Two years ago I started composting the cut grass from the lawnmower and occasionally some thin twigs and leaves. “Composting” as in dining it all in a cheap plastic compost container without any bottom.

In my head worms and other things would find their way there and start munching away.

In reality the end result was dry cut grass cakes and twigs. So this spring we got rid of the contents.

So … What beginners guide to easy composting do you recommend.

I would like to start easy and in a distant future, if all goes well now, I might get an isolated container for leftover food and scrap. But that seems very distant right now.

  • cerement
    4·
    11 months ago

    garden composting and vermicomposting and hot composting and chicken tractors and compost tea can all be somewhat different disciplines – as well as the scale you are working at (apartment balcony garden all the way up to an agroforestry acreage)

    • plain garden composting is usually easiest with a basic 3 bay setup – garden trimmings and prunings get piled into the first bay, as it breaks down, it’s flipped over into the second bay to continue the process, then finished in the third bay where you pull from for adding back into your garden – add in regular watering to prevent the “pile of dry grass and twigs” – adjust the size of the bays to your needs, can be as simple as 3 garbage cans all the way up to a huge structure made from wood shipping palettes
    • worm farm (vermicomposting) is generally the simplest use for kitchen scraps – Geoff Lawton has a good video – supposedly there are apartment worm farm kits that don’t smell but I would still keep them out on the balcony
    • I even stumbled across a page from a balcony container garden in India where he sunk a large diameter PVC pipe into his containers and dumped kitchen scraps down the tube, as it composted, it filtered out into the bottom of the container