This page will be to document the progress of our first batch of compost.

Contents: Tumbleweed brushes chopped up, dry grass, tea and coffee grounds, and dried cow dung as an activator to start. Plan to add some veg peelings as we go.

Day 1 – May 23, 2009:

Day 10 – June 2, 2009

Comments – It isn’t looking any different yet. It has been hard to keep the compost moist because it’s so hot and dry here. Think we might do more mulching in advance next time….but it’s still early.

Day 31 – June 23, 2009

Still no big changes. We keep adding peelings and such, but I’m not sure much is happening.

Day 98 – August 29, 2009

Well, I didn’t really think it would take this long, but it does seem a bit better. We’ve been watering regularly (daily when it isn’t raining). Then a couple weeks ago, it seemed like there was too much “green” stuff…mostly vegetable and fruit peelings, etc….so I added some mulched “brown” stuff (leaves, etc.) That seemed to help. The compost seems to be getting darker and richer now. One weird thing is that small sprouts have started growing in it, probably from seeds in our vegetable and fruit peelings. I guess that’s good, but I’m not sure.

Day 300 and something – July 31, 2010

Batch 1 is done. We have used scoops of it in the greenhouse this year, and today emptied the remainder into the new vermiculture (worm) bin. The major lesson learned from this batch is to preshred all brown stuff.

The new pile of compost we have on the ground seems to be composting much faster. I think it has to do with preshredding brown stuff and having a larger mass of stuff. That seems critical to the composting process.