Why I Oughta...

The last time I checked in on our compost bins was back in July when the 'storage' bin was steaming from decomposition of grass clippings and wood chips .  I let the lawn get pretty long, so I had to bag-up a couple of cuts-worth of grass.  That meant that I needed to balance the bin out with some wood chips.  Since then, we've continued to add kitchen waste to the bin and I've been adding garden waste, too.   I also dumped a bunch more grass clippings in recently. How do the bins look? There's been some compaction in all three bins with the middle one seeing the largest voids created.  Take a look below to see the three bins as of late August 2025: Here is April 2025's view of the bins .   You can see the nursery pots that I've stuck on the top of the 'finishing bin' (on the right) have dropped a little bit.  And, that the middle bin has that large void about 1/3rd of the way down.  And, the 'storage bin' (on the left) is actively decom...

This Spring, I've been a little slow on mowing the lawn.  It seems that I've been leaving it a bit too long everytime it needs a cut and that has lead me to bag the clippings.  As the Summer heat arrives, the lawn will slow down and I'll go back to mulching it, but for the past few weeks, it has been all-bagging-all-the-time.  That means that we're running heavy on nitrogen.  Grass clippings, if left alone get all slimy, gross, smelly and don't do much decomposition.  But, thanks to the Village of Downers Grove, I have access to a free supply of arborist wood chips.  Those are a great way to balance the grass clippings with some carbon/browns.   The past few times I've cut the lawn, I dumped the clippings in the 'holding' bin on the left.  A day or two after, I went out and picked up some arborist chips.  I used my fork to sort-of mix them up as best I could.  And...then leave it alone.   This morning, I went out to the bi...

The last time I checked in our compost bins was late last Fall when I was filling the left bin (holding bin) with the last of the Fall leaves that dropped in our yard .  At that time, the 3rd bin (the fully-mixed bin) was overloaded - above the top of the bin.  That's because compaction occurs and that material will settle as it continues to decompose.  The 'middle bin' was only half-way full and the last bin - on the left - which is the 'holding bin' was piled to the top of leaves.   Over the past few months, some of that compaction occurred and the level of the leaves in the 'holding bin' dropped enough to allow for the addition of garden (and kitchen) waste.   The past few days, I posted some photos of how we've begun to cleanup the backyard by taking down/clipping some grasses - Muhly Grasses , Karl Foerster Grasses and the little colony of Hellebores - where I took off last year's foliage .  For each of those clean-ups, I brought the materia...

In October, I turned my compost over.   That meant pulling out the 'black gold' in the tumbler (that's where I finish the compost each year) and then re-filling the tumbler with more-finished (than the rest) of the compost from the right bin.  Then using a compost fork to pull out and move the stuff from the 'middle bin' to the 'right bin' - where it was properly mixed.  And finally...taking the storage bin - the 'left bin' which is mostly leaves and kitchen scraps and mixing it in the middle bin.  That left the 'storage bin' on the left empty. For like 10 days.   Here's what it looks like today - below.  The left bin (with the 'feed me' sign) is filling up with leaves that have come off our lawn and out of our gardens: There is A LOT of air in this bin, so these leaves will compact/compress to about 1/2 of the bin height.  I'm going to give it a pause for a week-or-so, then come back and fill it back up with even more leaves...

It was just 12 days ago that I posted a Fall 2024 update on our compost bins.  In that post, I showed the decomposition and compaction that had occurred over this season with all three bins just about leveling-out.  The 'finished bin' was spilling material out and the 'hold' bin was (surprisingly) decomposing despite not being properly mixed. #14 on my 2024 to-do list was to 'keep going on compost' .  And, over the past few months, we'd *mostly* done that.  We were certainly ADDING to the bins, but when I did my September check-in on my list, I marked this one as 'incomplete' because I had NOT (yet) turned the bins over for the season .  That changed this past weekend, when I went to work on all three bins plus our tumbler.   I started by looking at the tumbler - where I found BLACK GOLD.  I've emptied this tumbler each year after getting that lovely loam-y black gold.  This year is no different.  Below are a few photos showing the outp...

The leaves are falling from our trees, which means I have to start thinking about what to do with them.  My thoughts naturally turn to our compost bins.  We have a three-bin setup plus a tumbler to finish that I've used over the years.  In normal years, I turn the compost once per year and move it along in the process.   The three-bin setup is (from left-to-right) a storage bin (mostly leaves), a semi-mixed bin and a mixed bin.  I normally move the finished compost out of the tumbler and re-fill it with the material from the right mixed bin.  This year...I didn't do any of that.   What is normally pretty 'lazy compost' was even more lazy this year.  How did it work out?   What do they say?  "Nature finds a way."  And that's the case with our compost bins.  We've seen compression and decomposition in all three bins.  And, a full load of BLACK GOLD in our tumbler.   Below is the current state of the ...

I haven't gotten around to turning our compost bins this Summer.  But, that hasn't slowed down the natural decomposition that is taking place back there.  The last time that I looked at the bins was in Spring - March 2024 - when they were full from Fall and Winter scraps and weeds .  Since then, I piled on A LOT of things - Spring cleanup, cuttings from grasses, a bunch of turf/soil from various excavations/edgings.  And, lots of weeds - including a HUGE pile of tall Pokeweed.   The heat of Summer, combined with time has yielded some natural compression and decomposition.  Have a look (below) at the current state of the three bins.    Do I need to turn these over?  Yes.  Will I get to it before Fall?  I'm not sure.   But, as of now, I don't have room for Fall leaves.  So, that...will end up being the forcing factor. 

Well...things are STARTING to happen in my 3rd, storage bin in our three-bin compost setup.  That third bin (which I put up last year) is a storage bin full of non-mixed material.  It is LOADED with last season's fall leaves as well as where I've been stashing our kitchen scraps.  Most recently, I topped it off with all of the cut-downs from our ornamental grasses. Three things have happened all in the past week or so that have managed to move things along in this bin. First, I applied a top-layer of municipal biosolids.  Both as material to balance the browns (I'm considering biosolids to be a green due to their high nitrogen content) as well as a WEIGHT due to their mass . Then...(on accident), some of the bin caught on fire . (eek). And, now, have a look at the bins.  In particular, look at the level of the storage bin on the left.  The top of it is now BELOW the top of the frame: Look back at this post from a week ago when the biosolids and grass clippi...

I was feeling pretty good about my prescribed burning of tiny piles of leaves and some perennial litter from last season.  I posted the details of it yesterday .  Over the weekend, I went out and did a little bit more burning.  I used my small hand rake to pull together a pile of (mostly) oak leaves - creating a little burn break from other leaf litter - and use my small propane torch to light-it-up.   But, I think I got a little too cocky.  Burning and burning and burning.  And feeling good about returning the carbon to the soil via little ash piles.  All the while...cleaning up the beds a bit.  I was puttering around the beds making little piles and burning them.  They light up, then expire on their own when they exhaust all the material.  A little smoldering for a minute or two, then the piles of ash go dark.  And leave behind some white, burned out material.   I found myself back by the compost bins, where I recen...

Yesterday, I shared a round of photos showing the first (for this growing season) load of municipal biosolids that I added to our perennial garden beds as a topdressing .  The goal is to improve the soil and feed the trees and plants.   I also used these biosolids in a different spot:  as a compost bin amendment.   I've done this in the past - here's a post from March of 2023 - when I dumped some biosolids in as a sort-of accelerant/enhancement to my bins due to them being overloaded with 'browns'.  I thought the biosolids - full of Nitrogen - would help balance out the blend.   Right now, all three of our bins are F-U-L-L.  The clean-up that I did recently of all the ornamental grasses produced an enormous amount of material.  I posted some photos back a couple weeks .    For this round - I added a 5-gallon bucket (filled 2/3rds of the way) into my 'storage bin'.  The one with the "Feed Me" compost bin sign .  ...

On the first of February (2 weeks ago today), I noticed the pink tips of the Hellebores had emerged from the mulch in their annual late Winter arrival.   Those pink tips and buds were accompanied by the previous year's foliage - which persisted through the Winter.  With the temps in the 40's yesterday after work, I decided to get out there to clean-up the foliage.  Here, below, is the 'before' photo - with all of the green leaves on the plants: And, here below, is the 'after' photo.  Looks like a messy pile of oak leaves laying on the ground.  But, if you look closely, you'll notice some peeks of pink.  I've left the leaves in place (for now) as a little bit of extra protection until we do a proper cleanup in the beds. Here, below, are a few more looks at this year's Hellebores being protected by Oak leaves. I considered a 'chop and drop' for the foliage - where I'd trim-off and then cut-down into smaller pieces the stems and leaves and ...

A couple of days ago, I posted in my [compost bins] diary a look at the current state of my bins now that I've topped them off with a lot of ornamental grass material - reeds, canes and blades.  I tried to chop the material down into smaller segments in an attempt to break it up a bit and speed decomposition.    While I was cleaning up the grasses, I also went into the front porch bed and clipped off and cleaned up the front of the bed.  That included a number of Dusty Millers and all of the Seslaria Autumnalis (Autumn Moor Grass) .    Here, below, is a look at this bed after I trimmed up the Moor Grasses - but left behind some of the Fall leaf litter that has accumulated over Winter:  I also have three large Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses in the island bed between our driveway and front walk.  I pruned all of those ornamental grasses and cut them off an inch-or-two above their crown.  That island bed after the ornamental grasses have be...

We had "false Spring" last week when the temperatures rose to the upper 40's and low 50's, so that (naturally) lead me to getting out in the garden to do a little bit of work.   I went with the whole "leave the leaves" thing last Fall.  Well...sort-of.  I cleaned up A LOT of leaves.  But, wasn't super picky about things and left some leaves whole.  And, blew some other leaves on the lawn, chopped them up with my mulching mower, and blew those chopped-up bits back onto the beds.   I also left ALL the standing material up all Winter.  That 'standing material' includes flower stalks and ornamental grasses.  Thanks to "Fall Dividing", we have ornamental grasses all over the place.  I've read a bunch of the posts/stories about the risks of doing a Spring Cleanup in the garden too soon; leading to some problems with nesting insects.  So, I opted - for now - to mostly leave the leaf litter in place.  But, I figured I should go at...

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.  ...

It was just a few days back that I mused about adding a little personality to our garden via the addition of a way-finding sign on our compost bins .  I was seeing that various users from our house (ahem aheam...the kids) were dumping our kitchen waste in the bin that I was viewing as 'cooking' instead of the storage (not properly mixed bin) that I can get to over time.   I posted about the signage because I wanted to remind myself to make one this Spring.  But, I found myself with a tiny bit of time and decided to just jump on it right now.  This *is* 2024, right?  At least in terms of gardening seasons, I'm call it 2024. I had some cut-offs of cedar pickets that I used for a different project laying around, so I grabbed one of them and some paint.  I painted the words "Feed Me" on the board in white.  Outlined in a navy blue.  Then, spray a topcoat (clear) on top of the paint in an attempt at making the sign lasting just.a.little.bit.longer...

My compost bins grew this Fall - from two bins and a tumbler to three bins and a tumbler.  I've long wanted to add that third bin, but it took this Fall's leaves to compel me to act.  Below, you can see the new third bin - on the left - and this photo serves as an 'early winter' snapshot of our three bins (in terms of how full they are) as the composting process slows down with the temperature drops: The new bin (on the left) is almost exclusively leaves.  The pumpkins that you see in the middle bin are there (for now) as I break them down into chunks and layer them in every time I add more leaves to the new 3rd bin.  I put in a bunch of leaves on top --> chop up chunks of pumpkins --> layer them on top of the leaves in the 3rd bin.  I've done that for the top 12-inches-or-so and as that bin continues to compress I'll keep adding leaves.   One other thing to note:  on the bottom right, there are two white plastic garbage bags that are laying...

It was just a couple of days ago that I posted the details (and photos) of my mid-Summer emptying, turning, re-layering, amending and re-building of our compost bins .  I stuck my compost thermometer in the pile about 2/3rds of the way down and after just about 24 hours, we're already up to temperature.  See below for a look at the current temp showing the pile in the 'active' zone at about 110°.  And climbing.   That gray-shaded "hot" zone is where you want your pile, so I'll be watching to see if I was able to mix the material to the proper ratio and if I supplied enough moisture to get it really cooking.  From what I've read, if you can get your compost pile up to that 160° area, you can have compost as quickly as just five-or-six weeks.  

I had a little bit of time off earlier this week and I opted to do some annual compost program maintenance.   I've done this the past few years and #11 on my list this year was to 'continue on my compost journey'.   Here's what I wrote: 11.  Continue on our composting journey.   That starts with using  our kitchen bin , turning the mixed bin, amending with alfalfa and/or biosolids.  It also means that I need to keep moving through the two bins and tumbler set-up with the goal of a tumbler-full-of-finished compost to be used in the garden every season.   Fall leaves stored in Fall , full, properly mixed bin by end-of-season. Up until now, I felt pretty good about composting this year.  Between the use of Starbucks grounds as an additive to adding kitchen scraps , I've been good about putting more waste in the bins.  I've also made a pretty big mound/pile of material from various projects and all the leaves from my Spring ...