Compost

I have been wanting to move the compost bin for about 6 months. It came with the house. Or would it be better to say that it was in the yard when we arrived? Either way, it was stashed up behind the garden shed, in a lovely warm, sheltered spot. The issue was that it is a narrow walkway up there, and nowhere near the backdoor. Grin. I like to make recycling and living more 'green' as easy as possible so have been cherishing ideas of moving the bin over next to my worm farm. That way, I don't have to decide who to feed today until I actually get out there - the worms can have a bit, and the compost bin a bit, all at the same time. I am hoping it will still stay warm enough where it is now located to keep composting away just fine. So I didn't start out planning to move the compost bin last week. It kind of just happened. I think I started off wanting to move the strawberries. But they needed better soil in their new bed, and the compost bin had some beautiful stuff. And everything just happened from there. Munchkin had a delightfully long sleep which helped, and Boyo was home from Polytech so could listen out for the baby while I was outside. I did have rather sore arm and upper leg muscles the following day. Blame that on not currently owning a garden spade. I had to use the hand trowel and rubber gloves to shovel the compost into a bucket, then from their into the wheelbarrow (which also came with the house - very, very glad to have had it available!).

I have always known there are a LOT of worms in this compost bin! I have never seen one quite like it. I used it to help populate my worm farm, and you certainly wouldn't know 6 months down the track that there were any worms missing (I just love how they will populate to meet the food availability!). The compost was writhing! This did prolong the 'moving house' business somewhat. I know that compost worms can't live in regular garden soil. They need a lot more organic matter than that. So of course I felt really mean leaving a single worm in the compost when dumping it into the garden, knowing it meant certain death. I had to go through and pick out every worm I could find first! I guess I feel a little responsible for them. I mean, I feed them, and I was the one who decided they had to move house...probably much to their disgust! I finished under the light of Boyo's torch and am pleased to say that the worms seem to be fairly unconcerned about their house move. Photos follow of the top partly composed, wormy stuff, the good compost (got about 30cm out of the bottom of the bin), and the newly positioned bin.

Amy

Monday, 2nd May, 2011