Our next project on the homestead was a composting system. We chose this as the next project because it allows us to go ahead and start using the kitchen scraps and TONS of packing paper/cardboard boxes we have from moving. Is this ideal? Probably not, and we know that, so this isn’t really a “how to” kind of post. We also chose this project because we could do it completely with items we already had or could get for free. Let’s discuss.
We found some free pallets off facebook marketplace. There’s some debate about pallets in the all natural type circles, because of a coating or treatment on the wood. If this is concerning to you, maybe do your own research. We decided that this wasn’t a battle we were going to try for, so we used the pallets. Basically, it’s two sets of three pallets with some scrap 2×2 material in the corners to screw them together. Some pallets have more heft to them, but ours were pretty flimsy. We used a round of chicken wire on the inside at the bottom just to keep things in. That’s about as complicated as we got.
Now, there’s a lot of science to composting. I’ve been doing some research on it, but this doesn’t really showcase that. So if you’re into the science-y part of composting, the ratios of carbon to nitrogen, just know that this isn’t that. My goal is to get us to that place, but we don’t currently have a large source of browns (i.e. wood chips or leaves or such). We’re working on it.
What we have right now is about six boxes of packing paper from our move, so we started with that. We loosely ripped them into pieces, wet it down, and mixed it with our kitchen scraps. I’ll go out in a few days and mix it again, and see if it needs more water. I’m eyeballing it based on what I’ve seen on youtube and my gut instinct, which is probably a bad idea with my pretty low level of experience, but it’s what I’ve got.
We’re going to get our worm bins set up soon, so that will be a fun way of adding to our composting systems. We also have the deep bedding from the brooder which will eventually get added to the compost bin, but we’re debating a second run of meat chickens before the season is over. More on that to come.
No responses yet