New Compost Pile

I’ve waited my promised year, or very nearly, and I am ready to get dirty again!  We’re here in NE Kansas now, and I’ve spent the last year watching the four seasons.  Since I die a little inside every time I toss out guinea pig bedding, dead plants, kitchen veggie scraps, and shredded paper….I went ahead and took advantage of twelve rotting Halloween pumpkins to make a lumpy pile in the yard.  I can build a bin or whatever later, but for right now, that’s a trash can full of stuff that’s not headed to the landfill.  (The landfill a mile away, on the banks of the Kansas River.  THAT landfill.)

 

Such a nice, big, BLUMP of a pile.  I don’t even think my neighbors will notice. We’re in a rather posh, suburban neighborhood this time around, so I will need to be a little more discreet than I was in our hippie/yuppie town near Seattle.

Vermicomposting in Winter

The bottom bin- some worms still hang out down here, but it is definitely ready to dump in the garden, worms and all.

I was happy to see that this set up did OK in the winter on my deck, because it made it so much easier to feed them! I had to empty rain out a few times from that bottom lid and it is probably wetter than the worms would prefer. I thought they had all died, but now that the weather is a bit warmer the population had exploded and we are back in business. I think they just burrowed deeper to get away from the cold.