Balcony Composting -Round 3

Photo-story about one of my rediscovered hobbies

If you’ve seen my other stories you probably know I’m a lot into gardening, plants, flowers, nature… and since the pandemic… composting!

Introduction

The thing is two-fold: First, although here we have a quite efficient waste collection service for which we separate organics into a special bin that *supposedly* gets composted, I just… like making compost myself! Second, all that stuff that allegedly gets composted… where is it? Nobody ever knocked at my door asking if I wanted some of that compost back! (as I know some towns do -so I’m not joking).

As I told you here and here I started preparing my own compost during the pandemic, right in my balcony using as container a big Ikea bag to which I made some perforations at the bottom. That first Swiss compost started during the winter, and was a kind of experiment: if it stunk or attracted pests, then I wasn’t going to do it again. But it came out perfect! It just took some time because this year was quite cold, and you need some temperature to motivate the microorganisms to degrade your scraps (reminder: I fed the composting bin all the kitchen waste except bones, meat, and cheese; plus garden weeds, small amounts of inkless paper, and some other organics).

After that “winter-spring” compost, a second edition took place in summer. This one matured much faster, clearly demonstrating that higher temperatures do accelerate the process. But today I just used up most of this compost for my pots! Here are the last few liters that were left up today, with a tomato growing wildly in it:

New season, new compost

So, I went for it. I just had removed lots of weeds from my pots, and had two bins of kitchen scraps. Here’s one:

Usually, I would have chopped all the scraps down to small pieces before feeding the composting bag, but since this had already been there for some days, I didn’t feel like touching it! So I just loaded the content of the two organic waste bins into the composting bin. Important: as you can see I deposited this waste on top of a layer of branches to improve aeration.

I then added what remained of the summer compost on top of the scraps, and then the weeds I had removed from the pots. Some of these weeds had been already pre-composting in a pot for around a month, and others were laying all around the floor so they were dry. And some were just cut so they were very green. None of these details matters; the compost will ripen for sure!

While loading one more layer of summer compost to cover the full thing, I found this little guy walking on the floor. I’m sure it came from the summer compost, so I added it to the fresh composting bin:

Here’s a close up:

I hope this little friend together with some other bugs and three or four earthworms I saw will enjoy our kitchen’s scraps and prepare a great compost for the next season of gardening. In exchange, I promise them food and the shelter of my balcony throughout the whole winter!

I am a nature, science, technology, programming, and DIY enthusiast. Biotechnologist and chemist, in the wet lab and in computers. I write about everything that lies within my broad sphere of interests. Check out my lists for more stories. Become a Medium member to access all stories by me and other writers, and subscribe to get my new stories by email (original affiliate links of the platform).