The GREAT, but small, Compost Experiment!

I have had a great big compost bin for a year.  It is a City of Phoenix recycle can that they converted and sold for $5.  I have been filling it up with rabbit poo, coop cleanings and kitchen scraps for months but then sort of “forgot” about it for awhile after my knee surgery in December.

My husband and I started turning it and watering it again the last few weeks.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of materials are broken down and we aren’t too far off from rich compost for our beds.  However, I still spent the better part of the morning doing some research on “quick” composting and got very excited!

It is very hot today so the idea of spending hours outside playing with compost materials didn’t thrill me.  But I wanted to try something!  That’s when I cooked  up my small-scale experiment.

First I took an old laundry basket that I use to keep garden stuff in, on my porch.

 

Then I started layering.

I remembered I had not emptied one of my self-watering buckets!

I continued to layer until the basket nearly full, leaving a few inches at the top to move stuff around later.

Then I took the basket to a place in my yard that gets a good amount of sun all day…I’m in Arizona so that’s sort of a given. 😉  I took a wooden spoon (aka broody chicken butt mover) and poked some holes through it.  Then I added some water.  Lastly I covered the basket with a kitchen trash bag, opening a small hole at the top.

I will be adding a little water daily and I’ll turn it next weekend.  It will be fun to see how quickly we can get this to cook and make some compost!