some compost work

I decided to make my first blog post about compost because I modified my setup a few days ago.

More than 5 years ago I started making (worm)compost in my city apartment, well the balcony. It is a wonderful process and I love the idea of this mini ecosystem thriving off my waste. My setup is basically an old ‘bio-bak’ container that was used for collecting green waste that the city would collect, they stopped doing this but the container is decent for making your own! In the bottom I drilled holes for drainage, the moisture then ends up in another container with old soil. All by all it works pretty well and smells like forest soil.

One little problemo is that the worms also get in the bottom container which makes it difficult to use the soil indoor, but this is manageable, I never had worms exploring in my living room, they’d rather chill in soil. Another thing is that ants love stuff like banana peels and thus love my balcony, which is ok but not when they come into my house, at that point our worlds collide a bit too much, to be fair that is also on me for being messy with food.. 

After seeing the compost at my community (perma) garden I realized that there isn’t alot of ventilation in mine, and it is an aerobic process in which the bacteria need oxygen. I had to take 80% of my compost out anyway to let it rest so I drilled some holes in the top and added a pvc pipe with holes. I never had problems with my previous setup which was always good as long as I mixed nitrogen containing matter with carbon matter in sort of the right ratio(with emphasis on sort of), but I think this is better. for now I’m just happy that I can get rid of my kitchen scraps again :).