It's easy to be GREEN

Hey there!

Moving to a farm and taking on more of a homestead approach has led to some great discussions with our girls here.  One such discussion took place yesterday...

Our location does have regular garbage and recycling pick up as well as 'green bin' pick up.  The girls were familiar with the process from our last home as well as from school etc.  However they were very curious about what actually happens to the green waste and how the same could happen here in the large green "earth machine" composter I had found hidden away under some pine trees.

I had spotted it back in the spring when we had come to look at the house and had thought 'cool, they have a compost set up'.  Upon closer inspection yesterday, I came to the conclusion that sadly it had never been used.  So, I dragged it out from under the trees, scoped out a location that made sense to me (behind the garage along the path to the barn and one day veggie patch) and rallied my troops.

I explained that we could set up the earth machine composter, allow the worms and microbes to eat our kitchen scraps and make lovely dark soil for our gardens!  Of course, the big question was HOW this was going to happen?!  With some discussion, the older two girls and I summed it up for the littles as "the earthworms will eat our leftovers and POOP out dirt.  The explanation worked... a lot better than our 'where do babies come from' conversation.  :)

The first thing we did was dig a few inches into the soil where we planned on putting the composter.  We turned this over to allow worms, microbes and moisture to get to work immediately.  Next, we set the composter in place, screwed bottom into the ground and we were ready to go!

I had read over the earth machine website and began with layers of green and brown (old leaves, clippings) as well as our kitchen compost.  We then added a little soil on top and used a pitch fork to mix it all together!

Though I was sure there were earthworms already present and ready to work, Sammy took it upon herself to collect some to add to our compost.

As with many aspects of life on the farm... now we WAIT and hopefully HARVEST.

Jeanette