It's Compost Time

  I was inspired to sift and turn my compost today. Why? Well, it was overcast, so it wasn't too warm, my pal Bob in Umbria mentioned he'd tackled his massive pile, and...there was no room left in my bins to add more kitchen scraps. 

  It's so nice to have so much time to do everything I want to do in my garden...a true blessing during this crazy time of the virus...

  My homemade bins are small, and I sift and turn my piles over every six months or so. I always enjoy this chore, and thought it would make a good blog post.

  

  I have side by side bins. The left side is where we put kitchen scraps, some smaller garden debris, and leaves. It 'cooks' there before I turn it over into the right side bin, where I leave it to cook even longer and get good and broken down. It's really quite magical.

  I do this when I run out of room to add anything into the first stage bin. 

  This is the second stage bin, which I've already started sifting:

This was filled to the top when I started.

  I use a regular old nursery flat as my sifter. The holes are just the right size to sift, and also allow the worms to fall through and not get too damaged or hurt...Also, it's a good size for me to handle, not too heavy.

This is a scoop of 'cooked' compost, ready to sift.
I sift right into  a ten gallon nursery can.

All sorts of stuff going on here.

I shake it back and forth, letting the compost sift into the can.

The stuff that doesn't sift through gets dumped into another can.
I'll put it back in the bin to keep 'cooking'.

  

  It works out that when it's time to sift, every six months or so, I have enough to fill one can full of 'leftovers' that need to keep composting, and one nice big can of wonderful compost.

Leftovers....

Amazing and magical compost!
How does that happen?

Here's the bin I just emptied, ready to be filled with the compost I'll turn over next.
I always leave a bit of goodies on the bottom, with worms and such.

  This is my set up...I set the can I'm sifting into on top of the stuff that's going to be turned. It makes it easier on my old back. Believe me, this is pretty hard work, and I've hurt myself in the past trying to sift too much at one time. I go slow and steady, and that works best.

Now I'll shovel the left side into the right side to sit for several months and 'cook' some more.
This frees up the left side for new additions of scraps, etc.
The can on the ground will be added to the right side to cook some more, too.

Time to turn the left bin stuff into the right bin.

I love finding all the earthworms doing their job!

Yes!

What can I say...I love my worms.

  I'm so happy to have a big bucket of black gold! I'll put this in my potting shed to dry out a little, then bag it up and use it for different projects over the spring.

It's a beautiful thing.

Next, I sweep and clean up around my bins.
Johnny made these for me so long ago...

I put the garden cans in front to deter raccoons and possums.
They love my worms, too.

Compost...Done!
See the can back there in the potting shed?
Safe and sound for now.

 

  If you have space, and can do it, you'll get a lot of pleasure from composting.

  Try it!

(I had to delete 6 short videos that were not playing properly...sorry!)