How to Turn a Garbage Can into a Composter
One inexpensive option for making your own compost container is to use a large, recycled garbage can. Contact the department responsible for trash pickup (it may be called solid waste disposal) in your area, whether it be a town, city, county, or other office. Many communities recycle their no-longer-useable garbage cans as compost containers to residents, either free or for a nominal fee. You may want to gather a group of neighbors (including someone with a truck) to pick up several at once.
Check with these same municipal departments (or the Council departments in the United Kingdom) to see whether they offer reduced prices on manufactured compost containers. Some may offer promotions (even free manufactured containers) to encourage community involvement in composting, recycling, and waste reduction.
Garbage can styles vary, of course. Some come with secure lids, which is great if you want to keep pests out. Most agencies have already removed any wheels on the can. Some may remove the bottom of the trash can and/or punch aeration holes. If you have a preference for bottom/no bottom or holes/no holes, ask in advance to see whether your request can be accommodated.
Using recycled garbage cans as composting bins has upsides and downsides:
Advantages
Cost: They're free or inexpensive.
Portability: They're easy to move to different areas in the garden.
Protection from pests: Cans with lids keep pests at bay.
Disadvantages
Size and shape: Most garbage cans aren't quite large enough to contain the optimal amount of organic matter (1 cubic yard or 1 cubic meter) needed to self-insulate and promote fast decomposition.
Appearance: With apologies to Gertrude Stein, a garbage can is a garbage can is a garbage can. Let your kids loose on it with some paints and brushes to dress it up a bit, or hide the can in the back corner of your landscape!
The great thing about this compost bin project is that it requires so little — a recycled garbage receptacle obtained from your municipality. If this isn't an option where you live, you may check with neighbors or put an advertisement in your local paper or on Web sites asking to recycle a can someone is tossing.
Not surprisingly, lifting or moving the bin into position is the most challenging part of erecting a recycled garbage can compost bin. You just set your can in place and start filling it up. (Wasn't that easy?
If your can comes with a lid but no bottom and you want to keep pests at bay, dig a hole about 1 foot (0.3 meters) deep and "sink" the base of the container into the soil.
If your can has no lid, no bottom, and is wider at the top, the narrowing shape makes it somewhat more difficult to aerate the organic matter at the bottom when stirring with a compost fork or aeration tool. Setting the can upside down so the wider section becomes the base alleviates this issue. When it's time to turn the material, lift it up, set it aside, and fork the materials back into it. When choosing a site for your composting, allow sufficient space to set the can to the side, and you'll save labor in the long run.
Gardening Glossary
annuals
Plants that complete their entire life cycle within one growing season. The plant germinates from seed, grows and blooms, and then produces seed and dies.
Gardening Glossary
biennials
A plant that take two growing seasons to complete its life cycle. It germinates and grows leaves and stems in the first year; produces flowers and fruit (seed) in the second, and then dies.
Gardening Glossary
bolt
When a plant flowers or produces seed prematurely.
Gardening Glossary
cold frame
A wooden or concrete block box in which you can grow plants or hold dormant during the cold winter months.
Gardening Glossary
cole crops
A family of vegetables, including broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts. They thrive in cooler weather.
Gardening Glossary
complete fertilizer
Any fertilizer that contains all three of the primary nutrients, N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium). Phrase is based on regulations governing the fertilizer industry. Does not mean that the fertilizer literally contains everything a plant needs to thrive.
Gardening Glossary
deadheading
The practice of pinching or cutting off spent flowers
Gardening Glossary
evaporative-pad humidifier
A humidifier in which fans blow across a moisture-laden pad that sits in a reservoir of water.
Gardening Glossary
harden off
The process of acclimating plants grown indoors gradually to the brighter light and cooler temperatures of the outside world.
Gardening Glossary
hardiness
The ability of a plant to survive is called its hardiness.
Gardening Glossary
humus
A stable end product of organic-matter decomposition that's believed to increase microbial activity in soil, improve soil structure, and enhance the root development of plants.
Gardening Glossary
Bacillus thuringiensis Bt
An effective bacteria that attacks only the larvae of caterpillar family insects. It is safe to other insects, animals, and humans.
Gardening Glossary
macronutrients
Mineral nutrients that plants need in the largest quantities: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur.
Gardening Glossary
mulch
Organic or inorganic material placed over the surface of soil, usually directly over the root zone of growing plants. Used to conserve moisture, kill weed seedlings, modify soil temperature, provide attractive covering to garden beds.
Gardening Glossary
organic matter
Once-living stuff like compost, sawdust, animal manure, ground bark, grass clippings, and leaf mold (composted tree leaves). Used to enrich soil and improve soil texture.
Gardening Glossary
perennials
Any plant with a life cycle of three or more years. Herbaceous (non-woody) perennials include flowering plants and herbs, mainly. Woody perennials include trees and shrubs. Longevity depends on the plant and growing conditions.
Gardening Glossary
pH
The measure of soil's acidity. Soil with low pH means it's too acidic; soil with high pH means it's alkaline. Most plants grow best in soil with a pH value between 6.5 and 7.2. Neutral soils measure 7.
Gardening Glossary
photosynthesis
The process through which plants take nutrients from the air and from the water in the soil to produce sugars that fuels the plant's growth.
Gardening Glossary
primary nutrients
Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are the three nutrients plants need in the largest quantities.
Gardening Glossary
root crops
Plants with edible underground roots such as onions, carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips. Most root crops are cold-weather crops.
Gardening Glossary
self-blanching
A type of cauliflower with leaves that naturally curl over the head and exclude light. Requires cool temperatures for leaves to curl effectively.
Gardening Glossary
sets
Small onion bulbs, about 1/2-inch wide, that were started from seed the previous year. Grow onion sets with the pointy end up.
Gardening Glossary
side-dressing
The act of adding a small amount of fertilizer around or "on the side" of plants after they're growing.
Gardening Glossary
succession planting
Planting small, 2-to-4-foot patches of plants every two weeks throughout the growing season so that you can harvest a crop over an extended period of time.
Gardening Glossary
thinning
The act of cutting the least robust seedlings in your garden to give the healthier plants more room to grow.
Gardening Glossary
vining crops
Crops that grow on vines, such as cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and winter squash. They usually require support (staking, trellising, etc.) to keep them off the ground.
