Sunday, April 5, 2009

Onions & Compost

My four squares of Yellow Onions I planted from sets on 3/13 are doing well. Nearly all of them have sprouted now.

In the fall, I built a "tumbling" compost bin from instructions I found online. It's a 32 gallon trash bin with holes cut in the sides covered with window screen. Unfortunately, it has a few problems. One is - I should have drilled lots of small holes for aeration rather than the large, screen-covered ones. The screen has peeled off a number of them and there's no good way to reattach. Also, the lid is too flimsy and won't stay on well when tumbling it. I think I'm just going to invert the can, cut out the bottom and use it as a regular compost enclosure for now.

3 comments:

  1. Thought I'd give you an alternative idea for the compost. I didn't think the neighbors would approve of a traditional compost bin, so I bought a cheap plastic hamper at Walmart, one with the holes in the side to promote aeration. I use one of those winged turners to turn it, and occasionally dump it out and shovel it back in. So far, it's working great. I did the dump out thing today, and it was quite warm and cooking away on the inside. Worth a try, as it is a good way to do it on the cheap.

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  2. Interesting idea. I may try that. Although I'm not quite sure what a "winged turner" is. :)

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  3. I tried something similar and gave up. Once the can was full, it was way too heavy to roll and it was darn near impossible to turn with a pitchfork. I just dumped everything in a corner of my yard and it's working out much better. Good luck!

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