In which I talk a lot about rot.
In a shocking deviation from normal practice, I got something done around the house. Yesterday I put together something called a back porch compost tumbler, which is a sort of drum on wheels that you can dump your scraps into and whirl around, then push like a wheelbarrow if you want to move it somewhere else. Because who doesn't want to roll a lot of half-rotted vegetable bits from place to place?
The one we got I think perhaps missed a step in its factory fabrication, because every single hole that a screw or bolt was supposed to run through seemed to be unfinished and needed to be drilled out before I could proceed. On the other hand, doing that did make me feel extra handy and competent, so all in all it was perhaps more satisfying this way than the alternative.
I'd been feeling a little ridiculous throwing out piles of vegetable scraps every week, which I do, and don't have the freezer space or need for stock required to save anything like all of them for cooking. Compost, then, is the obvious solution, but since the garden at our rented house is small and mainly the domain of the owners, who live on the other side of the duplex, I needed to get something unobtrusive, smallish, and self contained. I think this drum guy will work out fine, though we'll need to be good about including enough "brown matter" (no, not the scatological kind) to insure that it rots properly and doesn't get stinky. This brown matter business is easy in autumn when dry leaves are everywhere, but it requires a bit more deliberate thought this time of year. Also, I suppose there will come a point when we'll need to dump mostly-composted stuff into a pile to finish off (there's a good space I'm eyeing next to the garage/shed) so that we aren't continually rendering it unusable as dirt by adding fresh unrotted material.
Anyone more experienced in such matters should please feel more than free to provide advice.
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