IDEAS FOR COMPOSTING
Master Gardner, Cathie Draine was
born and raised in the
Black Hills She
spent 20 years overseas while her husband, LeRoy, worked
over as a drilling engineer. During that time, Mrs. Draine
wrote two books on cross-culture issues experienced by
expatriates in Indonesia.
These books are still in print and have been translated into
several languages. Returning to the Black Hills to retire,
Mrs. Draine rediscovered the pleasures and challenges of
gardening and studied to receive
Master Gardener status with South Dakota State
College Co-operative Extension. She finds that in addition
to reading and writing, that keeping her horse, the
chickens, the cat, the dog, the garden and her husband happy
and fed are a fine way to spend the time. Mrs.
Draine writes a weekly gardening column for the Rapid City
Journal.
Tire
Towers -
by Cathie Draine
The
easiest, cheapest, most efficient composting strategy
What’s the concept?
The
main idea is - if a mixture of organic material can be
placed inside at least three stacked, discard auto tires in
virtually any amount and any order - in 3-6 months it will
produce at least 2 wheelbarrow loads of lovely compost for
the garden.
Obvious organic items are:
·
kitchen waste - fruit and veggie peels, eggshells, coffee
filters and grounds
·
yard waste – plant trimmings, grass and leaves and weeds if
they are not producing seeds and you put them in a bucket
until they are dry and truly dead
·
some
ripped and soaked paper products – ripped up cardboard egg
cartons, toilet tissue and paper towel rolls, ripped paper
grocery sacks
·
livestock manure if you have it.
What
about adding water?
If
you are adding ripped and soggy egg cartons, add
water. When you add foodstuffs, add some water. Water it
when the spirit moves you. In the winter snow provides
moisture. It will help if items are wet when added.
What
about ‘turning’ the material?
The point of this is TO DO NO WORK. You will notice
that the material shrinks readily down into the tire tower.
Why
does this work so well?
When placed on level soil, the micro and macro creatures in
the soil seem to regard the system as the Ultimate Bug
Buffet. The material attracts an abundance of
DETRITIVORES, those creatures like millipedes,
centipedes, roly-poly bugs and vast numbers of worms, all of
which are active in the decomposition process. If
the tire tower can be placed where it will get a fair amount
of direct sun, this will raise the temperature of the
material and presumably the activity of the detritivores.
How
do I get the good stuff?
After a couple of months simply lift off the top tire or
slide it off. You will see a marked difference in the
material in the top tire and that in the middle one. It will
look slightly more than half decomposed, smell sweet and be
crumbly. Either remove it by hand or with a fork and slide
the second tire onto the previous top one. That leaves the
bottom tire and a heap of lovely compost which is ready to
be added to the garden either as a soil amendment or as
mulch. It will be alive with insects. Be grateful.
How
about critters and foul smells?
If
meats, dairy and oils are NEVER added to the tower and if
food, when added, is cut very small or ground up with water,
there is very little to attract varmints. If that is a
concern, a piece of welded wire fence and a cement block on
top will deter almost everything.
Tell
me the advantages again………..
It
costs nothing. It takes a space about 2 feet square.
One person can easily do everything. There is no need
to ‘turn’ it or do anything but add material. There is
no formula or recipe for the ingredients. It can keep
vast amounts of home waste out of the waste stream.
But
a stack of three old tires is not lovely……..
Tuck
it where you have room and build a little fence around
it. Put it where no one will see it. Remember that beauty
is in the eye of the beholder. Finding a use for old
tires, making compost from kitchen, yard and paper waste and
creating lovely compost at no cost and virtually no
work……………..THAT’S BEAUTIFUL!!!
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