I should probably not be as excited as I am about compost…but it’s pretty cool! And I may be a bit of a plant nerd. As you know, we have terrible soil, and yet I have high hopes for our garden. I have said it before somewhere, maybe Instagram (if you aren’t following us…you’re missing out, if I do say so myself!), I do not like to wish away time. I think it is precious. That being said, I am so anxious to see what compost does for our garden next year. To be fair, the garden is not a complete failure this year. I’m trying to baby it as much as possible with the amount of time I’m willing to put in it. Y’all know life gets busy. And fertilizing it is so helpful. I know, duh. But if it can be somewhat successful this year, just imagine what good soil will do!

I know raised beds with commercial soil would solve all my issues here. So would an extra $10,000 a month. But here we are. We have never composted before, and as with most of my ideas I may have gotten an eye roll from Bryson at first, but I love the idea of cutting down food waste and creating fertile soil on our own. I should mention, although I think I have, I’m the only one eating anything that actually contributes to our compost, but that is okay! We are going to make it work. And, remember those wood chips that we have in piles? Still. In our front yard. Anyway. They are perfect dry matter to add to the compost! So things are working out. 

While we have never composted before, this is not our first attempt at a garden. At our first house we started a garden and we were SO excited, because we also had a 10 stall barn where we boarded horses. Cleaning stalls means plenty of horse manure, and what better fertilizer?! And free, no less. (Do not believe that. Nothing associated with horses is EVER free. Ever.) So we (Bryson) tilled up the soil, with that manure that would be like gold, planted our little plants, and waited. It took about three weeks or so before they were shriveled up and dead. We were renting this property and the owner sprayed the pastures for weeds each year. Turns out, the herbicide stays in the horse manure which then transfers to the plants. Good thing we (Bryson) took a whole load to my uncle so he could have super tomatoes that year. The herbicide can stay in the soil up to three years, so that was the end of our garden dreams there. When we first moved to our current home we (Bryson) planted a garden next to one of our fields that wasn’t fenced in yet. We had a neighbor come cut hay and ran right over it with the tractor. As they say, third time is a charm. 

So, we have our third garden that is going pretty well, and now we have a real compost going. I am no expert at composting but here is what we are doing, and I will continue to update as we learn more. I have the cutest compost can that my step-mother gave me as a gift that stays in our kitchen. I ordered bio-degradable compost bags (they are really just fancy little trash bags) from Amazon. You could do without them, but it is so nice to not have to scrub the compost can each time I dump it. Because they are biodegradable I do not go more than two days without dumping it outside because the bag starts to decompose and then they are pointless. So about every two days I take my little can out to the compost bin we (Bryson) made. We are fortunate because he has access to pallets from work so we did not have to invest much in this. I have to say he did a phenomenal job, because if I had screwed these pallets together it would have looked very amateur. He cut some pieces to make it flush and it made a big difference. If you do not have access to pallets you could make this out of anything. The goal is to hold everything in, but you do have to have ventilation, and you have to be able to turn the compost. Some people use 55 gallon drums with holes that will turn. I will have to manually scoop my pile. 

I do add wood chips for the dry matter. You could use dried leaves and twigs, but it is spring, so not really. I added chicken litter last time I cleaned out the coop, but I need to do some research here because I do know sawdust can make nitrogen unavailable for the plants. I’m not sure at what levels, but that would be tragic for garden number four next year. I also always research anything I’m unsure about adding to the compost. Obviously most fruits and vegetables are fine, but I was not sure about things like bread or potatoes. When I say research, I mean Google. Just so we are clear. All in all I’d say our first try at composting is going well.

Updating you on the rest of the week would take another blog post (follow us on Instagram!), but we got enough round bales to last us through the winter, Lord willing, removed a tree that was hanging by it’s last limb…pun intended…you’re welcome, revived my dead sourdough starter, and we (Bryson) bush hogged a lot of pasture. The chicken are laying well and have not eaten any more eggs. I do have a broody hen now though. It is constant craziness around here but we would not have it any other way. Thanks for joining us as we learn to homestead on the side! 

“As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” Matthew 13:23