Our Compost Tumbler

Because of the garage construction, our backyard is pretty torn up.  Just this morning, I laid down some seed and began to water the portion of the yard that needs to return to grass.  It'll take a while and probably some additional seed, but I figured I should start now so the Rooster can get out there and not come back in totally filthy from the dirt/mud.  

An additional piece of collateral damage of the new garage is the relocation of our Victory Garden.  (yeah...I said "victory garden"!).  It was in the furthest south-west corner of our lot, but now it has to move.  I've preliminarily planned to move it to the south side of our house and expand it a bit, but that has to wait until after the fence and pavers go in.  

I've been to Menard's 10 times in the past month and every time I walk by the seed aisle or the vegetable plants, my trigger finger gets really itchy.  But then I reassure myself that we're not ready and the beds aren't even made yet.  

Furthering my veggie-related anxiety is this thing:

It is our compost tumbler.  We've had it for a year and filled it up late last fall.  The instructions say that it'll make compost in 2-3 weeks, but because of the winter temps and my lack of "proper mixing" skills, it took a bit longer than that.  More like (from October to now) 6 months or so!   I'm sure that if we fill it during the spring, it'll cook along way faster, but the winter took forever.  

When I opened it up last week, we had "black gold"!  The compost looks perfect.  But....we have no where to put it!  I'll keep it in the tumbler a few more weeks until I can build the raised beds, then I'll dump it in and get started on another batch.  This time I'll put more "greens" and less "browns" and hopefully it'll "cook" a bit faster!