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My hubby and I are very excited to move to Durham in a few weeks, where we will be renting 1/2 of a tiny duplex (in the Old West Durham area). One thing I am super-thrilled about is the possibility of finally being able to compost to reduce the amount of junk we send to the landfill.
Does anyone here compost successfully, and is it legal in Durham? Do you happen to know if the city has a compost pick up service and/or facilities where finished compost can be dumped?
I've never composted before, and I'm worried the smells/flies/any other critters living in NC/etc might offend the neighbors or the landlord. I'm thinking of putting something like this Amazon.com: Garden Gourmet Back Yard Composter - Made from Recycled Plastic (Gaiam): Home & Garden near a tree in the corner of the lot. Hopefully, this will prevent all the local flies and roaches from migrating to our yard! I also found this nifty thing (there seem to be other brands too) Amazon.com: Norpro Grip EZ Stainless Steel Compost Keeper: Kitchen & Dining, which would allow to keeping scraps in the kitchen without having to run out to the outside bin every few hours, but would still prevent fruit flies (I hope). If you've had successful or unsuccessful experiences with these types of products in Durham, please share! Thanks!
I use a worm compost bin. Everything contained in a bin so the critter factor is minimal except for fruit flies. I use jars with a little apple cider vinegar and a drop of Dawn dishwashing liquid to keep the population under control. Got my red worms from NC Worm Farm- Compost worms, bins, & vermiculture supplies
I am reluctant to have a regular compost pile as I've heard Copperhead snakes like to hang out in them. Yikes!
I would agree with the vermicomposting comment. It's easy, clean, and does not smell. I built a bin following these instructions and keep it indoors. I don't know about what to do with the compost though, most of us want it for our gardens ---- so can I convince you that you should start a small container garden and use the compost for that? It saves me lots of money on my weekly grocery list
Just in case you decide you want to use the compost for gardening, I follow the square foot gardening method and it couldn't be easier, with minimal work.
We've used several different kinds of composters over the years living in Durham, and no one has ever complained. ;-) I don't think the city would pick it up, but I'm guessing a Craigslist post of "compost free for pickup" would get you many folks willing to take it off your hands. These folks have their own compost program, but I wonder if they might welcome compost donations as well? SEEDS Home Page, Durham, NC
I tried composting in high school (I grew up in Durham BTW) I had NO idea what I was doing, I had "heard" about it, this was before the internet. So I just started dumping stuff in a small pile in the backyard; veggie scraps, egg shells, apple cores. My dad said, "I don't know much about composting, but I'm sure you're doing it wrong. That's just a pile of trash". Eventually a few "volunteer" melons cropped up from canteloupe and watermelon seeds.
I know that didn't answer any questions, or really add anything of value to this thread...just wanted to share that story.
Xylemphloem, is there a compost bin that you would you recommend, especially to avoid the snake problem PatRoy mentioned?
PatRoy & J-mart: sorry, I'm a bit confused about the worm composting: do the worms eat the scraps and thereby turn the scraps into compost, rather than through the usual heating/turning process? When is the compost done? Is there a way to separate the "finished" compost from the worms for gardening, and then continue to use the worms for future composts? Also, is it possible to do worm composting outdoors? I'm hoping to compost outdoors (perhaps with a bin that is raised off of the ground). I would prefer not to do indoor one, given that we will already have 2 humans and 2 cats in our 510 sq. ft. "house."
Special, that's too funny! I'm glad you got to meet some hardy volunteer melon seeds! I've tried gardening 2 years ago (with purchased compost) here in PA, but tomatoes broke my heart. I purchased several incredible heirlooms (the dark, juicy, fragrant varieties that would have been great with salt!), but we had a horrible blight epidemic (apparently, a relative of the one that caused the potato famine in Ireland), and they were all dead in a few weeks. I think container or square-foot patio gardening sounds like a great suggestion, because I hear those are less likely to get the blight and other diseases/bad insects. Maybe we still have a chance at having a good experience with composting/gardening with all the help from the posts above! I am planning to figure out a way to grow tomatoes and peppers in "upside down" containers - I will post pics and info on whether this worked later!
The worms turn the scraps into compost that is great for gardening. There are several ways to harvest. I push all the old stuff onto one side of the bin and load the new stuff on the other. When the worms finish with the old side, they migrate to the new side and I clean out the old side.
You can certainly do it outside. My bin is in the shade. Not sure how it will do in the summer heat.
Be sure and keep something heavy on top or the dogs will get in.
Even in the shade I don't know if the worms will survive the summer heat. I really don't think they would do well on a cold winter day. PatRoy (like the old Habs goalie??), has your bin been outside for a whole summer yet? I guess it's basically been summer temps the past few weeks and if you're worms are doing fine in the shade then that's proof it works.
I got inspired to vermicompost after watching a documentary called "No Impact Man" --- Not the greatest movie, but it had it's good parts (I think you can stream it on Netflix). Anyway, that guys lives in a very small apartment in NYC with a wife and kid and vermicomposts inside, which made me feel like I should be able to in my house. It really doesn't take up very much space. That Red Worm Composting site I linked in the last post has some great streaming video and information if you want to find out more about how it works.
I'll leave it at that since it sounds like outdoor composting will likely work better for your situation, and I don't know anything about that process. It's nice to hear some of the pros and cons of both ways, but ultimately I am glad people are just composting at all
The issue there is it's a batch composter, so you are supposed to stop adding stuff for a period of weeks to let it "finish" before you can use it again. We have a tumbler now and I'm not loving the compost it produces. I can say I had about the most snake-friendly compost pile you could imagine for 6 years (open piles next to a bunch of brush in a nice wooded part of the yard, yard backed to trees then wetland) and never saw a copperhead in it. Black snakes (GREAT for keeping down the rodents!) and the occasional turtle, yes, but no copperheads. I'm not saying you wouldn't, but especially given how in-town you're going to be, I really wouldn't worry about it too much.
We had a worm bin for 3 years or so before that. Made great compost. I'd recommend a tray style version (google Worm Factory) which makes it easy to separate the worms from the finished compost. Our worm population would drop in the winter but perk back up in the spring; as long as we kept them reasonably watered and in the shade in the summer, they kept kicking in the heat. Worms are perfect if most of what you want to compost is kitchen waste. We switched to the open conventional bins when we moved to a new house that produced a LOT of yard waste and the worms couldn't keep up, but now that we're in a new house with a smaller lot, we're considering going back to the worms.
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