Our Organic Garden In The Middle Of The City

Even though Southern California is need of rain, and it can't rain soon enough for me, the weather has been extraordinarily beautiful. And though the sun's slant is still not the most beneficial for compost, the warmth we are experiencing this Winter makes up for it. I just started a fresh batch of compost in our compost maker, a large tub that can spin made out of recycled plastic. It's black exterior and paddles located on the inside help turn and get the compost cooking quickly. 

Composter

The lid is facing up and slides open for easy access. It spins on aluminum legs and has held up now with year round use for a number of years. It takes at least two weeks to make compost but in the summer it can cook in about a week. Where the slits are located on the outside are the depressions for the paddles on the inside, so that you can easily turn the tumbler by pulling on the slits and the paddles, the inside part of the slits helps turn the compost over. 

Ingredients for compost

Inside are layers of leaf matter of all kind from our gardens, kitchen scraps from vegetables, coffee and tea grinds, ash from the fire pit and barbecue, straw from the chicken coop and their poop. We layer it until the composter is filled to the brim, adding water to get it damp. I find that spinning it after adding water helps get the water soaked into the material without running off too much. The final product is pee. Just whip it out, if you have one to whip out, and piss right on top of everything, great if you do it more than once. That will get the reaction going really fast. You should be able to feel the heat coming off it that night. 

Once the material inside shrinks to fill only half of the barrel it is ready to use. The more chopped up the material you add the better. 

The Girls

The hens are the backbone to the whole garden. Without their waste you don't have all the ingredients for a good organic vegetable and flower garden. We have five Rhode Island Reds. And the plus are the eggs. I use only organic laying feed for them and they are very healthy. Inside the coop, which has plenty of space for them to roam, is straw I lay down to keep them clean and use in the the composter. Along with oyster shell for their shells and diatomaceous earth, which keeps pests like lice and such off the chickens when they take a dirt bath. It works great too. The coop is located at the back end of the property next to the alley with a sturdy chain link fence and Eugenia to give them shade and protection.

Morning facing the South Forty

We make enough compost from all the recycled material collected in our yard to cultivate our flower gardens and the vegetable garden. Once in a while, I still need to buy extra organic compost, a few bags a year at most with some years needing none. And though friends have requested compost, we really don't have any to spare. So it's almost a closed circuit with us using everything we grow to eat and recycle. Not bad!