Compost

Our first batch of compost was ready last weekend.  We started composting about the same time we bought the chooks (early this year), and we mostly put garden waste, chook poo and newspaper on the pile.  After a few months we stopped adding to it.  Then every couple of months I forked it over, just to aerate it and add extra newspaper.  Each time I turned it I saw increasingly more worms.  I even found one very large worm that could have easily been mistaken for a (very) small snake!

All those months of decomposing shrank what was once a massive pile into only one wheelbarrow load.  But, as Peter Cundall liked to say, it smelt great!  And it was full of worms, so it will do wonders in the garden.  It was very exciting when I finally forked it into the wheelbarrow to move it to spread it over the potatoes.  

While that first batch was composting down we started a second batch.  This batch included garden waste (including lots of autumn leaves), chook poo, newspaper, cardboard and kitchen scraps.  I turned it over last weekend and found lots of worms helping to decompose the waste.  Now we have left it to settle down and decompose over the summer. 

In the space vacated by the first batch of compost we have started a new batch.  Another wonderful cycle of reusing waste to enrich the garden begins.