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Composting

Bruce Barbour - July 2020

About six months ago (in January 2020?) I purchased a vegetable food scrap composter. It is a plastic barrel which is split into two sections. The idea is to fill one side and then start to fill the second side. By the time the second side is filled the first side is ready to be emptied of hopefully good compost material ready for the garden. As I only generate a small amount of vegetable waste I haven’t emptied either side yet. In fact I have only used one side and it is only half full.

Carbon Dioxide Atmospheric Concentrations
-Hawaii

Global Temperature Anomaly

The composter seems to be working. I am putting in food scraps and the level does not seem to be altering, meaning it must be composting down.

I bought it from a well known hardware store. It came with a metal stand and I originally intended to use the stand. However after I had put it together I realised that it would have cluttered up my rear veranda too much. So I decided to suspend the barrel over the edge of the veranda as shown in the photo – out of the way but fully accessible. It is a waste of the stand I know but I couldn’t have bought the barrel separately anyway.

It is big enough that it should be able to handle the vegetable food waste for a family. I considered getting a worm farm but I did not know whether the worms would survive if I went away for a few weeks - not that that is an issue at present. And I understand that they can be badly affected by heat over summer. I also considered a Bokashi bin - but they looked too small and the additive looked quite expensive.

Here is a YouTube video that covers most of the main methods for backyard composting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO4HdrIXnVU.

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