Alternative Composting Ideas

Tim and I are beyond frustrated with our composting efforts.  Every time, we build something to contain it - the bears and raccoons destroy it.  We have been looking for alternatives, some of which I have posted before like putting metal garbage cans in the ground but digging through the stone in our yard is impossible.  Here are a couple new ideas which we might try:

Trench Composting

Trench composting is as simple as it sounds: just dig a trench about 12" deep and fill it with 4"-6" of kitchen scraps before recovering with soil. Depending on the material and soil type, the scraps will usually take between one month and one year to break down. If you'll be regularly composting scraps using this method, you may want to develop a long-term plan for your garden. According to Colleen Vanderlinden at About.com, there are three general methods:

Trench Rotation

This is a method of incorporating organic matter into a garden a bit at a time while maintaining active growing and path areas. The general idea is that you divide your garden into three zones: a trench composting zone, a pathway zone, and a growing zone. Each year, you move the trench compost to a different part of the garden, and shift the paths and growing areas as needed. By the end of three years, you've got compost under every part of your garden bed, and you can start the rotation over again. If you like things very orderly, this is probably the method for you.

Trenching Between Rows

This works in any vegetable or annual garden in which you would plant in fairly regularly-spaced rows. Basically, plant your crops as usual. In the space between the rows, dig a trench to toss your compostables into. Fill the trench as you add materials, and it will break down and nourish the plants nearby.

"Dig and Drop"

This is the easiest way to do trench composting, and works even in perennial gardens and shrub borders. Say you've collected a large bowl of vegetable and fruit peelings. Simply take it into the garden, dig a 12" deep hole wherever you can find a spot, dump the kitchen waste in, and cover it over. It's fast, it's easy, and it requires very little digging.

In addition to no visible collection bin or odor, another advantage of trench composting is that the buried nutrients encourage a deeper, stronger root structure from nearby plants. The only downside - if you have a curious dog, this might not be the best method!

Building a Worm Tower

A worm tower not only enables worms do their work at composting, but it also helps them spread out and distribute the compost in your tank garden. This is such a low maintenance way of keeping nutrients cycling in your garden, and easy to put together.

All you'll need is a 3 or 4 foot piece of PVC piping (or a 12" concrete pipe) and a flower pot.

According to Ecofilms, be sure to use a food grade PVC pipe to avoid any chemical contamination - and the concrete pipe often works best. Punch holes in the side of the pipe. This is where the worms will travel back and forth between the compost and the garden patch.

Once you've got your pipe, the next step is to bury the tower half way down in your garden with half of the pipe sticking out the top.

Then, add some manure, compost worms (it's important to use compost worms), and secure with a flower pot lid. It's also important that you feed your worms every couple of days with vegetable scraps from your kitchen ... and voila! The worms will do the work for you!