Compost Is Ready

I hope you found my first post on my DIY tumbler composting helpful.

Today, I took the PVC door of my greenhouse apart (so that no more PVC's were killed in the process) and by adding a bit of vinyl hardware cloth, built a sifter to sift the smaller particles of compost from my compost tumbler.

I used the PVC clips that I'd made to hold the hardware cloth on the PVC. I was amazed at how well they work and the whole sifter took me less than 30 minutes to assemble. It fits nicely on the top of my wheel barrow and by turning it so the mesh on the bottom, the PVC forms a nice edge that keeps the compost from escaping off the sides.

I was truly amazed at easily my 55 gallon compost tumbler turned out some really nice compost. If ever I had any doubts, they are totally gone now.

I sifted out the smaller pieces and set aside the larger ones for continued composting.

Tomorrow, I may try to run them through my chipper/shredder (that I got a deal on at a yard sale) before I put them back into the tumbler with a whole new batch of green and brown material to kick start the process.

I took a shovel full or so of the compost and wrapped it up in an old tee-shirt and put it in a 5 gallon bucket of water to start a batch of compost tea (pics to come with my next compost post).

Large material that didn't make the sifting.

After all sifting was done, about 1/2 of my LARGE wheel barrow was filled with nice compost. I had enough to fill two empty manure bags that I'd held on to for just such an occasion.

I'd have to say that it was definitely worth the wait.

Going to use some of this nice stuff to fortify some soil for two white grape vines that I'm ready to plant and to side dress some tomatoes.

Don't think I've ever seen soil this black in Georgia!