To go along with my gardening, I decided to start composting. It is not sustainable to keep importing miracle grow, so we need a permanent solution to better the soil. Plus, I hate trips to the dump and hope that this makes it less frequent. I read a lot online in preparation for this endeavor, but many items in the states cannot be found here, so we had to make it work with what we could find. The open pile is not an option for us as we already have too many bug and mice problems, not to mention dogs that will tear up anything to eat trash. They have problems with their expensive Dog Chow, but trash is always a delicacy.
I found one of these tall drums at a hardware store for Q170 (about $22). You have to be careful because many are used for paint thinner and other toxins, and then are just rinsed out before being sold second hand as brand new. Often, the partially torn off, diamond, HazMat sticker is a dead giveaway on these types of containers. I figured mixing Hazardous Materials with my compost sort of defeated the purpose. Most of the time these are used by people here to store water in.
Lucky for me, our ground is not level, so I had a nice random hill that I could prop my bin on. I drilled five holes in the bottom just on this one side and the bin sits a slight angle so that the water runs off to that side. Then I bought a Q10 plastic bowl that fits perfectly to collect the compost tea. I have another container with a spigot on it that I pour the tea into for when I am ready to fertilize with that (about once every 10 days.) You are supposed to water it down at an 8-1 ratio so that you don't burn your plants. Being in containers, the dirt quality of my garden is really important to me.
I bought a really small pitchfork to stir the pile with. The bin sits in full sun and the inside gets REALLY hot, which is important for compost. I water the bin when I water my garden. I have had a few gnats, but that went away with more dried grass and stirring. In about a month I'll buy another bin and let this one sit. I'd like to have finished compost by the end of April when a lot of my veggies will be done producing and I'll be ready to start new plants.
Great idea! I've got a concrete block compost pile that is doing pretty well. Also, in Antigua, they have all these horse carriages with sacks under their butts to collect the manure . . . I've been thinking of becoming the weird gringa who asks to empty those sacks.:D
ReplyDeleteSomeone else told me that you can take egg shells, dry them out (sun or oven) and then grind them up a bit and soak in water for a few days. That makes a tea that can go directly onto the soil . . . supposed to be super good for tomatoes.
Love the horse manure idea! I bought a bag of chicken manure from a lady down the street for Q15. It filled up an entire costal, but probably only weighted 15 lbs. I mixed a part of it with my compost and am saving the rest for a future project. Let me know how the egg shell tea works out. I hadn't heard of that and am just throwing my egg shells into the compost barrel.
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