We're happy to report that despite some setbacks, we've got a little summer produce growing, and we're waiting on a few things (like corn, honeydew, watermelons, and sweet potatoes) to put out fruit. Like good urban farmers, we've been composting our vegetarian food scraps and coffee grounds obsessively. Suddenly, our compost bin is full of warm, dark, nutritious dirt—and to be quite honest, we haven't a clue what to do!
Some of you might be thinking, "Duh, use the black gold in your garden!" But we're not at a place where any of our beds are ready to be replanted just yet. There's nowhere for it to go just yet.
We're thinking that we have taken the composting approach slightly wrong. We started with just an open-air bin, which we wrote about here. Once that filled up, we decided maybe we'd upgrade to a compost tumbler, which promised us fresh, ready-to-use compost in just two weeks if conditions were perfect! So now we've got ready compost in both composters, and we don't know what to do with it.
The current plan is to spread it out over the front lawn. This will at least provide some much-needed nutrients to the grass. Then, we'll take a few weekends to turn our open-air composter into a three-bin composting area. That way, we'll have a new compost pile, a working pile, and a finished pile from which to pull from—when we're good and ready, that is.
Please tell us you've at least had this problem creep up before. What do you do with finished compost? Let it sit until you're ready to use it, or do you have a good garden plan in place? We'd love to hear your tips!
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• All About Composting: Hot Tips, Best Bins, and Worms!
• 75 Things You Can Compost: Who Knew?
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You could make compost tea. It's like homemade liquid miracle-grow for you plants. Maybe bottle some for yourself and sell the rest at your local farmers market or give some to your neighbors? I think re-nest had a how-to on making compost tea earlier this year and there are few instructional videos on youtube
A mulch of compost is in order. Just put the compost on top of the dirt around your existing plants. You don't even need to work it in.
Spread the love: donate it to a non-profit community center or post it on Freecycle if you have an account.
ditto on linbo's comment. Use it to mulch your existing plants. Best way to keep an organic garden healthy.
Mulch the garden and then if you have some left put it in the yard, a half an inch a year on the grass is supposed to keep it in good shape. Also if you have indoor plants, or anything in containers they would love it.
plant your pumpkins and squashes in it - they will love you!
Find out if there are any community gardens in your area and give it to them.
Yes, go ahead and mulch your growing plants! I've had diseased, near-dead squash (I think -- it may have been pumpkins or melons) miraculously recover after a heaping helping of backyard compost. Your tomatoes and peppers will go crazy. Whatever you're growing will love to be fed!
Ditto linbo's comment--just spread it out on top of your current garden. Also, when you're making your new 3 bin system, I like to leave a little finished compost in the working bins to help "seed" them with all the good bugs and bacteria that made your first batch successful.
When i have extra I try to pass it along to a friend or if no one wants it I will drag it to the sidewalk and give it to a tree that looks in need of some good soil... Trees along the sidewalk are my favorite as they are often overlooked when it comes to soil maintence
Is there a way to store it? We just started our first compost bin / pile (thanks to you guys!!) and we're waiting for it to biodegrade. We don't grow in the ground because there may be lead in our soil, but we use it for the garden, which is severely eroded. The problem we have is that it's in a plastic bin which supposedly has no leaching issues, but we don't like to store it in plastic. I'd donate it or store it in something more inert.