So … I haven’t posted much for the past several weeks –  I moved from Dallas to Tulsa, and have just moved into my new home.  The yard is great and has lots of sun, a blank slate to be filled with permaculture raised beds!  But first …  a compost pile!

I had accumulated scraps for the past few days, and need to get composting going quickly.  Since I don’t have a formal layout yet for the yard, I wanted to do a quick, movable compost pile.  That means a simple wire cylinder!

Step 1:  get wire at hardware store (hardware cloth is what it is called)

Step 2: unroll it, straighten it out, then roll it “backwards” into a large cylinder.  Since the wire ends were not too cooperative, I ended up “sewing” the ends together with the thin wire that helped hold the roll tight in the package.

Step 3: Place cylinder on ground, and lay in brown.  Now, I don’t have any leaves, my favorite “brown.”  But I had some newspaper and so I shredded it (it’s what is also used when starting a worm composting bin, so I figure it might just attract some worms to the pile).  That was the first layer.

Step 4: Add kitchen waste.

Step 5: Top with more shredded newspaper (brown).

Step 6: Wet it down a bit. Now, this was probably not necessary, since we have had a fine rain most of the day, and expect more over the next few days.

And there you have it!  A functioning compost pile for food waste (and leftover newspaper).  I’ve accomplished something at the end of Week 1!