Composting Is Sexy

Rotting veggies, manure, worms, creepy crawly bugs of all kinds turn you on? No? They should. Getting your kitchen scraps, animal crap, and lawn clippings to nourish your soil so that you can grow your own food is totally sexy. Especially if you can do it in 17 days, a decomposition "quickie" so to speak.

On average, compost takes almost a year to fully decompose into luscious, crumbly hummus - that good coffee brown stuff that is like steroids for plants. AND you have to turn it with a pitchfork, which can be one foul smelling chore. Not so with a compost tumbler. This gadget is the total bomb. Give this puppy a daily spin and in a couple weeks you'll have quality dirt. But buying one can be pricey. So why purchase one when you can easily make your own? I picked up this compost bin on Freecycle:


I think it was meant to be able to turn, however that has been a fairly cumbersome operation in my experience. I decided to get it off the ground for easier tumbling. If you don't have a fabu bin like mine, just pick up one of those 55 gallon plastic food grade barrels with screw top lid. They are always for sale on Craigslist. Make sure you drill holes in the bin as compost requires aeration, otherwise you end up with anaerobic nastiness.



First I took some crappy scrap wood and made some posts.






Then I made some cross bar like things and nailed them to the crappy wood posts and put a metal bar through the bin, like this:


My disgruntled farmhand and I then mounted the barrel onto the posts. Voila! Sexy composting.