Saturday, July 26, 2008

Reaching that next level

today i built both the worm bin and the biostack composter i received from the alameda county. it was very easy to build, even if there was a small piece broken on one of them.

the worm bin. currently i don't have my worms yet, but i will try to get them by the end of next week. i decided to at least put the base together and see what came with the entire set up.

here is the worm bin directly lifted out of the box. the legs need to be placed onto the base, the tap needs to be inserted into the bottom container (for the "worm tea"), and some anti-rodent barriers need to be inserted into the top lid.


here are the pieces laid out. even the cardboard piece placed on the top of the bin (when removed from the box) is used! don't throw that away. it is used to line the bottom of the lowest worm bin (there are 3 levels, plus one more to catch the worm tea).


and here is that little piece that either was already broken or was broken off somehow when i laid out all the pieces. i think it was already damaged because i didn't handle this thing roughly by any sense of the word. anyways, it turned out that this piece is not t-h-a-t crucial...


alacadabra! worm bin is done! it took me about 5 - 10 minutes to build it together. now all i need are the 1 lb of worms!


the brown, wrapped thing inside the worm bin is supposed to be used as the worms' bedding for the first worm level. just wet it and use it.




and barney helped my check out my handiwork. i think he was satisfied.





with the worm bin done. next is the biostack compost bin by smith and hawkin.

here is the compost bin still in the box. i found a few leaflets on how to compost and the instructions on building the compost bin, as well as a CD on making compost.


barney stands by the cd that came with the bin and looks pretty...






the most difficult part of the compost bin was finding the right spot for it. i decided to take this location - on the lawn, in front of the kitchen window. i left about 3 feet of space between the bin and the left garden, so that i have enough room to move around that side of the garden.


here is another angle.


here you can see most of the things i will use to put the compost bin together. the bottom is made of 4 pieces, interlocked together by small screws. i built the 2 (out of 3) layers of the compost bin. i can tell that this black plastic will add a lot of heat to the bin - just sitting out there in the sun, the pieces became really hot to the touch. the lid is on the right and some used newspaper and veggie leftovers are ready to be placed into the bin. i also did some trimming on the zucchini garden (it was really encroaching on the soybean plants, so that need to be removed), so this was cut up and added to the bin.


with all that compostable stuff cut up and added, and two hours later...it only filled up half the height of the first bin layer. UGH. oh well. it will take a while to fill it up. i made sure to alternate the layers of greens (veggies, leaves, fruits, "wet" stuff) and browns ("dry" stuff, newspaper, cardboard, dried stems, dried grass) and dampen each layer with water to be slightly moist. but it was extremely hot today, so i did add some extra water later on in the day.


here is the compost bin with a better overview of its size and location. there is a third layer to this compost bin, but i think i will wait to add this layer to the bin...at least until i completely fill the first layer.


the contents of the compost bin should be turned once a week and kept moist all the time.

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