Composting the Hound Way
by Rachel Tayse • April 27, 2010 • Gardening & Pets • 11 Comments
A friend asked on twitter recently if I had anything written about compost. I have not and there’s a good reason why: I am a lazy composter.
It’s not that I don’t love composting; I do. I just don’t measure temperature or output or anything like others who have composting down to a science.
My composting goal is to have a place to get rid of my food scraps and leaves without giving them to the city. When it ends up as ‘black gold’ soil, that’s just a bonus.
If you want to learn about how to compost the right way, read something else. 
Here’s how we do it:
1) Build a compost bin. Alex built ours from 2×4 posts and fence sections assembled with decking screws. Tumbling composters do a better job at keeping the temperature up to make soil faster but they cost more.
2) Collect scraps. For awhile we used a ceramic crock until I broke the lid. Then we used a stainless steel flour can until that developed a hairline leak. Right now we have an old plastic canister that holds our scraps next to the sink. My Open Sky shop has a nice kit of composting accessories in it that includes a countertop collection bin and a cute bamboo bin.
Most composting guides will tell you to add only vegetable matter and eggshells to the compost. If you aren’t bothered by flies and waiting longer, meat and dairy will compost too. We do not wish to bug the neighbors so we trash meat and dairy.
3) Dump scraps. Real composters will tell you about layering x amount of brown matter with scraps and x amount of green matter. We just toss what we have when we have it. We keep fall leaves in a trash can next to the compost bin and add those if the bin is attracting flies.
4) Turn. This is where the true laziness is apparent. I never turn the compost bin. Alex does once or twice a year with a pitchfork. Sometimes a rat or mouse lives in there and tunnels through, doing some of the digging for us. Real composters will advise turning much more often to maintain heat and lower scrap size.
5) Reap the soil. Our bin does not produce compost very quickly. Go figure. When we do want to get some of the good stuff, we open the hatch and dig out from the bottom.
I hope I didn’t lose all my gardening credibility today. Do you compost? How?
By the way, worm composting is another way to go, one which I have even less experience. My friends at One20 Farm have a site devoted to the supplies and knowhow you need to enter the world of vermicomposting.
I built a similar bin: 2×6, 1×1, deck screws. We recycled a small container for collecting scraps.
I vermicompost and it is stupid easy. Bury food scraps in with the worms, add newspaper if too wet, harvest worm poo. Repeat
.-= Josie´s last blog ..April Showers Bring… New Living Arrangements? =-.
Maybe we should add a vermicompost bin. It does sound super simple.
All of a sudden you no longer intimidate me! This is how I compost and I have felt quite guilty about it until now (even though this is how my gramma did it for over 50 years). Yay for lazy composters!
Me intimidate you, the rockstar baker? It should be the other way around, I think.
we have a two bin system and i’d estimate each side to be maybe 4×5. we use one for a year, then switch to the other so one gets some downtime to keep decomping. we turn it about once a month and we get a pretty good result.
I used to do “hot composting” – mixing wet and dry in equal proportions and turning every other day to encourage the aerobic bacteria that drives the heating. It was immensely satisfying to see steam rising from the compost pile. I got good compost in about 6 months.
But then I got lazy and just started tossing whatever organic scraps I had on the pile and letting it sit. No turning, no extra watering. Every year in Spring I would shovel out the compost, sift out the black gold, and put the rest of it back in the bin.
I also did worm composting. Crazy easy. But the sifting out of the worm castings took longer. I prefer cold composting.
.-= Nate @ House of Annie´s last blog ..Fried Squid Fail =-.
This is my first year composting and at first it was just a pile of scraps and yard waste that didnt seem to be composting at all. We added some free aged horse manure we picked up on craigslist and the pile developed much more rapidly- ready to use. We also grew some compost potatoes (unplanned) as a bonus!
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I’ve been meaning to ask you about composting. I have a pile, we throw stuff in it, but I don’t have the ratio down right and kind of give up over the winter. I have guilt over carrot peelings that end up in the trash in February, when the pile is covered with snow.
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