Comment by ☯️ dragfyre
Re: "Experimental compost box"
Three days in, I went back and gave the compost a turn and added a new layer of green, brown and dirt to the mix as the caretakers had come in and done some trimming and sweeping. The whole thing was nicely moist--not drenched--and starting to warm up slightly. I don't actually know when I'll be able to come back but even if I don't get the chance it's OK. Like I said, this is mainly for learning and to give the folks I know a chance to see it in action. I've already had at least one good conversation about what I'm doing, which hasn't been easy because my technical language ability for these things isn't great, so conversations tend to be a bit halting.
2025-07-20 · 10 months ago
1 Later Comment
☯️ dragfyre [OP] · Jan 19 at 03:54:
it's been six months since the start of the compost experiment. I haven't been able to follow up very frequently, but every time I pop in, I see rich-looking dark soil in the box. I also dig some of it out each time and sprinkle it onto the nearby garden space, where sweet potatoes have been growing as ground cover. after that, I forage around for green leafy plants to chop and add to the mix, and then rake up some browns - either dry leaves that have fallen from the well-kept trees around the centre, or from the food forest in the back, where they sit around decomposing.
The two most common methods of dealing with yard waste here are burning and chop-and-drop. The latter is really only used when a forested area is available; most gardens are very small with very little space to build up soil, so chop-and-drop isn't very feasible. When people do compost, they mostly put kitchen waste in a pile and let it rot. And, of course, every neighbourhood has a pile of burnt stuff somewhere, especially in the winter but really any time someone needs to clean things up. I had the misfortune of living on a street where the uncle across from us was downright religious about this, with smoke hanging in the air several days out of the week.
anyway, I digress a bit. it seems like the compost box is becoming an accepted feature around the garden. I've noticed the caretakers taking from and adding to it—not just dumping stuff into it, either, but adding stuff that would be good for the plants. It'll be interesting to see how this affects what comes out of the garden this summer.
Original Post
Experimental compost box — Our neighbourhood Baha'i centre has a garden with a little empty space, so I'm going to try a little compost experiment. Right now, the main way they get rid of garden waste is to either stash it to the side or burn it. I'm going to try to fill up a little compost box. Lacking the resources or the time to build a full-size wooden crate, I'm going to use one of the styrofoam boxes that's on site, about 1x.4m in size. Will fill it with alternating layers of 2xbrown,...