gutters.  There was some serious composting already happening in there.  My fellow garden tweeters let me know that gutter compost is good stuff.  It sure looked it!  We made a pile of it in the backyard so that I can incorporate it into my new scheme.

Compost Tumbler Investigation

I’m trying to decide if I want to have a compost pile, compost tumbler, or a compost bin.  On my last compost post, several people wrote in about their alternate methods.  Zach uses two trash cans.  Chris recommended that Zach rig the cans so that he can roll them around and aerate the compost more.  He should poke holes in them and rig the lids to stay on while they play a giant game of “kick the can.”  That will let oxygen in, which will speed up the composting.

I may not want to wrestle with a giant trash can filled with compost. A compost bin is certainly a step up, but I’ll have to take my pitch fork and sift it around a lot so it gets the air it needs. I get exercise, but maybe a little too much?

A compost tumbler is a neat idea. It’s basically a barrel suspended in mid air on stilts, and you can roll it around. This means it gets the oxygen within, which the little microbes inside need in order to eat up all my wastes into turn it into compost.

Before I get to a couple tumblers I might try out, here’s another option. A worm farm!

The Worm Factory

The Worm Factory

I actually met the man who developed this system, and it looks pretty great for people that want to farm worms. The screen system allows worms to start at the bottom, and move up as they digest everything in their current tray.  You can continue to add scraps as the worms eat.  The spigot at the bottom allows for moisture-control and siphoning of concentrated compost-tea.  I have been interested in “worm farming” and this one looks pretty easy to manage.

Also see: Which is better? Compost bins or worm farms?

Lifetime Compost Tumbler

Lifetime Compost Tumbler

This is currently the best selling tumbler on Amazon. It’s a decent size at 75 gallons, and has insulated walls that help keep the heat inside (the warmth will speed up the decomposition process). It’s not the prettiest tumbler, but it is functional and very straightforward and easy to use. This also has the largest lid out of the tumblers we’re looking at today, so it’s going to be very easy to load your waste material and unload the compost when it’s done. If you’re looking for something that gets the job done, then this is your best choice, if you’re looking for something a bit more special, then let’s take a look below at some more unusual choices.

Compospin Tumbler

CompoSpin Tumbler.

This appears to be the Cadillac of composters.  I love the style of this one, to be honest!  It reminds me of when I lived in Seattle and it was cloudy for the first month after I got there (surprise!) and then one day, the sun came out, and BAM there was Mt. Ranier.  It literally looked like a planet hovering just south of the city.  Maybe if you’re a sci-fi fan you’ll think it’s more like the Death Star. The reason for it’s shape is that this bin would let me roll around the compost on a little stand with casters, and appears to be, by far, the easiest bin to manage.  It would be kind of like a big lawn ornament that does something helpful, and would prove to be an interesting talking point. It would also protect my compost from the elements, so I would not lose a lot of nutrients. Plus, it makes compost tea in the base. Brilliant!

Rolly Pig Composter

Rolly Pig Composter

If I had kids, this is DEFINITELY the one I would get, hands down.  It looks like a giant pig, which is just awesome.  To put compost in, you feed it through the snout.  (I might want this even if I don’t have kids!)

Advantages and Disadvantages of Compost Tumblers

Above I have described compost tumblers and a worm bin.  They are not really the same, and all have advantages and disadvantages.  The advangage of a tumbler is that, when set up well and used properly, it is easier to aerate the compost, and less messy.  Instead of needing to fork the pile every few days, I would be able to turn a crank or send the earth into orbit (if I had the blue planet composter) and easily aerate the pile.  With the worm bin, the worms would do the heavy lifting for me.

Disadvantages to the tumblers are that I am limited in the amount of compost I can make at one time, and they can be a little pricer than the bins.  I need to weigh convenience vs. price vs. amount of compost.  The disadvantage of the worm bin is that I have to figure out a place to keep the worms in the winter.  I have an unfinished garage, and it usually (today is a BIG exception–it is about 17 degrees here. NOT NORMAL!) is not that cold here.  I could keep my pet worms toasty warm all season.

Let’s take a review of the bins I’ve mentioned:

Making your own compost is the best way to add organic matter and natural fertilizer to your garden. Organic matter helps water move through the soil—water stays in the soil so that plants can take it up, but organic matter also helps soil drain properly. Organic matter improves soil structure, helping roots penetrate deeply. Organic matter helps keep the pH of the soil stable, which is important for nutrient availability. Organic matter also decomposes to provide a natural fertilizer for plants.

Compost Problems Cause Headaches

Compost is not just about throwing food scraps in a bin and letting them rot. Several potential problems plague homeowners that compost. However, most of these problems are easy to overcome.

Smelly Compost – Your should not be able to smell your compost pile from inside your house with the doors and windows shut. If you can—you have a problem. Compost gets smelly when there is not enough air circulation in the pile. Turn the compost pile, and add some twigs and sticks to the pile to promote air flow.

Cold Compost – Compost can carry pathogens and weed seeds if it does not heat up properly. Additionally, it takes much longer for cold compost to decompose into rich soil. The pile needs to remain at 140 degrees for three days to kill diseases and weed seeds. To stimulate heat buildup within a compost pile, shred dry materials and add blood meal or horse manure.

Four Legged “Friends” Visiting the Compost Pile – Compost piles for home composting need to contain only vegetable matter. Do not compost meat or dairy products. A good rule of thumb is “if it doesn’t grow on a plant, don’t put it in the pile.”

Compost is too Dry – Add green matter such as vegetable scraps or grass clippings. Also water the pile, and make sure that the water soaks into the pile.

Composting is good for your garden and good for the environment. It reduces waste and is an inexpensive way to improve your soil fertility and increase your yield for vegetables, and the bounty of your flower garden.

Bedding Down the Worms

You can’t just throw a handful of worms and a bunch of food scraps into a trash can with holes in it and expect results. Well, you could try that, but you might end up with a giant mess. Here’s how to do it instead.

• Put about three inches of gravel in the bottom of the can.
• Fill with 1 ½ inches of water.
• Top with a divider that has drainage holes in it.
• Add a mixture of shredded leaves, shredded newspaper and garden soil that has been thoroughly wetted on top.
• Let that mixture sit for 48 hours.
• Add the worms.
• Start slowly feeding the worms vegetable scraps. (Plant material only—no meat or dairy.)
• Give them ¼ of what they can eat in a day (1/4 a pound per pound of worms to start) and gradually work up to one pound of food per day.
• Turn over the bedding material (gently!) after two weeks.
• Add more bedding (leaf/newspaper/soil mix) every month. Eventually you will need to empty the box/compost and start a new worm box.

Worm compost is some of the richest and best compost available to feed your garden. Take advantage of it!

Well San Francisco has very recently passed a law requiring that all city residents separate their appropriate food waste into a separate bin.  So now instead of glass, metal, and paper, there is also a bin for kitchen scraps and other food.  There is no indication in the law that those already composting will be disallowed from continuing their activity.  It seems that the city is just not accepting food waste to go to the landfills.

San Francisco has been well ahead of the curve in it’s recycling and composting approaches.  For years, the city has been working with apartment building, restaurants, and businesses on a voluntary basis to begin saving food and yard scraps from entering the landfills.

How in the world is this much compost used?

Already, the city has used the rich compost to sell back to community farms, wineries, and residential gardeners.  There is such high demand for this “San Francisco Gold”, that they are often unable to keep up with demand.  This is encouraging news given the fact that this proves that not only is this law smart, it is also useful and profitable.

California is well know for its abundance of wineries, and for the terrific wine that they produce.  That can in part be contributed to the initiative that the city started in 1996.  Companies are selling the product back to the consumer for $12 a square foot, and for those who do not want to be bother with composting in their own yards, this would be a small price to pay.

There should be no harm in collecting from everyone in the city, as it is hard to imagine a scenario in which such well tended compost will not be in high demand.  In fact, in some cases, it would be a boon to those who are not able to produce enough compost to meet their own gardening needs.

Have other cities passed similar laws?

No, San Francisco is the first to pass such a far reaching law, but other areas have attempted to get voluntary participation from its residents.  New York City has encouraged citizens to participate in this activity on a voluntary basis, but without a lot of luck.

One would think that with the precedent having now been set, it may be on the agendas in cities and municipalities nationwide.  San Francisco has provided a model that works, and one in which most of its residents seem ready to engage in, that it would perhaps be foolish for other cities large and small to try.  Food waste in landfills is a missed opportunity, and its benefits do seem to outweigh the costs.

Not everyone is such a big fan

This is certainly true.  Many people have a hard time with any type of change so heavy-handed, or with any new activities being imposed upon them.  There is much griping on the web about “big brother”, and big government trying to control more of how people live their lives.  This law is being used as an example of more socialism being forced in our country and our lives.

It is surprising that garbage could be such a polarizing issue for some.  It is not clear why there is more resistance to this than there was to mandatory recycling of metal, glass and plastic back in the nineties.  Perhaps much of it is due to lack of knowledge about the subject, or the fact that it’s more personal (“You are what you eat“), but once it becomes a habit, perhaps it will seem like any other routine part of the day.

What’s next?

San Francisco is not imposing fines on anyone who does not follow this law until 2010, which gives residents 6 months to get used to separating their garbage in this way.  The city has a goal to eliminate all landfill waste by the year 2020.  It will certainly be interesting to see if this is something that can actually be accomplished.

To Build a Trash Can Compost Bin

• A plastic or metal garbage can; it must have a locking lid
• A drill
• A hole saw bit for metal doors—I used the size for the peep hole
• Three or four cinder block-should have holes for drainage

If you’re getting help from the kids or other enthusiastic family members, its best to put a piece of 2”x4” in the can so it doesn’t get crushed. Even the metal cans can still be bent back into shape, but the lid might not lock as securely as you’d like.

The hole saw bit cuts easily through either the plastic or metal with little resistance. Cut holes all around the can, including the bottom and lid.

Make sure lid keeps a secure lock.

Using Your Homemade Composter

To use, just take it out to your garden and put in a thin layer of soil, then add your compost. Each time you add your kitchen scraps, bunny manure, sawdust, etc, (DO NOT ADD HUMAN, DOG OR CAT MANURE-this unit does not heat sufficiently to biodegrade pathogens) add a layer of soil.

Hey, if you have a fish tank (as long as it’s NOT salt water) every time you clean it, take the waste water and pour it into the barrel, it will add more nutrients to the compost.

The great thing about this composter is that you get to move it each season so you don’t saturate the ground in any one area. I used mine in my tomato beds one year and had fantastic results with heritage Beefsteak tomatoes.

Once in a while you should stir it up—I used a hoe, but only after it was half way full. It can dry out in the summer, but again, adding fish tank water, or creek water, or rain water, or tap water will fix that problem.

Depending on the weather, it will take four to eight weeks to break down standard kitchen, lawn and garden waste. You know how much waste you produce. I found that once I filled the composting can (it actually kept composting down) about three or four times, I just left it, stirred it once or twice a month, then worked it in after I cleaned the bed up in the fall (my family of four actually needs three units for the year).

Handy Uses

This unit can be used in the winter, not for composting, but for compost storage. Basically you have your three or four units put somewhere not too close to the kitchen, but where you can access them all winter. Then you or one of your helpers dumps the household compostable matter daily. (For this, I bought a square wastebasket that just fits the paper bags from grocery stores. They are completely biodegradable. Just fill and dump, but be careful of wet stuffàif wet, roll the top and flip the contents to the dry top and send out to the compost cans.)

In the spring, once the contents have thawed enough (don’t bang the plastic cans – they’ll break), slide out the contents. Once you’ve set up your beds and composting areas, you can just shovel the now thawed contents back into the composting cans or just add to your compost pile. Because it has frozen, the waste breaks down very fast, because of that it needs lot of air—If your putting back into the cans, you must stir it! But it is worth it.

If it starts to smell and you realize that it’s gotten kind of slimy, just add dry organic matter and stir. This doesn’t mean you need to have a bale of straw on hand, though that would work fine, just add extra (untreated) wood chips, grass clippings, or the old standby, shredded newspaper (this stuff should be going in there anyway.)

If you get night time visitors, it’s important that the composter is on solid footing, or else it can and will fall over onto your tomatoes. (Mine didn’t seem to suffer, but they had turned into small trees.) I used four cinder blocks, worked fine. My friend has used four bricks, and even though she had to dig them out in the fall, she felt they worked just fine.

Do Not Add the Following (Unless You Know What You’re Doing, And Don’t Live in the Suburbs!)

Never add shiny magazine type paper, computer paper (it’s treated and can be toxic), or meat. Yes you can compost meat and cat and dog waste, but you need a large area, and a managed compost pile a minimum of eight feet square by six feet high, it must be turned regularly and allowed to heat up enough to kill any pathogens (it’ll get so hot that if it dries too much it will burst into flames.)

If you have the room, go for it. There are a lot of resources out there.

As for the garbage can composter, it makes a great project for kids to make and give to family and friends.

Remember to have fun and enjoy your green spaces.

T. Masters-Heinrichs lives in the country with her husband, two children, two cats in constant need of affection, one neurotic Border Collie, a geriatric gecko and one large rabbit that seems to be getting bigger.

Basics of Worm Composting

Here are some basics for worm composting wannabes.  You need to know this stuff in order to have a good chance at worm survival.

• Worm composting is also called “Vermicomposting.”  So, when you see things written about vermicomposting, pay attention!
• There are different types of worms that are active in worm composting heaps.  Red wigglers (Lumbricus rubellus), branding worms (Eisenia foetida), field worms (Allolobophora calignosa) and night crawlers (Lumbricus terrestris) are the most common.  You can buy red wigglers from different worm suppliers online.
• Worms cannot tolerate soil/compost temperatures above 100 degrees F.  That means, you can’t just dig a hole in your steamy compost pile and dump the worms in, because they will die.  You also shouldn’t put worms in your compost tumbler, because the tumblers heat up quite rapidly in during the summer.
• If your compost pile doesn’t have a concrete or wood bottom, worms will naturally migrate up through the pile, until they reach a point where the temperature is too hot.
• You can compost with worms inside.  You need to build a little inside worm bin with bedding.  (More about that later in this post.)

Why Compost with Worms?

Conveniently, this relates to my blog post about humic acid.  Worms are a one way short cut to your own pile of humus in your yard, worm bin, etc.  Humus is compost at its finest: a poorly understood (in terms of science), but hugely beneficial concoction that happens when organic matter is broken down into its most highly digested form.  Worm castings (worm poo!) are a rich source of humus, and much cheaper than purchasing a soil conditioning product with humic acid in it.  (Although, if you don’t want to farm worms, a soil conditioning product with humic acid does actually work and is worth the money.  I know, because I helped plant some things in impossibly terrible soil about a month ago, and we added a great soil conditioner, which has already helped the soil start morphing into something plants can grow in, not die in.)

Your garden will grow large and lovely with worm castings as part of the soil mix.  The Rodale Compost book has great info about a study from the 1940s that compared agricultural plots with worms and without worms, and otherwise similar soil and crops.  You guessed it:  a year later, the area with worms produced healthy, lush growth of barley, bluegrass and lespedeza, while the plot without worms grew only weeds.

Worms are also a great way to compost/digest your kitchen scraps.  You can feed worms banana peels, among other things, which take quite a while to bread down in a regular compost pile.  You can even keep a bucket of worms under the kitchen sink for instant gratification re: cleaning up the kitchen.

Worms Under the Sink

You can make a lovely little worm bin to keep under your sink, which makes worm composting convenient.  To build an indoor worm bin, check out our post last December about building an indoor worm farm.

We frequently talk about compost on this blog. Compost is the “miracle pill” for the garden. An addition of compost can improve the worst soils.  Making your own compost is relatively easy and inexpensive.  However, if you can’t make your own compost, you can add an elemental form of compost to your garden, to help your existing soil improve itself!

Here’s why you’ll want to add humic acid or compost to your soil SOON if you have not already done so:
Compost:

• Improves soil structure
• Improves drainage
• Improves water holding capacity
• Adds nutrients to the soil

What is Humic Acid?

When compost is broken down into its very basic, chemical building blocks, it forms humus. Humic can be broken down into humic acid by treating the humus with sodium hydroxide and lowering the pH of the solution to 2. At that point, the organic matter will separate, and can be dried to form humate. It sounds too good to be true—the same substance that helps break up clayey soils and improve drainage and oxygen exchange also helps sandy soils retain nutrients and water. Many chemicals have been developed from the beginning of agriculture, but none can rival organic matter, especially humic acid. Humic acid improves plant growth, microbial activity in soil, plant growth and respiration, as well as other natural processes. It provides little in the way of plant nutrients, but increases the ability of the soil to hold nutrients in a way that can be easily taken up by plants. Because humic acid is in such an elemental form, it is difficult to describe it precisely, however the work that it does in the soil is vital to healthy plant growth.

How Humic Acid Benefits the Soil

Humic acid facilitates ion exchange. Humic acid has a higher cation exchange capacity, or CEC. That means it is easier for soil nutrient particles to move within the soil, and thus to be taken in by plants. Soils treated with humic acid have much better nutrient availability. Humic acid does not directly supply the plants with nutrients, but it does make what nutrients are in the soil easier for plants to access. Humic acid also influences the pH of the soil, which affects nutrient availability. Clay soils with very low humus levels can become overly acidic, resulting in poor conditions for plant growth. Sandy soils can be overly alkaline, equally as problematic for plants and nutrient uptake. Humidic acid increases the buffering capacity of the soil, and allows pH to remain steadier.

Humic Acid and Nutrient Uptake

In addition to nutrient availability, nutrient uptake is an important part of plant growth. If the nutrients are there, but the plants cannot absorb them, the nutrients do not benefit the plant growth. Research has also shown that humic acid makes the cell walls of plants more receptive to nutrients and more permeable to the nutrients. This saves gardeners money, as well as encourages healthy plant growth. If you feed the soil, but conditions in the soil prohibit plants from taking up the nutrients, your money is, literally, going down the drain. (And, into the groundwater.)

Compost and Soil Oxygen

Low amounts of oxygen and oxygen exchange in soil cause problems with plant roots. Plants are said to “eat” carbon dioxide and release oxygen. That is more or less true, to a point. Plants take in carbon dioxide to use in photosynthesis, the chemical reaction catalyzed by sunlight where plants make sugars from carbon dioxide and water. Plants also undergo respiration, which is the process of breaking down the sugars they have stored to use as building blocks for new growth. Oxygen is needed for respiration, and plants get that oxygen from the soil—taking it in through their roots. Sandy or clayey soils do not usually have a good balance of water and oxygen in the soil. Compost helps restore that balance.

Compost is the Duct Tape for Gardeners

The bane of every gardener’s existence in half of North America is clay soil. The other half struggles with sand. Soils with high clay content hold water and do not drain well, which causes root problems in plants. If the roots are in trouble, the whole plant will soon be in trouble. Sandy soil drains rapidly, giving plants little time to take in the water they need to grow. Clay particles hold tightly to nutrient particles, which makes it more difficult for plants to take up the nutrients they need from the soil. Overly sandy soils do not hold nutrient particles well at all. Compost can fix that problem. If compost is not available, you can add humic acid as a soil conditioner, which will help existing soil microorganisms do their work to improve the soil.

Worm Farms

The singlemost important question to ask yourself when you consider purchasing a worm farm is: are you ready to be the caretaker of thousands of worms.  While that might not sound like a big deal, it is kind of like getting a dog or cat, or, more similarly, a fish.  Worms are living things, animals, and they have to be cared for.  They have to remain at a minimum temperature, which is well above freezing, just to stay alive, much less to be productive.  The ideal worm temperature is between 55-75 degrees.  Worms will die at temperatures below 38 degrees.  That means, obviously, if you have a worm farm, you need a way to insulate it during the winter, or you need to bring it into the garage.  If that is not a problem, then you are one step closer to becoming a worm farmer.

You can compost with worms in worm bins or worm farms. Worm bins contain layers of rocks, soil, worm food and worm bedding, and all of the composting takes place in the same bin.  Frequently, you will add food to the worm bin-kitchen scraps and such, and monthly, you will remove composted material, “freshen” the worm bedding, and essentially start over. Worm farms are a bit different.  Worm farms are “tray” systems, that include two or more trays.  Worms and worm food (things to be composted) are put in the bottom bin.  Additional trays can be added on top with more food.  The worms will migrate upward as they fully digest the contents of the trays, and the trays can be removed, and the compost used.  Worm castings (what comes out of the non-mouth end of the worm) are some of the most rich soil amendments produced in nature.  Worm castings are high in humus, one of the best soil conditioners there is.

Compost Tumblers

Compost tumblers have a number of advantages that worm farms do not.  A tumbler produces compost quickly, much like worm farms.  Tumblers are easier manage because you don’t have animals to manage.  (Pardon me if I don’t put microbes in the same category as worms.  Microbial populations naturally go through ebbs and flows depending upon the temperature, oxygen content and nutrient content of soil.  They migrate in and out.  Worms that you buy with the intention of caring for are a different story to me.)  Tumblers offer some of the same benefits as worm farms, in that you can recycle kitchen and food scraps as you accumulate them, rather than storing them and building one pile at a time (as other hot compost piles are built).  Tumblers are less work in terms of turning and maintaining than compost piles.  You can purchase a variety of different tumbler styles.  There is certain to be one that fits your gardening profile.

So, which is best?

Both compost tumblers and worm farms will help gardeners make rich, nutrient dense compost.  Tumblers are great for people who do not want to be worm ranchers and accept the responsibility of caring for worms.  Worm farms produce excellent compost for those who have a good place to put the worms in cold weather and extremely hot weather.  If I were to choose one, I would choose a worm farm.  However, I’m not ready to be a worm farmer, so I’ll probably get a tumbler.

• I have a bunch of random junk lying around my yard to make a bin.  This includes old fence posts, half of a fence gate, boards and planks left from house flippers that flipped our house and bits of twine and wire.
• If my carpentry skills don’t hold up, I can procure a tidy bin at a very reasonable price.
• I am not liking the looks of the “pile” into which we put our gutter compost cleanings, and I don’t think it is going to break down very fast.
• I think my dog would find a pile much too interesting, and it is already hard enough to catch her and bring her back inside after an “outing.”
• The type of composting I plan to do lends itself well to a bin–I will turn the compost some, and it will take a while to break down, but it will fit with my schedule for gardening, which is more interest than time.

I don’t think I am ready to be a worm farmer.  As much as I would like to think that I am, and I don’t have any problems with worms, I don’t think I’m ready for that level of comittment.  You might say, “but you have a dog,” but my answer would be that “it is much easier to tell if a dog is having issues than if worms are having issues.”  I am afraid of killing the worms.

Now that I have decided what I am going to do.  It is time to do it.  I got a new camera the other day so that I can document my (mis)adventures!  Stay tuned!

Compost Piles

I like the idea of a compost pile.  To me, a pile means “no extra stuff needed.”  I am consulting my book The Rodale Book of Composting, of which I used to have two (not sure why), about the various types of compost, but I welcome the comments of veteran composters for help.

Hot vs Cool Compost

If I want to go with a pile, I need to decide if it will be a hot compost pile or a cold compost pile. Here are the pros and cons of each, according to the master composting book:

Hot Pros: Composts quickly, can be done in small spaces, kills weed seeds and pathogens

Hot Cons:  Labor intensive, requires careful monitoring of C/N ratio and moisture level, must be built at one time, kills disease-suppressing microbes

Cool Pros:  Low-maintenance, keeps disease-suppressing microbes alive, can be built a little at a time

Cool Cons:  Nutrient loss through extended exposure to elements, can take 6 months to 1 year to finish, does not kill weed seeds, includes more un-decomposed bits of high-carbon materials.

But what does all of that mean to me?  Well, in the hot corner, I could probably deal with the monitoring and labor, as I am a little bit obsessive-compulsive.  I also like fast results.  In the cool corner–it seems like it would be pretty easy to build as I go, and add my kitchen scraps to the pile as they accumulate.

Further Investigation of Piles

The more I read about piles, the better a bin or composting tumbler or machine looks to me.  There are about ten different highly specific ways to build a compost pile.  Most pile types advocate adding green and brown materials in layers.  (Green materials are fresh–like fresh leaves or kitchen scraps.  Brown materials are dried leaves, sticks and wood chips.)

Why do I have to feed the compost?

I get the point of microorganisms to break down the compost. That is how soil is made.  I do think it is odd that I might have to feed my compost pile hamster food in order to get it started.  That is just odd.

My Pile of Leaves is Composting itself

I have this pile of leaves at the end of my driveway.  I put it there because I thought the city would pick it up for its compost pile.  The city has not picked them up, though, and the pile is steadily growing smaller as it decomposes.  So, now I am wondering why all of the fuss about compost piles and ratios and stuff.  When I was at Fort Ticonderoga, we used a cold-composting row method that I learned from a Hungarian gardener with whom I worked while in Delaware.  It worked fine without a bunch of temperature taking and such.  I’m not sure I can deal with the pile thing.  Tomorrow I’ll look at compost bins.