Ruth Stout style composting (2 spots) - PEP BB gardening.sand.RuthStout

Ruth Style Composting.
Finally convinced my parents to start composting. I set up a system for them with two 5 gallon buckets and two 12 gallon totes.
They have been collecting compost now for just over a year. A small bin in the kitchen gets filled regularly with food scraps and gets emptied into a 5 gallon bucket every day or two.
Then when the 5 gallon bucket is nearly filled, it gets emptied into another 5 gallon bucket. If the other 5 gallon bucket is full, then it goes into a 12 gallon tote, if one 12 gallon tote is full, then they fill the other.
This way, they've ended up with a compost capacity of 34 gallons. The benefit of having small containers that they must empty regularly gets the compost turning and aerating without them having to think about that.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been starting a new garden for them and digging out several spots in their clay rich soil where they plan to plant vegetables and burying semi-finished compost, then recovering with mulchy soil.

Buried on the order of 48 gallons of food scraps and garden clippings under the soil.

wayne fajkus wrote:10 gallons of kitchen scraps  is a lot to accumulate at 1 time (couple, no kids) without it souring.  Any considerations to lower that?  I would have to freeze it.

One possible solution to address the amount of kitchen scraps is to collect scraps from multiple households. I'm a compost host on Sharewaste, any my donors fill my 2x16litre (2x3.5 gallons) buckets weekly (often twice) that I keep in front of my gate.

Couldn’t edit my previous post, so here’s a second submission:

13 gallons of food scraps buried under mulch.
3 gallons in one spot.
10 gallons in another spot.

I collected two full five gallon buckets of kitchen scraps for a total of 10 gallons, deposited in the garden and mulched with spoiled hay.

Here's my submission. Been composting for a while, first time burying the compost in mulch rather than my 3 bin system!

This is a mix of kitchen scraps and plant trimmings (~12 Gal Bin) going into the mulch where I intend to plant a peach tree later this fall.

Before:


After:

Hi,

We started a permaculture vegetable garden last year and I’ve been composting with this method for few month because I think it’s the best way to do it (fast, easy, bring fertility and life activity back).

Unfortunately we have a lot of rats in our backyard and they dig the mulch for the food scrap, witch is fine. But because I don’t wanna attract them in the garden, I changed my strategy.

Now I layer a pile composed of straws, wood chips, comfrey, whatever I’m chopping and trimming and I add the food scrap and coffee ground. Then I shred/mix the pile with the lawn mower and drop it as mulch. So the food scrap is shredded and incorporated to the mulch.


Though, for the purpose of this BB I removed the mulch in a spot one of my beds, I dropped about 1.5 gallon of food scrap and I covered it back with the mulch.


My other ways to use the food scrap is to feed the worm factory then cover the food with shredded paper, and to feed the worm towers of my 2 wicking beds by lifting the straw on top, dropping the food and putting back the straws.

I hope this could be enough to validate this badge.