For many years composting has occurred at our house. While chicken wire enclosures are strategically situated just beyond tree line around the property to collect leaves, the actual composting occurs in this plastic bin purchased at the town dump decades ago. It has a commercial name of “Earth Machine” but basically consists of this plastic garbage pail/bin with a cover and vents on the side. It is open bottomed. Technically you access the composted material from a door (see bottom left of the device). We have never used this door.

Traditionally, stuff gets put in at the top, you add water occasionally and the material gets stirred with a stick (maybe). Over time (like two years!), you pull off the plastic bin and you have a pile as shown in foreground. With advent of the retirement plague-made-in-china-but-really-a-hoax-but-preventable-with-dubious-anti-malarial-properties-discovered-forty-years-ago, we have the time to improve our production schedules. We are hoping for a third wave at the end of summer?

To get to the final product, this brown stuff has to be sifted through a strainer (quarter inch/half inch metal grid) before filling re-cycled Plastic kitty litter bins (as shown).