reuse reuse

Submitted by Jinoturistica on 1 March, 2008 - 19:29.

Our house had a composting toilet out back, no longer used, roof and walls gone but base looks good. Question is, can we reuse this base as a vegetable scraps recyler and are there any tips on doing so?

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reuse existing structure

Submitted by Jinoturistica on 3 March, 2008 - 17:02.

Lots of excellent ideas, thanks guys. However, the idea was to reuse this 5 foot high existing stump of a latrine composter.

The thought of having to destroy concrete and dispose of it when it was built to deal with crap goes against the grain. Sounds like I can just put veggie scraps in the top, maybe a bit of dirt now and then, and dig it out the bottom.

compost

Submitted by willdufauve on 3 March, 2008 - 16:01.

There's a lot of fancy scientific ways to compost but the "do nothing" method works, too.

We pile the old goat hay, manure and all, throw the food scraps on it, never ever turn it (too much work), never water it, just leave it in a pile on the ground...no matter what, in 6 months to a year it's compost anyway.

The pile is so hot all winter that snow melts on it. It's hard to screw up compost even if you "do nothing." We tried putting chicken wire fence around it and being fancy. Needless effort.

layers...

Submitted by Doug on 1 March, 2008 - 23:35.

green stuff-fresh veggie waste (plant matter)

Brown stuff-dried out plant matter

soil-inoculate the compost pile with the bacteria in the soil

keep it moist, but not wet

pile about a meter high, then start a new one.

get air into the pile, turn it with a garden fork, shovels cut the poor little worms too easily, a least once a week

I start a new pile when the current one is about a meter high, and start turning the old pile

Without knowing how the composter was designed hard to say what utility it may provide. If it has some sort of bottom empty type provision you maybe able to just continually add layers to the top, keep it aerated and pull compost out of the bottom.

-Doug

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate

I concur with Doug,

Submitted by arlington on 2 March, 2008 - 11:44.

I bought a plastic garbage can, inserted a plastic laundry basket - the ventilated type - everything but animal scraps goes in, At the end of the day I cover that with a thin layer of soil, and moisten. At the end of the wek, any compost tea that has seeped through gets reintroduced. After it's full, begin a new one. In six weeks the first one will be compost. No smell, no flys just rich compost. Because the hamper is ventilated, so far I haven't had the need to even turn the pile.

Rot on....

Submitted by Doug on 2 March, 2008 - 19:46.

what a really cool way of doing it,

consider your idea officially stolen.. ;)

-Doug

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate