I have always tried to grow some of my own food, and avoid the impact of chemicals on my health.
Naturally that meant looking for ways to get better plant growth without using commercial fertilizers and doing all I can to make sure that the water I drink is pure.
The need for a Compost Bin
The fun really began for me when my husband and I moved out of the suburbs onto a country property. Suddenly I had room to expand my veggie patch but no matter what I tried, my results were disappointing in the first few years. Despite creating nice new gardens and boosting them with Commercially sourced Compost to kick them along.
In the end we decided that the soil quality had to be the problem, and set about really improving it with our own natural, homemade Compost.
Trial and error Compost Bins, Compost Tumblers and Worms
Since then we have tried all sorts of methods. Our first compost bin was an old bathtub. It was ok so far as it went but didn’t look so good..
We upgraded to a couple of free standing Compost bins, and then to a set of three Compost Tumblers (in an effort to speed up the process), because we have a lot of compostable materials with all the vegetation control on the property.
So, over a few years we have tried just about every form of composting there is, including 5 tray worm composting. We even build a system to properly brew worm tea for use as a soil conditioner.
We still use the Compost Tumblers, but we also built a home made three bay Compost bin like the one described on this site. It looks much better than the bathtub did, handles large volumes of materials and by using Hot Composting methods we can compost most weeds that we remove form our land.
The results
So after using basic compost bins in the city and numerous styles and sizes on a larger scale in recent years , we now have a pretty good idea of what works, and of which composters to stay away from.
My veggie gardens, flowerbeds and decorative plantings are all thriving. I could not be happier.
Nothing beats turning kitchen scraps and weeds into new soil, and after testing our compost and commercial compost, side by side I can say without the slightest risk that fresh Homemade compost gets much faster growth and much better yields.
Happy Composting
