composting at home | Crazy About Compost

When is Your Compost Ready to Use? (video)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Hf_IcS_5U When is your compost ready to use? Some questions to ask yourself include: How does it look? Can you recognize any of the material? How does it smell? Is the material warm? Here I have a few different samples of compost...vermicompost, tumbler compost, commercial compost, and trench compost. What do you think of these samples? I feel like my tumbler compost and vermicastings could both go even longer before using them, but that they're still OK if I were to use them now. In fact, I'm going to use these samples for my next "Clash of The Composts!" experiment coming soon... stay tuned!

It doesn’t need to be fancy…

When I visited home for the holidays, I had to take a look and see what my mom's old composting area looked like. This really spun me out because I remember making this little frame out of cinder blocks a long time ago and it looked good. What's funny is that if you want to compost, you can make do with this just fine...just make space and add stuff to it in appropriate quantities. Next to this was a nice looking compost bin...again, it does the trick. You can add material nice and high and it stays fairly organized. Note the slits near bottom which double as a spot to anchor it to the ground as well as provide some needed air circulation. Way to go, mom! To start composting,…

Can You Compost Dryer Lint & Vacuum Dust? (video)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rngeISVdbW8 Can you compost dryer lint and vacuum dust? It's a tough call. Both of these items may contain synthetic fibers, but if you know what you have, the answer may be simple. Stuff to consider: What's your clothing made of? Apparently dryer lint consists mostly of pieces of cotton coming off your stuff. However, I'd imagine there's some synthetics in there. I think vacuum bags are a much simpler answer as they're mainly dirt, skin, hair and dust. What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know!