The Big Black Box

Last weekend I spent many hours moving a Big Black Box (my compost bin) across the yard to a new location -- a strange thing to do on a picturesque sunny afternoon, but it was worth it.
To me composting is all about enriching the soil for gardening -- plus, of course, reducing waste and watching that miracle of decomposition in action.

I admit that the compost-moving operation turned out to be a LOT of work, and I really did not know what I'd find inside! A pleasant surprise was that I ended up harvesting something 6-8 buckets of decent soil for my vegetable garden!

The reason that I felt the great need to tote a ton of yard waste across my yard was basically that I was unhappy with the lack of progress my compost bin was making -- I knew that it was way too dry (being a big plastic box w/ lid --rather reminiscent of a latrine, actually), and since I could not reach it with the hose, it rarely got watered.

I set up this big black box 2 springs ago, all excited to make my own compost. I picked that location for its distance to the house, and was glad of it when a black bear discovered it shortly after I had started composting in it! Lesson #1: No household wastes.
You should have seen me that day -- banging pots together to get "Blackie" out of my yard. Afterwards, I promptly removed all kitchen scraps (causing some of the frame to break as I precariously leaned over the edge). Since then, I only used it for grass clippings, fall leaves and the dead potted plants from the deck after the first frost.
I basically pretty much neglected it other than throwing in the occasional grass/leaves, having started an indoor worm bin in the garage for my kitchen scraps. Whenever it did look in the big black box, there was a bunch of very dry-looking straw. Last summer we only had 2 days where the temperature got above 70 Fahrenheit, and I had pretty much come to the conclusion that composting in Alaska was a waste of space.But my success with the worm box, and the warmth of this summer, got me to rethinking my hard-nosed position. I came to the conclusion that I could do better by moving the big black box to a sunny spot right behind one of my new raised beds, where I could water it right along with my growing veggies, plus being right there, it would also be a handy receptacle for all the green waste products of gardening such as thinning the carrots, etc.

Today, as I disassembled the big black box, and after getting past the top half of dry grass, etc, I started finding some wonderful black COMPOSTED SOIL! Miracles of miracles -- 2 years of utter neglect did produce some decent soil. How I love sifting my hands through that black gold. Between that and the harvest from my worm box, I added a hefty dent in my newest raised bed project -- yes, I do plan to grow a bigger garden next year.
Ahhh, the satisfaction of a job well done, and as a bonus, clean crocs for the whole family!

If you'd like to see a list of how my garden crops fared so far this summer, click to see "Gardening Successes and Failures", which I posted on my other blog, Borealkitchen.blogspot.com