Brown, Green, Nature's Machine!

With all the fruits and veggies I've been eating during my waste-conscious existence, I need a lot more space for compost. We have a black plastic composter outside, but someone keeps digging underneath and leaving rotten cantelope rinds all over the yard. Raccoons? Squirrels? The zorro? Our neighbor Frank? Hard to say.


My dad is showing me how to do MIG welding, and we thought it would be fun to build a critter-proof composter. You can tell we're really serious welders. Note: chili pepper hats ("HOT hats") and Shiner Bach on the workbench. I even watched a wonderful documentary about welding that my friend Katie recommended. It's called Flashdance. Thanks Katie!









If you're not into welding, check out these sites for compost bin design:
Ohio State University Composting Fact Sheet
Digital Seed Pallet Composter
Compost Guide
If you've never done composting before, don't be scared. I know a 4 year old that started a worm bin (2 of the worms are named zha-zha). Even if you never use that "garden gold", it's just nice to divert some of this stuff from the landfill. I watched a show about the Los Angeles landfill. Researchers took a core sample of the landfill and found a perfectly preserved grape stem from 35 years ago. They also pulled up an old newspaper from the 1970's and you could still read it. Garbage will not decompose in landfills because of the lack of oxygen.

So let's layer it up:
Brown (dead, brown plant matter; dried garden waste cut into small pieces)
Green (fresh grass cuttings, fruit and veggie scraps)
Nature's Machine (active compost dirt... gotta get some microbes up in there!)