Geobin

The Geobin arrived!  

Yep, I ended up getting one from Amazon.  

It was a bit difficult to put together by myself at first because it wants to roll back up on itself tightly, so I wrapped it around 3 stools to keep it open.  This made it so much easier!  It can be opened up to a 4-foot diameter or less, but composting reaches optimal internal temperatures (high enough to kill pathogens) at a 3 foot diameter, so I made mine 3 feet wide.

The Geobin now has a place of honor in the corner of the yard between the fruit trees.

Ta da!

Filling the bin.

The trick to filling an outdoor compost bin is to get a certain concentration of carbon to nitrogen, but in essence you want to balance an equal amount of "greens" (nitrogen-heavy) with "browns" (carbon-heavy, in half-inch or inch thick layers.  If the pile starts smelling badly, add more browns, and if it is progressing too slowly add more greens.

Between the frost-killed nasturtiums, weeds, dying garden plants, and excess old chocolate mint (egads, so much sun/frost-burnt mint!), there were enough greens.  Later I will add lawn clippings and food waste.

For the browns I used primarily apple leaves (I swear the tree dropped all its leaves last week), old partially-rotted plum leaves, and dried mustard/chard/cilantro stalks I'd kept for seed.  I probably won't have many more easy browns to find this fall, so to balance any more greens I'll be adding newspaper, dry leaves from the pool, and dry pine needles from the Christmas tree.

I also tossed in some soil to introduce some natural bacteria, and compressed it down as much as possible.  The next time I'm on a cutworm hunt, I will also gather a few earthworms for the pile.  

The bin is now half full!  That was pretty easy, and I cleaned up much of the yard waste to boot. The stakes in there are temporary until the bin stops wanting to curl in on itself.  I'm sure the pile will compress a bunch with rain and time, but it's an excellent start.  I am going to try to add as much as possible until it is a well-packed 3 feet high, because that'll compost the fastest.  If I'd have started earlier in the year, I would have had a TON of birch and plum leaves to add, plus all the plum and fig leaves from the neighbor... enough for perhaps another full bin's worth.

But when will I have compost?!

No compost until late spring at the very earliest, I would imagine.  

As for maintenance, the instructions say to turn the bin every 2 weeks, keep it moist as a wrung-out sponge, and it should be ready in 2 months.  Turning just involves peeling the bin off your pile (which will keep its shape), setting it up next to said pile, then pitch forking it back into the bin to mix it up.  I will try to turn it more often in hopes of getting an early batch.

The fruit trees should enjoy it sooner though... any rain that falls on the pile will leak compost tea to their roots.