Winter Kitchen Compost Snapshot - Pre-Mixing - February 2024

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Two days ago, I posted a photo of a new "Desire Path" in our backyard that appeared during Winter and was a result of walking back-and-forth from our house to our compost bin with our kitchen compost material.   We kept up with composting (thus far) through the cold weather and have been stashing the kitchen scrap material in the new 3rd storage bin.  The one with the "feed me" compost bin sign on it. 

I just brought out a load of material and dumped it and thought I should document the state of this bin - pre-mixing this material.  Here, below, is a photo showing the top of the bin.  The bottom 98% of this bin is filled with autumn leaves.  The top 2% that you see here is pretty colorful.  And comprised of vegetables and fruits, cut flowers, egg shells, avocado peels, onion skins, coffee grounds and some spent hydrangea blooms.   The temperatures have STOPPED any decomposition the past 30-or-so-days and kept the colors vibrant. 

Kitchen scrap composting in Winter - Chicago Suburban Gardener

I've left this material on top for now - because the body of the bin is frozen.   Hoping that with the increase temperatures, I'll be able to mix this layer in this weekend and get at least SOME of that leaf litter to be blended at the proper ratio.  

Then, I'll begin to add this 3rd storage bin to the middle bin to top it off later this Winter/early this Spring.

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