Farewell, compost bin

"Garden Gourmet".  Gave it away, it left today.

No more "odours"s for the neighbourhood.  And no more shelter for rats.

Some day when I get my country place, I will for sure have another compost bin.  Or two.  Or three.

Veganic-ish since 2020

Last year (2020) was the first year I didn't use any store-bought manure.

 Prior to 2020, I had been using "mushroom compost", at first because I had mistaken it to be composted mushrooms, but then once I learned it's left-over manure from mushroom growing, well I continued buying it with the faint hope that maybe it was actually composted mushrooms.

In later summer / early fall 2019, I went and got a bunch of well aged (2-3 years) horse manure from Penny Lane Sanctuary which provides a home for rescued horses and other farm animals.  Not veganic, but I'll call it veganic-ish, and I feel fine about using this manure, given its source.

So in fall 2019 I applied a bunch of horse manure.

In 2020 I used up most of the rest of the horse manure.  And the potting soil I was using it turns out (as I learned this past winter)nwas accidentally vegan (Promix Premium potting mix). 

In 2021, i.e. this year, my soil amendments consist of:

- horse manure:  I have one bag of the horse manure left, which I haven't used yet but will throughout the year.

- alfalfa pellets

- kelp meal

- lawn clippings as mulch (collected from CB school front and other spots)

- ground up leaves as mulch

I'm no longer using cedar mulch in the yard anymore other than a few pots for aesthetics, since it doesn't add much if anything to the soil. 

Unfortunately I decided to stop using my compost bin because I just couldn't control the smell, which I don't mind, but my poor neighbours.  Didn't harvest any compost this year, just going to let it all sit there and finish up.

Odour from compost bin today -- covered with newspaper and browns -- and tarp -- ==> REMOVED FRESH STUFF

 Oh no, I was sitting at the kitchen table and smelled, yes, the compost bin from here...  If I can smell it, surely passersby and my poor neighbour can too.  I had already decided to not use the bin for kitchen scraps during the spring/summer/fall (instead will dig-in as I started doing last year), but I did add some kitchen "greens" a week or two ago and didn't cover them with anything, and well, yes a little smelly today.

So, today I tried covering the food with a layer of 3 or 4 newspaper pages, then added a bunch of dried up zinnias left from the fall.  It seems to make a difference right away, but that could be wishful thinking...........  Fingers crossed!

Oh how I long to someday have a place where I can just enjoy the aroma and not worry about bothering anyone.

UPDATE LATER THE SAME DAY:  Augh, still totally smell it when in the west bed which leads right to neighbour's door.  So, placed a tarp over top (held down by the lid) which covers the bin's south and east walls.  Bin still gets air through the west and north walls.  Fingers -- and toes too this time -- crossed!

UPDATE EVEN LATER THE SAME DAY:  Ditto, still smells.  So, I uncovered it and removed as much of the fresh top stuff as I could; it will go into the yard/green pickup Monday morning.  So sad!!  Re-placed the newspaper sheets and dried zinnias on top, plus the tarp again, just to really try to contain any lingering smell.

Dig-in composting

This summer I started burying compostables directly into the garden soil.  When my fridge bin is full, I dig a hole and dump it in, and recover it with soil.

This is to avoid odours from the bin which I seem to get every year.  I don't mind the smell, but I'm sure my neighbours do!

I've put a rock over the spots, with a note in a little Ziploc bag showing the date it was buried.  Will be interesting to go digging later on to see how it's going.

So, the compost bin isn't getting much contribution this year.

Compost from the compost bin!

My first decent "harvest" from the compost bin, which I bought/started in August 2016... 3.5 years ago!  (I've taken a bit from the front of the bin here and there in previous years but never really got in there as I did today)

Looks so amazing!  Full of little critters in there, doing they're thing.  Dug as far back as I could without the upper part falling down.  Too bad they didn't put a door two adjacent sides, would be so much easier to access the back.

Ended up with two containers full.  (the plastic "terracotta" round ones)

Used ~half for today's transplantings (two ground cherries in ground; one ground cherry in container; one tomato in container; 3 basils in container).  Put a lid on the left over to use later this week.