out at Oatlands, building a new compost bin. This is what will feed my garden next year. YUM.

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Every couple of weeks or so I turn them over, unstacking them, setting them up next to the old location, and shoveling the contents over. This keeps the oxygen in the compost bin and speeds up the decomposition. In between turns, I bury kitchen scraps in the compost for the red wiggler worms I added. Then I keep them covered with fallen leaves to cut down on flies, which usually are not a problem, but the leaves also help add carbon. The worms love the scraps, and I get some really great compost out of the deal.

Compost heap - part of a journal at MyFolia

out at Oatlands, building a new compost bin. This is what will feed my garden next year. YUM.

Compost making exercise

Permaculture Design Certificate

With Nick Ritar + special guests

Alexandria, Sydney Australia

May-August 2010

www.MilkwoodPermaculture.com.au

I thought my stream was in dire need of a splash of color in what has otherwise been flowing with blacks, whites and grays of late.

This is another in my series of compost compositions that I made a few months ago. The wrinkly red thing is a red pepper ripped open and stretching to touch the stalk of the yellow zucchini. Behind the vegetables' romance is a coffee-ground stained egg shell. As I mentioned earlier, I was drawn to this subject because of my interest in food and the roll it plays in culture not to mention our health. Incidentally, everybody ought to read "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. The book has a lot to say about this subject.

Anyhow, I made the photographs as a celebration of food. Whole, real food.

Since I made these photographs our garden has sprouted a plethora of tasty tomatoes, zucchini, onions, carrots, peppers, peas and squash. There is truly nothing like plucking ingredients straight from one's own garden, and fixing up a delicious stew or salad knowing precisely where it came from and the work that was spent nurturing it. There is a quote underlined in my copy of Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" (another great read) that I especially enjoy. It reads:

"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery store, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue."

Living the self-sufficient life that Leopold led is by no means easy or necessarily for everyone, but a garden is relatively simple and nearly effortless here in Oregon and the sense of connectedness to life that one gains is overwhelming.

Nice and cozy in there

The newly refurbished compost bin.

Composted cow manure – like that produced at this western Washington dairy – is clean, odorless and rich in natural nutrients. It makes an outstanding soil amendment and is increasingly used as a healthy material in which to bed cows.

My home owners association does not allow compost heaps -- so I made this covert compost bin.

cleaning out the finished compost

At Hankham Organics

Peacock meets the UK's largest compost heap at the Kew Gardens in London, England.

This has been in use for about 6 years now. I have been able to make lots of healthy high nutrient soil from the composting toilet and grass clippings. Then I use that soil for the garden and eat it. The natural soil is so bad where I live that without the composting toilet I would have no garden.

...Just add the "dry stuff" to "flush"

PowellRiverBooks.blogspot.com

www.PowellRiverBooks.com

My Motorized Trommel design

www.everydayurbangardener.com/2013/07/ive-got-worms-vermi...

Here is the story behind this compost sifter that I built a few weeks ago.

This is the finished product.

Finished compost. Shawn Preputin, Larry Johnson, and Alec McIntosh, farmers, create compost extract that is applied to their crop fields to bolster soil microbes and improve soil health. Hill County, MT; June 2022

timvidra.blogspot.com/2011/02/diy-composting.html

Find the recipe here: www.smells-like-home.com/2014/10/compost-cookies/

Our second compost bin is getting full, so I took one of the tiers from the first bin and placed it on the second... making this one 4 tiers high.

We have stopped placing compost in the first bin, so it will finish the final step of composting before we empty it out.

[Update] This photo appears in the book "I Garden: Urban Style" by Reggie Solomon and Michael Nolan.

Vrijdag ontvingen buurtbewoners aan de Witte de Withstraat in Ede 50 zakken compost. Wethouder Leon Meijer (o.a wethouder afval en duurzaamheid) overhandigde een eerste zak aan mevrouw Janine Tuinstra-Knigge. Mevrouw Tuinstra won de zakken voor haar buurt met het liken van de speciale Facebookpagina @afvalapart.

foto: Fotostudio Albert

I don't have a composting area: I put my daleks where I need compost.

This recently emptied heap is going to be raked out to provide a mulch for the broad beans

Bacs de collecte à la Ville de Victoriaville. Les matières non recyclables vont dans le bac noir, les matières recyclables dans le bac vert et les matières compostables, dans le bac brun. Tous les détails au vic.to/collecte

still a little raw, but the worms are happy...

On Composting Toilets and Humanure

Sure it's a gross pile of garbage now, but in three short months, it will be glorious (to me) compost, just in time for veggie planting.

Distant view of cells 1 and 2.