up? Is a carbon filter enough to keep little bugs out?

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something right now but I wanted something as a starting point WITH INSTRUCTIONS.

18

I’m guessing the bucket is for holding stuff that you’re going to throw into the “real” compost pile, to be located outside, rather than for actual composting. (Most composters have such a bucket or bin in our kitchens.)

The only indoor compost method I’ve heard of involves worms, which sounds like a good time to me.

19

In related news, after a few days away I returned to find my containered tomato plants have flowers! Both of them!! (I only bought 2 because I was sure I was going to kill one). Flowers means tomatoes! Woooot!

BTW, this are the first food-bearing plants I’ve ever planted all on my own. I guess I’m kinda proud of me.

20

I’m jealous - I have a small yard, and no room for a compost heap. I had one in a previous house, though. We’d put a galvanized tub in the back of the station wagon and go to pastures and stock up on horse and cow poop, and then bring it home and mix it in with the grass clippings, kitchen scraps and a couple of shovelfuls of dirt. Dang, I had me some rich, black compost at that place. The veggies and flowers adored it! Nowadays, I go to a nearby chicken ranch and purchase composted chicken manure.

Yep, gardening is 90% soil caretaking and 10% planting, pruning and weeding. If you create great soil, your garden will practically take care of itself.