BrownThumb's Blog

Going Compost-al
Apr 7, 2008 | 6:17 PM PST
Tags: compost , Compost pile , garden tools/plants/seeds , knucklehead

Thanks to some help from the forums I am running two compost beds. I feel like I am well on my way to healthy dirt - Hopefully eating 30 bags of leaves per year instead of bagging and sending them to the landfill.

I can tell it is composting as I try to turn it with all the wrong tools. I have a sharpshooter shovel, a traditional shovel, and a right angle pitchfork. The sharpshooter is made for trenching. It turns out to be quite handy for digging a deep, narrow hole to dump more wets/greens down lower so that they don't smell. The right angle fork is semi-handy for rolling stuff around. But today I got a novel idea while in a Big Lots surplus/cheap-crap store. I was looking for a real pitchfork on the cheap. Alas, they had none.

Instead, I bought a $9 hand tiller which looks like a 4 ft tall T-handle (about 16 inches across the "T") with 5 spikes on the end in a semi-square pattern (picture the "5" side on a single dice (die?)). I jab that sucker as low as I can get and start twisting back and forth while applying pressure to sink it to the bottom. It rolls in oxygen and makes for a handy turn-in-place tool if you let it roll up 30 degrees - or even to the top of the pile as you keep twisting. This rolls more lateral material around instead of a straight vertical chute.

Disclaimer: This is not as easy as falling off a ladder. I've apparently got some masochistic tendencies as I opt for hand tools many times and I do not shy away from elbow grease. I'm one part stubborn, one part cheap, and 2 parts lazy desk marshmallow. I determined that extra sweat will probably be the only thing between me and a Cheetoh-lined early grave. At least that is how I enable my inner cheapskate. We're codependent in the same body.

I will post pictures at some point of the tool in action.

Trowel on,

BrownThumb