Arthur do Canto Pivetta

I made a firewood rack for my father, he's been stocking the firewood in the garage and he usually leaves a mess doing that, so here's the solution we found. It measures about 2m of height and 1,7m of length, so it has 3,4m² of face area, which is about 36ft². To prevent it from falling I put a big screw holding it against the wall. Climbed on it afterwards to make sure it's stable and it is.

As far as I know the wood has no treatment.

Hello, I did this birdhouse before I knew about the BBs, so I don't have a picture of the wood before I started to build it, I hope it is ok, but it was just an old board of pine and a piece of (I believe) eucalyptus. Also, a bit of roofing from a doghouse that was downsized.

Hi! This may be my first BB.
Here are the pictures, I guess I did a bit more than the 50ft², but I figured it was better to use more time chopping and dropping and less time measuring.
There were some leaves that I raked with the cut grass, so the mulch is a mix of brown leaves and recently cut grass.

Thought it would be good to post some pictures of the yard since I've started this project. They're slightly different angles, but close enough.

Tereza Okava wrote:Are you putting the ash from your fireplace in the hole? charcoal is a great input as well (biochar made from pine needles, perhaps?).

Yes, the ash goes to composting. I've been thinking about how I could make biochar from pine needles, but so far I don't have any ideas that would be cheap and easy without defeating my purpose of making biochar (to be environment-friendly), we really have a lot of pine needles (around 1m³ every 6 months? maybe every 3 months... it's kinda hard to gauge when I never paid attention to it before, maybe it's every month).

Raised beds sound like a great idea, that's how I've always done it unless i'm building a hugelbed (open the big hole, put in wood, then other organic matter, compost, manure, urine, etc, cover, let it rot down).

I'm thinking about digging a hole the size of the bed in the place the bed will be, and then using the dirt from the hole to cover the compost that goes into the bed to fill the bed with compost and dirt from the hole. Covering the compost this way has been enough so far to keep it sanitary, I'm hoping it'll be enough for the beds too.

If you don't mind my asking, it doesn't look like you're really composting to benefit a garden, since the holes are under the grass. Is the goal to just avoid things going into the trash?  

The initial idea was to cover the composting hole and then dig it up a few months later to use the compost, in a sort of rotation where I always dig a new composting hole in an old one, but I'm still perfecting this system, since I've planted a few trees on top of the old composting holes and haven't gotten the chance to really dig the old compost to use so far. Especially since my older composting holes were way smaller, so when I open them up I end up digging a lot of sand with the compost, which doesn't seem very good to use yet. I think I've settled on a good size now and I'll be able to get some good compost in a few months. Avoiding things going to the trash was more of a bonus than a goal.

Tereza Okava wrote:Hi Arthur- those black patches look great, where you buried stuff. I think if you can do more volume you will get nice soil, regardless of moisture. I have helped build gardens in a few places with sandy soil (Florianopolis, Cananeia) and after a few years of doing this constantly the soil really looks different. While it will never be the same as non-sandy soil, organic matter will really improve things for you.
(your ovenbird is there probably looking for worms, or maybe to build his nest, I know right now they're stealing mud from my yard every time I turn around).

Some things will definitely take longer to decompose (I'm constantly finding pineapple heads, pinhão shells, skins from fruta do conde, avocados, etc, in my beds) so I wouldn't worry about it too much. If I were you I'd look for other sources of organic matter and make your holes bigger, if you are interested-- cardboard works, as mentioned earlier, I imagine your situation is similar to mine, we don't have too many deciduous trees in Brazil and so it's not just a question of getting bags of leaves or hay.... I personally use a lot of sugarcane pressings in my garden, along with coffee grinds I get from a local business and any other scraps I can find. I don't worry about salt, fat, meat, bones, etc-- some salt is no big deal, plants need it, and I think the only real worry is animals who might dig it up. You say urban, there are probably some kind of rodents (not sure how cold you get- maybe lizards? coatis?). One thing I do is when I have something that I think might attract the feral cats or rats into my yard (I am also urban) is to put a large rock, block or something heavy on the ground on top.
I think you have a good start! And I think that purple thing might be some kind of seaweed or beach detritus.
Waving hi from a few states up from you, in Paraná.

Hi Tereza! Thanks for the kind answer. It's good to see other Brazilians around here. (:

I'd been wondering the bird's name in english, Ovenbird! Makes sense, with their oven-like nests. My parents always called them "Mud John" (João-de-barro). They're quite bold, always circling me looking for some grubs to eat when I'm watering the plants around the yard, digging or splitting some wood for my father.

I wouldn't be up for bigger holes, these ones already give me a lot of work (measured this last one: 85cmx90cmx70cm), but I've been thinking about building some raised beds and starting them as composting bins. We do have some deciduous trees around the yard, but not many (some grape vines, a black mulberry (Morus nigra), and one Lagerstroemia indica (Extremosa), with some others still growing), but we have around 15 pine trees around the sidewalk, which gives us a lot of pines and pine needles. The pines we use as fire-starters in the fireplace. The pine needles we compost a bit, but my father throws away a lot because he thinks it's too much to compost, and as I'm not sure he's wrong I don't oppose.

What I thought weird about those dark patches is that those were only a part of the compost I put in the composting hole, there was a lot more, but it didn't turn dark, it looks orange/pink in the pictures that show the dark patch. No idea if that was a composting failure or just a different color for a different compost, but I'll keep watching and learning.

Also, I found something interesting in the bottom of one of the old composting holes: this kind of moss-like thing. It was covered in sand and at first I thought it was just an odd colored sand patch (I see some orange ones around old pieces of steel when digging), but this one had a purple tinge, so I got curious and washed it. Inside was this thing, I have no idea what it is, perhaps it's a fungus? Or maybe some weird plant? Or maybe just dead plant in the process of decomposition? No idea. In the picture there's the clump I washed and behind there are some unwashed ones, they look just like a clump of sand in the picture, but inspecting closely perhaps it'll be noticeable that there's a purple tinge in parts of the sand.

Part two of the pictures from opening some old composting holes.

Yesterday I closed one of the composting holes and opened a new one in a place that included part of two old ones, here are some pictures. I'll do it in two parts in case I get another error.

I had selected and written a description to some photos of a new composting hole I opened today in one of the old composting holes, but I got a "Comment too long." error which apparently deleted all the attachments and my descriptions. I'll try again tomorrow because my patience and time are kind short after this.