Garden Notes

Round compost bin with lid and drum compost bin with handle for turning

I grew up in northern Wisconsin on a farm. My parents did their composting very simply. All coffee grounds, ashes from the wood stove and kitchen scraps were put on a pile just over a hill behind the house. Of course this was not very attractive.

In the spring, my mom would spread out the compost a bit and plant squash and pumpkins to hide the compost pile. My dad said the vines grew so fast that the bumps wore off the squash from the vines pulling them across the yard. Those vines got huge, nicely hiding the compost and providing a lot of squash and pumpkins. In fact many years we got so many that we donated bushels of squash to the Catholic nuns who lived in our little town. My mom was very big on sharing the bounty from the garden!

When I finally got a larger yard, I decided to compost. Since I lived in the suburbs, I didn’t want that ugly pile in the yard, so I got 2 different composters. The first one is round with no bottom so it sits directly on the ground. I put in my kitchen scraps, weeds from the yard that have not gone to seed and trimmings from the garden. I take care not to include any plants that are diseased and I put in water when the compost seems dry. At the end of the season, I open the compost bin with the handy side latch and remove the top section that has not finished composting. I set it aside and use the bottom compost that now looks black and crumbly as a soil amendment in my various garden beds. When the pile is gone, I reassemble the compost bin, retrieve the top section of compost that has been set aside,  put it back in the  bin and begin composting again. This works out very well, except if the compost does not get hot enough. You can actually plant weeds into the garden if you include weeds that have gone to seed. One year I planted violets throughout a big section of the garden via the compost.

The second compost bin works differently. It is basically a drum with a handle. You put in your composting materials and every day you are supposed to turn the handle to aerate the compost. It’s a big pain and I don’t do this faithfully. This bin does work fairly quickly, but my complaint is that if you want to use the compost, you have to stop adding new materials because there is no way to separate the finished compost from the stuff that you added last week. Both compost bins work, but I prefer the simpler round shape.

As a side note – for many years I have grown zucchini squash in the top of the round compost bin in summer, it looks like a giant pot with a big green vine growing out of it and I do get quite a few squash. This year, a potato planted itself in the compost and I let it coexist with the zucchini.

This article is part of a series on composting.

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