The Compost Pile {Welcome Home Link Up}

Last Monday, the young man who stays with us a couple of days a week, asked me if there was anything he could do to help around the house.  I’m not sure he bargained for what I handed him…

The Compost Pile

I had been watching Homestead Blessings – The Art of Gardening and they made it look so easy, I actually felt like I could tackle this project (I seriously detest when instructions are so hard to understand you want to give up long before you even start!).

So, our friend got his work clothes on while I scouted around the property for something suitable to enclose my compost pile.  I had my sights set on wooden pallettes or wire, but as I rounded the corner of the shed, there they were…cinder blocks!  TONS (and I mean TONS) of cinder blocks!

We hefted those things from behind the shed to the garden (and I paid the price for all that manual labor later that night!).  Boy, was I glad our friend was there!  I would never have managed without him!

I decided to set it up at the north edge of the garden where the fence for the grapes ends.  We built it with 3 sides and then started layering.

In the same place where we found the cinder blocks there was a large stash of reeds from the ornamental grasses around the yard.  We broke those up and put them on the bottom to aerate the soil. (Homestead Blessings suggests sticks)

On top of the reeds, we shoveled in some dirt from the edge of the garden.  I don’t know why it was there, but it was a lovely black color.  In fact, all the soil around here looks wonderful!

We’ve been saving scraps indoors in this old trash can we keep under the sink.  You can use any organic uncooked material except for meat.  In fact, when a friend cut my hair this past week, into the compost bucket it went!  The hair also deters animals from poking around in my compost pile!

Isn’t that lovely???

Now, if I had had it, we would have put manure somewhere in there, but we didn’t have any, so…

we added the final layer…

This layer would have been straw, but we didn’t have any, so we used what we cleaned out of the asparagus patch.

Homestead Blessings suggests keeping it wet, but they said turning it was not required.  I had a landlord once who had a huge mound of compost and he planted his potatoes in it!  I won’t be doing that, but it is fun to think one day this might all break down and have worms in it!

Now, it’s time to link up!  Do you have a post that would be encouraging to the homemaker?  Add it below!

And don’t miss Tonya from My Homey Haven’s book study of The Hidden Art of Homemaking! Check it out here: