My husband and I have decided to put in a garden. Neither of us have ever done this and it was quite the undertaking. Hours and hours of research about the best crops to plant for our area, when to start them, and how to plant went into this project. We grew a few small plants over the years with the kids, and have loved our raspberry patch the last 3 years, so this next step seemed perfect. The most important part of planting things… the soil. I have seen house plants die because they have been in the same pot for years. Imagine eating from the same bowl of food and trying to make it last for years. It is the same way. Plants don’t just need water and sun, but food in the soil.
Nutrient rich soil can happen lots of ways. This way is great for repurposing food scraps you probably throw away daily.
We’ve allocated a spot in our yard for that garden and and recently moved all of the crops into the ground. We’re so excited to see little sprouts starting, and are even more excited to be able to can some of our own food, that we have grown this fall.
Our bathroom remodel is still underway and as part of that we have been doing a lot of drywall mudding. Rich soil ensures healthy crops and I thought about making a compost bin.
There are lots of fancy bins online but the price is pretty expensive. If you have ever wanted to make one, you might already have the materials to make one laying around your yard or home.
Materials
- A 5 gallon bucket
- A drill and drill bit
- Some small branches or sticks
- A shady area
- glass clippings
- Food scraps
Step 1: The bucket
I previously mentioned, there are lots of different ways that you can make this compost bin. I’ve seen some people do them in plastic totes or even garbage cans. I didn’t need a very large one, as my garden is small. I opted to use a 5 gallon bucket. This is some thing that I had laying around and I didn’t have to go out and purchase. Since we’ve been drywall muddying our bathroom, I have lots of these buckets laying around. It’s not quite 5 gallons but it’ll do. I like that it had a lid already. That’s fairly easy to take on and off but also be secure. The last thing you want is critters getting into your food scraps that you’ve placed in there and creating a mess all over your yard.
There are also buckets at most home-improvement stores that can be purchased for around five dollars and also have the option of having a lid. Either way plastic is a great material for this as it won’t corrode overtime and is also waterproof. You don’t want to much water getting into your compost, or you will just have compost soup.
Step 2: Drilling Holes
The next step, after you have sourced a container to put the compost in, is to make sure that it has room to breathe. These buckets are watertight, and if you were to put food in them and let it break down and essentially rot in there, you’re going to get it a lot of musty, mold, and other bacteria that maybe you don’t want to be putting by your crops.
There’s also going to be some fluid depending on what kind of things you were putting in there. So you want to make sure that there is adequate drainage in your bucket. The best way to do this is to drill some holes. Are used my drill and a tapered drillbit to place several holes in the bottom of the bucket.
They’re not evenly spaced and there is no exact pattern that you need to do here. I did about 10 to 12 holes making sure that there was some all the way around and as evenly spaced as I could.
The drill bit size is about the size of a pencil. It doesn’t need to be much larger than that. If the holes are too big, your materials might just fall out the bottom of the bucket. These holes allow for extra fluid to drain out as needed to prevent your compost from becoming soup like.
There are advantages with trying to collect this water as you can use it as a liquid fertilizer, but be aware that it might attract more rodents or neighborhood pests than you want to deal with if left out.
Step 3: The bottom layer
When planting a raised garden bed plants need adequate drainage by their roots. Large stumps or chunks of wood are placed in the bottom of the garden beds to help with this.
The same theory applies when making a compost bin you need something in the bottom of the bucket that is going to have gaps in between the material to allow for drainage.
Branches sticks, or other small chunks of wood are perfect for this. You can also use rocks or gravel, but make sure that they’re bigger. Allowing the water to drain from the top layers to the bottom will ensure things will break down quicker.
While digging up overgrown grass and the garden, we found lots and lots of old roots from bushes that have been removed previously. I saved a lot of these roots and put them in the bottom of the bucket. They were just the right size to fill about a fourth of the bucket, but leave lots of negative space.
Step 4: Filling with other materials
D once you’ve placed drainage items in the bottom of the bucket, you can start filling it with other things. Since it’s a small bucket, I put a couple handfuls of grass clippings and dead leaves on top of the sticks. Then I added some food scraps.
I’ve been saving some food scraps in my fridge in a Ziploc bag for this purpose. That’s also a great way to save scraps from the garbage that you intend to add to your compost bin later. My compost bin sits outside and is not super close to my back door so sometimes walking out there to add things to the bucket every single time I cook just isn’t something I want to do. I recently upgraded to a seal container I leave in my fridge.
Having a growing pile sitting in my fridge where it can stay cold and not rot too much is a great way to save those scraps, and minimize my trips out to the compost bin. I put things in like vegetables that were starting to rot egg shells, and fruit scraps. Everytime I add scraps to the bin I stir it up a little by giving it a little roll on the ground.
I’m not a chemist, but I read that things that are very acidic like citrus and onions will throw off certain pH levels in the compost and not be good for your crops. So avoid adding things like that. I also read that critters really like to get into things that contain milk or meat. So avoid adding any kind of animal fat, milk, curd, yogurt, or cheese products to your compost bin or you might be getting a visit from your local trash pandas.
Lastly, make sure that wherever you put your compost bin it’s not getting too much sunshine. If it gets really hot in there it may cause the materials to become too warm. A nice shady area will allow for the breakdown of the material at the correct rate and not overheat it. A spot away from the house might also be ideal as sometimes these can get a little bit stinky.
After the material is all broken down, it can be used like fertilizer for your garden or flowers:)
Happy Composting!
-Amanda