Hooray for compost! Compost is the best. You can grow stuff in it. And it's free to make, if you know how. I am now the proud owner of not one but two compost piles, covered with tarps and awaiting their first 'turning'... which means, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to have a couple of sizable piles of nutrient-rich, good brown soil. My nursery will never be the same. I shall range far and wide, taking cuttings from new and unpronounceable trees, and propagate, plant and nurture, until I have a forest in miniature, waiting for Autumn to be planted out. Milkwood will be a sea of green, and i can bed down for the winter in a drowsy, contented heap.
Not that I'm counting my chickens before they've hatched, mind you. But I am very hopeful for my new compost piles. Nick rigged up a little web-widget for us (and you) to use - a nifty little Compost Calculator - which is very helpful in figuring out how much of what to put in a pile to make sure you end up with good compost at the end. And I've written the article How to: Make compost - Pt.1 that explains the basics of the process as i understand it...
Now I just have to wait four days until I can start turning the piles... very exciting. Unfortunately, however, I cannot play with baby bird while I wait... that evil hound, housed in his troll-like abode under the Loquat tree, munched Little Cheeper yesterday. And vomited his little birdy head back out onto my foot.
I am restraining myself from making Dog Pie, and instead have put the remains of Little Cheeper into my compost pile - from wattlebird into wattles shall Little Cheeper thus transform...
Shredded paper is great, much better than if you leave it whole.
The hardest part of making compost in the city is finding a source of high carbon material... congratulations.. if you've got large amounts of shredded paper you are most of the way there.
Hi Kirsten & Nick, That's your best video yet, in my opinion. The speeding up of the action with the voiceover works really well and we love the touches with the opening and closing credits and the music, well done! We use different method to compost on our site, called "cold composting" and, as we have just turned out several piles to use, we'll post a blog on our method soon, and link back to this one. Keep on blogging, permaculture-stylie!
agny
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