Balcony Compost, Attempt #2

With many thanks to @jessamynorchard and her tutorials about making composters out of 5-gallon buckets, I am trying composting on the balcony again! I had tried it several years ago, but I was really winging it and didn't turn it enough either, and it molded. So now that I know of a proper system, we're going to give this another try!

And if you were wondering, I did ask my building super about signing up for Scraps (the compost service that picks up from apartments that I wrote about here ), but she was leery because there has been a mouse problem ever since construction began down the block. I did point out that taking food out of the dumpster and putting it in a sealed compost bin might mean less mice, but she said the dumpsters weren't actually where they caught the most mice. The fear is people's buckets in their apartments (or on their stoops, which some of them do with recyclables already) attracting mice. I've never had mice in my apartment (I have two cats, and years ago Maggie peed all over the front door in response to a neighbor cat peeing on our doormat, so despite ample cleaning it probably still screams to mice that death lives here), but I've seen them in the garage or the courtyard. So anyway ...it was a no to Scraps.

So I made compost buckets!

I am letting it bake in the sun on the ledge now since I haven't moved any seedlings outside yet

Go check out @jessamynorchard's blog for the complete instructions, but basically, I drilled a lot of holes into the sides and bottom of the inner bucket, and just a few into the sides of the outer bucket. Then I stacked one inside the other.

This is my mix so far. I think I managed a fairly decent browns:greens ratio, because I had a bunch of dead leaves and stems from houseplants and balcony garden plants, used wooden matches, and pencil shavings for browns, and a few days' worth of coffee grounds, a small amount of apple peel, eggshells, and hair from mine and the cats' brushes (you can put that in there, per the internet, so I did) for greens. I also threw in some old soil from balcony pots. Water came with rinsing out the French press straight into the bucket this morning.

I also have dead cat grass (I think that packet was straight oat grass, though there may have been wheatgrass too) in there, which I think counts as a green. I think.

I didn't really break up the leaves yet; I did break up the larger stems. I'll do that gradually as I go.

Wish me luck that this try works much better than the last!

That Red Fish your momma always warned you about

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