Margie- I am terrible as well but am excited about the pw compostable pots. I willstart adding these to my compost next year! Thanks so much for letting us know how to break them up. Great helpful video erin!
Forest floors are a great example of benign neglect composting. I mowed leaves and grass yesterday too. I use it to top cleaned out raised beds over winter.
I didn't used to compost, until I made a discovery in my backyard in 2020. The far end of the yard was out of control with weeds and thorny hedges. I finally tackled it, and in the process I found an old rusty wheelbarrow in there, upside down. When I turned it over, amazing compost was under there! From then on I threw all my compostable materials in a hole I dug in that corner. It takes a while to break down, but it sure works!
Erin, some of the best compost I've "made" came from putting wood chips in my garden paths. After a few years of walking on them, overhead sprinkling, snow and rain the chips seemed to dwindle. I got new chips to put down and decided to scoop up what was in the paths before putting down the new. Black Gold! There was no mixing of brown and green. No turning. No effort. Time and microbes did the trick. It's what nature does. Thanks for encouraging us to just make a pile and not worry about it.
Good morning, Erin☕️ I started my compost bins a few years ago and the “black gold” is beautiful. I use my Power Planted auger to “till” it. 😂. Have a Blessed Day 😊
I’m the laziest composter! I have 3 piles that are made with metal corner stakes and wire fencing on 3 sides that are about 4 feet tall. The 4th side is only about 18 inches high for easy access. One pile contains the current year’s yard waste and is being added to daily, the second pile is from last year’s waste and is “cooking”, and the third pile is the oldest and is harvested throughout the season to add to my beds. I have been using this method for about 20 years and I find this works well for me!
So we have been composting in a spin bin for about 8 years. Sometimes it feels like some things don’t break down as quickly as I would want. This year I bought Dr Earths compost starter. It was a game changer. Definitely speeds up the compost. I am in zone 5b so we do not have a lot of really warm months. It is such a joy when you can put your own waste back into your garden.
I had a large compost bin and I loved what it produced however the snakes loved it more. After my encounters with the snakes laying eggs in the piles. I purchased a closed plastic bin. I don’t produce nearly as much compost but I live in an area that has venomous snakes.
That's the great thing about compost - Mother Nature has control. She makes it from scratch with no turning, fussing, fluffing, etc. - so we should too. :)
Roflol! At the beginning of the summer, I realized I had "accidently" created a bunch of compost lol. Basically because I had created a large pile that I never got around to burning or hauling off. when I finally started to address it and scooping it up into the wheelbarrow to haul to the burn area, I realized under the very top layer was wonderful compost! The ground under it was nice and loamy and rich as well. So, I planted a few veggie plants into the area and they grew wonderfully! Very happy accident!
We compost. We never create enough compost for all the uses we have for it. The funniest thing we do is my daughter cuts up 100% cotton sheets and jeans when they are old and ripped. The queen sized blue sheets totally disappeared after a year. My husband is in charged of turning it. We made a sieve to sieve out the bigger chunks and throw those back into the bin.
Just popped back in to say that after watching this I realized that at the very back of our woodland property I had been creating a compost area without realizing it. Grabbing a shovel and spade (mid-video mind you) I uncovered black gold! Buckets of the stuff! I gave all of the shrubs and my raised beds an unexpected early Christmas present. From...A worse composter than you! Thank you!
YAH!!! That's exciting!!! My compose bin is finally broke down, and I'm gonna top off my beds this week with it for the new owners. I only turned mine once a year also.
You also don't need a fancy bin. I have two converted 32-gal wheeled garbage bins that I drilled large holes in (all over, top, bottom, all sides, that I use. They don't take up a ton of space. I just emptied one over the newly planted garlic, and so I have a partially filled one to continue and an empty one to fill over the winter. I suck at brown and green ratio, but old potting mix goes in, plus old orchid bark mix, as I have a lot of orchids too. . Dead orchids also go in (those who don't survive my love) - I do have very expensive compost...
PW needs to get onboard with the CARDBOARD plant pots. Over the years I have purchased Plant starts in these and plant directly into the ground, no need to special water them and the plant grows beautifully AND the cardboard decomposes with not problems. All plastic pots are saved and reused year after year. I don't have or need a COMPOST PILE, all my kitchen waste goes directly onto my planting beds, then in the fall, all leaves go there as well and topped with mulch. One year I shredded paper (financial etc) and had garbage bags of paper, which I planted on my beds then covered with mulch. Now I have the best soil and worms imaginable.
Amen, Erin. I throw my kitchen scraps out my second story kitchen window and then throw gardening debris over that. I may stir it twice a year. The compost couldn't be more wonderful. I had some extra tomato plants this year so I planted them on the edge of one of my two piles. The foliage grew so lush we couldn't find the fruit. We ended up just pulling the plants up and throwing them back on the pile. I roll my eyes at all the effort you tube gardeners go to with their compost. You don't need bins. You don't need to water. You don't need to turn it over. You can if you want to, but it isn't necessary, folks.
We have a huge pile of sticks, leaves, dead plants and such in our yard. I need to dig down through it and see what is at the bottom. Maybe in the spring lol. 😊
Great video. I just throw everything behind my shed and leave it alone. I should be better, but I am not. Then, when I remember, the pile is half the size, and everything, including me, is happy.
I do like the concept of plantable pots. However, I garden in clay soil. When I was first starting out I planted some perennials that came in plantable coir containers. In my wet clay, those were just a sponge and made it harder for the plants to get established. Lesson learned--I now remove plants and compost the containers separately, or at least rough up the coir to get the process going quicker.
Interesting, I have rocky soil and I buy a lot of plants from a nursery that uses the coir pots. Due to the rocks, fitting the coir pots in can be a problem so if the roots haven't started to come through the coir I sometimes liberate the plant from the pot. The new PW pots are even more difficult to work with in rocky soil -- I ended up taking the plants out. The coir pots do eventually break down if planted, but it can take a few years. I threw my PW pots on my compost pile and I am curious to see whether they break down. Obviously it's a tricky materials engineering problem: the nurseries need something that won't fall apart while they are growing the plants on.
Same! I have 3 bins (about to add a 4th) and literally just pile up garden waste with our goat barn clean out. Let it sit and do it’s thing. Best compost ever 😊
This video title CRACKS me up. I love it. Every time I read about composting I get tired. Maybe I could do it this way? Update: I started composting this weekend Erin. Thanks for the kick.
I’m also a lousy composter and I make great compost too! 🥂 My 20 year old 4’x4’ bin is four homemade panels. We took 4’x2”x2”cedar wood and made four “frames” then stapled hardware cloth to each frame, zip tied the four together to make a square. Originally, hook and eye latches kept it together but they rusted. Zip ties are awesome and cheap. In the fall, I fill my wheelbarrow with the compost and when I pull out an annual I fill the hole with a shovel of compost and then around the garden. I love composting!! So simple!❤
Shredded leaves and grass clippings mixed in my raised beds with mushroom compost and what ever potting soil and dead annuals mixed up and left over winter. Promptly forget until spring. Mix it up and add some fresh mushroom compost.
Erin, I live in the region that recently of Maine that experienced a Mass shooting. Once the lockdown ended, gardening was one activity that helped restore a positive frame of mind, as well as watching a couple of your down-to-earth, helpful, knowledgable and slightly humorous videos. Point being, I appreciate you. Know that you are making a positive difference in the world. Sincerely, An Avid Gardener But Crummy Composter
Thank you, Christina. I’m glad it offered a moment of distraction from that horrible tragedy. A dear friend lives close so I know how difficult it is been in a small, tight knit community. Best to you. 💕
This is so incredibly helpful! We've been intimidated by composting because I didn't know all of the chemical and scientific rules that it seems like others follow but I think we can definitely handle throwing in a pile and getting compost at some point! Thank you
I put my plant tags in a garden journal. But I too am a lazy composter. I have one of those bins where you put stuff in the top and take the compost out of the bottom. Takes a year because I just pile it in. But it works!
We had a couple of ooen bins we used only for garden waste, but are giving those up in favour of more plastic compost bins. Finding rats nesta in the piles was pretty grim.
Last fall I started a new raised bed with only shredded leaves, grass clippings and clumps of dirt and grass (on the bottom) from edging inground beds. I grew in it this summer and everything did really well. The bed has settled quite a bit so needs to be added to but everything was free. This is another form of lazy composting for me 😁
THANK YOU for this video Erin! I have been wanting to learn how to compost for a while but always felt intimidated that I would get it "wrong" ... this video was inspiring. I want to try now!
lol. Yes! I'm the best of the best when I am getting my compost going. Then it is a forgotten pile of crap. lol. I always find good gold in it the following year. Loved this video.
I compost like you though I do water it intentionally in the summer as we live in a drier place. We tend to get compost when we want it. Never enough but we get it. I too have put those biodegradable bags in the not-often-hot compost bin. It takes a very long time and I still see pieces in my beds. Fun video, very validating. BTW, I often use my compost pile as a source for my work bin which I find very very fun
Exceptional segment. Very true, compost happens. This has helped me to keep on no matter how much time I spend on the pursuit [which is not much]. Thank you!
I got excited about composting a few years ago. I was discouraged by finding jumping worms in the compost. I gave up. I didn’t want to move the worms to the vegetable garden that has been a spared of their infestation.
I've composted like this for years. The pile/piles get turned in the spring and in fall if needed. I bought a double compost tumbler on a stand years ago and found it more trouble than it was worth. It makes a great place to store finished compost though. One thing I really like is the compost screen my husband made following Joe Lamp'l's instructions on RUclips. It breaks up any clumps in the pile when I get ready to use the compost. As I read once, it's not rocket science, it's rot science.
Non-related topic of humor. I have been following you for over 2 years. I recommended your videos to my partner when he got banana trees this past year. Yesterday he was talking about watching the "Maniac Gardener" again. I asked who? We finally figured he meant the "impatient Gardener". While neither one of us think you're a maniac, I thought you might get a chuckle out of it.
My hubby is the worker of our composter and does a excellent job. We compost all food scraps that are acceptable for composting, leaves and garden plants ( no weeds ). Thanks for being real and sharing. 👍❤️😊
Oops,,, caught me! I haven't really composted at all unless you count pulled plants thrown into an unused area of my veggie garden😁. Jim Putnam's advice of calling the debris jet fuel for the soil😁. Thank you so much for this video. So informative and to the point. Some of your fellow RUclipsrs have gone from informative to purely show-n-tell. You are appreciated Erin!😊
Your title…🤣😆😂I HAD to click on it (as soon as I finished laughing.) Because hey…a girl’s gotta have goals! And I DO have good intentions, but…I think I’m already well on my way to being a terrible composter too. (I just hate turning the pile. Shrug. So sue me.)😂
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I am the same kind of composter as you, and am tired of compost shaming! Ok, maybe people don't try to shame us, but I can see a lot of people being scared off unnecessarily because they don't want to put all of the time and effort into maintaining their compost piles. And, holy cow! Great strides, Proven Winners. I already love their plants, and would definitely choose a PW in a compostable pot over a different grower if they were available.
Compost happens even for those of us who aren't very attentive. On a side note, one year, I added my chopped leaves to my garden beds. The next spring, there were no weeds! How great was that?
Erin, I love your composter confession. I am also a terrible composter... as once it's in the pile... I promptly forget about it. Thanks for giving us your thoughts and experience with the compostable PW pots. I will do my best to crunch them up before adding them to my sadly neglected compost piles. I hope you and your sweetheart have a great weekend. ~Margie🤗🍁🍀
Hi Erin. I am a packaging engineer and a home gardener🙂. As a packaging engineer I work to make Packaging sustainable. Home compostable packaging is the holy grail! I am very interested to see the outcome of your compostable pot experiment.
I found my compost person. 👍🏻😁. Sometimes I don't turn for 2 years even. We've got 3 palette bins and a large old wire fencing cylindrical bin for the weeds and "junk". I get gorgeous black compost eventually. 😁
I watched a video recently that is hopefully the best tip ever for me because the deer come to eat my kitchen scraps 😳😫I learned to put a tarp over it! Simple enough not to require more attention! I have two trash cans near my back door (20’ away) that holds my brown peat and I place some in the bottom of the other can and add kitchen scraps almost daily and more peat in between to hold down smells and wetness and therefore mold. So when it’s full it gets dollied down to the compost pile that is actually an old pick up truck bed on the ground. I add grass clippings and leaves I pick up and mow. But the deer still would snag watermelon rinds and pineapple skins. Now with the tarp I’m hoping to get at least ten wheelbarrows full in the late spring.p.s. I never turn it over unless it’s to dig down to what looks like compost 👍😁
I was inspired! For years we’ve piled leaves and grass clippings behind a low wall in a the back yard behind the shed. I occasionally rake it. Today I scraped off the top layer of grass clippings and dug it up. I sifted using one of those flats ground over comes in and picked out grubs , so many grubs. In a couple of hours I filled a 30gallon trash can. There’s more to be mined. Thanks for the motivation! Tips on how to avoid grubs appreciated
The compost pile takes so long here. I’ve been adding direct to the garden especially vines. I chop things up as small as I can tolerate, but a lot of the nutrients drain to the bottom of pile so why not add directly to my garden. It seems to work as I’ve done it for years and I need a large pruning shears to take down broccoli, sunflowers, ect.
@@anisebutler5220 I chop and dropped buckwheat this year and larger items I dig into a trench in the middle of wide rows to help hold moisture and stays out of the way to plant down both sides.
You are just the encouragement. I don't have the strength to turn it ( I'm a seventy year old single woman). I don't have a sunny spot. I don't have a "hidden" spot for a bin. But, on the other side of my property fence are woods and I have my neighbors permission to dump yard waste there. Because I knew I wouldn't be diligent comma I stopped dumping leaves there last year. You've inspired me to go for it this year rather than bag my leaves.
Thank you! I have a compost pile (started a couple of years ago) that we just add to, but In the Spring, I'll "turn" it so I can get to the Black Gold at the base.
Makes me want to complete compost!! Works love a video on exactly how to start, and info on the bins you have, Erin. Thanks so much for the info, and the always enjoyable entertaining video!!
When ever I dig anywhere in a bed or the veggie garden I always find tags or remnant pieces of plant tags. I am also a terrible composter tell you what tho if you ever just make a big pile of grass clippings it gets super hot and quickly shrinks down to nothing. Always impressive to me how fast
Hi Erin, thanks for the heads up on the PW composting pots! It will be interesting to see how long it actually takes for them to decompose. I agree, there's to much plastic in gardening! Hopefully that will change.
Erin, you just encouraged me to go out back and turn my compost! Ha….I’m also a terrible composter! I do love the stuff so I’m going to do more this fall. Did I tell you it’s 38 degrees here and wet! I knew if I put it off until the weather improves I’d forget. Turned!
You are very trusting that those pots will break down and will have disappeared by the time you want to use the compost. I’m hoping that next year you will not have to be sorting out plastic bits as you plant. I garden an acre that was gardened by my grandmother and then, in turn, by my mother and, while I do treasure some of the gardening bits that I find from days gone by (100 years ago there was no garbage collection in these back woods areas)I doubt that I would feel the same about thousands of plastic bits. Good luck…love your videos😍
It’s not plastic. Even if it’s slow to break down, it’s still made of plant materials, so she can either sieve it out or just use it with container bits in it.
Laura from Garden Answer pulled a compostable pot from PW also. It looked like yours. I wonder if they take years to breakdown?? Loved yr compost video !!
Ohhhh. This is my kind of gardener. 👏🏻 👏🏻 My mama sent me this video as I’m trying “again” to start a compost pile, as if I needed anything else on my plate. 😂 Thank you!!! **subscribed** Sincerely, Tired Homeschooling Mama of 5 😉
Love your new style! Keep up the good work. Also, I copied you with the chive hedge. I have loved it. It gets a little wild now and then but that is the charm!
I found that compostable produce bags can take quite a long time to compost. The best reason for using these kinds of items is that if they are sent to a landfill they will disintegrate, unlike plastics.
I just started a compost pile this summer, I’m sure I’m not doing it correctly but we will see. I THINK that I’ve also heard that in the compostable PW containers they have somehow added nutrients to the compostable containers ? Good luck Erin, I hope they break down for you. 🎃🍁🍂💚🙃
I'm a terrible composter, too. And wouldn't you know, I get great compost! Remarkable!
Margie- I am terrible as well but am excited about the pw compostable pots. I willstart adding these to my compost next year! Thanks so much for letting us know how to break them up. Great helpful video erin!
You are so my kind of gardener. I always feel better about my lazy gardening ways after watching you!
Forest floors are a great example of benign neglect composting. I mowed leaves and grass yesterday too. I use it to top cleaned out raised beds over winter.
I didn't used to compost, until I made a discovery in my backyard in 2020. The far end of the yard was out of control with weeds and thorny hedges. I finally tackled it, and in the process I found an old rusty wheelbarrow in there, upside down. When I turned it over, amazing compost was under there! From then on I threw all my compostable materials in a hole I dug in that corner. It takes a while to break down, but it sure works!
Erin, some of the best compost I've "made" came from putting wood chips in my garden paths. After a few years of walking on them, overhead sprinkling, snow and rain the chips seemed to dwindle. I got new chips to put down and decided to scoop up what was in the paths before putting down the new. Black Gold! There was no mixing of brown and green. No turning. No effort. Time and microbes did the trick. It's what nature does. Thanks for encouraging us to just make a pile and not worry about it.
Same
Wow beautiful🌹🌹
Good morning, Erin☕️ I started my compost bins a few years ago and the “black gold” is beautiful. I use my Power Planted auger to “till” it. 😂. Have a Blessed Day 😊
An auger! What a great idea. Thanks for sharing!
I’m the laziest composter! I have 3 piles that are made with metal corner stakes and wire fencing on 3 sides that are about 4 feet tall. The 4th side is only about 18 inches high for easy access. One pile contains the current year’s yard waste and is being added to daily, the second pile is from last year’s waste and is “cooking”, and the third pile is the oldest and is harvested throughout the season to add to my beds. I have been using this method for about 20 years and I find this works well for me!
So we have been composting in a spin bin for about 8 years. Sometimes it feels like some things don’t break down as quickly as I would want. This year I bought Dr Earths compost starter. It was a game changer. Definitely speeds up the compost. I am in zone 5b so we do not have a lot of really warm months. It is such a joy when you can put your own waste back into your garden.
Yes! My composting takes place in a pile in the woods behind my house. No bins, and very little interaction from me; just a pile.
I had a large compost bin and I loved what it produced however the snakes loved it more. After my encounters with the snakes laying eggs in the piles. I purchased a closed plastic bin. I don’t produce nearly as much compost but I live in an area that has venomous snakes.
That's the great thing about compost - Mother Nature has control. She makes it from scratch with no turning, fussing, fluffing, etc. - so we should too. :)
Roflol! At the beginning of the summer, I realized I had "accidently" created a bunch of compost lol. Basically because I had created a large pile that I never got around to burning or hauling off. when I finally started to address it and scooping it up into the wheelbarrow to haul to the burn area, I realized under the very top layer was wonderful compost! The ground under it was nice and loamy and rich as well. So, I planted a few veggie plants into the area and they grew wonderfully! Very happy accident!
We compost. We never create enough compost for all the uses we have for it. The funniest thing we do is my daughter cuts up 100% cotton sheets and jeans when they are old and ripped. The queen sized blue sheets totally disappeared after a year. My husband is in charged of turning it. We made a sieve to sieve out the bigger chunks and throw those back into the bin.
A very pretty lady gardener, I enjoy watching your videos and I can learn a lot about gardening
Wow Lovely Garden ^^
Like it
My friend, thank you for good sharing
Have a good relationship
Just popped back in to say that after watching this I realized that at the very back of our woodland property I had been creating a compost area without realizing it. Grabbing a shovel and spade (mid-video mind you) I uncovered black gold! Buckets of the stuff! I gave all of the shrubs and my raised beds an unexpected early Christmas present. From...A worse composter than you! Thank you!
Great video, love the various camera angles and humor!
YAH!!! That's exciting!!! My compose bin is finally broke down, and I'm gonna top off my beds this week with it for the new owners. I only turned mine once a year also.
You also don't need a fancy bin. I have two converted 32-gal wheeled garbage bins that I drilled large holes in (all over, top, bottom, all sides, that I use. They don't take up a ton of space. I just emptied one over the newly planted garlic, and so I have a partially filled one to continue and an empty one to fill over the winter. I suck at brown and green ratio, but old potting mix goes in, plus old orchid bark mix, as I have a lot of orchids too. . Dead orchids also go in (those who don't survive my love) - I do have very expensive compost...
PW needs to get onboard with the CARDBOARD plant pots. Over the years I have purchased Plant starts in these and plant directly into the ground, no need to special water them and the plant grows beautifully AND the cardboard decomposes with not problems. All plastic pots are saved and reused year after year. I don't have or need a COMPOST PILE, all my kitchen waste goes directly onto my planting beds, then in the fall, all leaves go there as well and topped with mulch. One year I shredded paper (financial etc) and had garbage bags of paper, which I planted on my beds then covered with mulch. Now I have the best soil and worms imaginable.
Amen, Erin. I throw my kitchen scraps out my second story kitchen window and then throw gardening debris over that. I may stir it twice a year. The compost couldn't be more wonderful. I had some extra tomato plants this year so I planted them on the edge of one of my two piles. The foliage grew so lush we couldn't find the fruit. We ended up just pulling the plants up and throwing them back on the pile. I roll my eyes at all the effort you tube gardeners go to with their compost. You don't need bins. You don't need to water. You don't need to turn it over. You can if you want to, but it isn't necessary, folks.
We have a huge pile of sticks, leaves, dead plants and such in our yard. I need to dig down through it and see what is at the bottom. Maybe in the spring lol. 😊
Ahhhh! This is soo encouraging! 😊 I started my first compost pile this spring! Thank you so much for posting your wealth of knowledge🥰🍂🍁
From what I've learned, I think I could cut the bottom off the compostable pots
Great video. I just throw everything behind my shed and leave it alone. I should be better, but I am not. Then, when I remember, the pile is half the size, and everything, including me, is happy.
Laughed my a** off when I saw the title of this video and watched it immediately 🤣🤣🤣
You’ve inspired me to go see what’s at the bottom of my never-turned compost pile 😅
I do like the concept of plantable pots. However, I garden in clay soil. When I was first starting out I planted some perennials that came in plantable coir containers. In my wet clay, those were just a sponge and made it harder for the plants to get established. Lesson learned--I now remove plants and compost the containers separately, or at least rough up the coir to get the process going quicker.
Interesting, I have rocky soil and I buy a lot of plants from a nursery that uses the coir pots. Due to the rocks, fitting the coir pots in can be a problem so if the roots haven't started to come through the coir I sometimes liberate the plant from the pot. The new PW pots are even more difficult to work with in rocky soil -- I ended up taking the plants out. The coir pots do eventually break down if planted, but it can take a few years. I threw my PW pots on my compost pile and I am curious to see whether they break down. Obviously it's a tricky materials engineering problem: the nurseries need something that won't fall apart while they are growing the plants on.
Ha, I'm a terrible composter, too, but I just collected some great stuff this morning from my neglected pile!
Same! I have 3 bins (about to add a 4th) and literally just pile up garden waste with our goat barn clean out. Let it sit and do it’s thing. Best compost ever 😊
I just layer it and in and turn about twice a month Compost it has a lot of horse manure to increase the heat and process and breakdown ! Love it
This video title CRACKS me up. I love it. Every time I read about composting I get tired. Maybe I could do it this way? Update: I started composting this weekend Erin. Thanks for the kick.
I’m also a lousy composter and I make great compost too! 🥂 My 20 year old 4’x4’ bin is four homemade panels. We took 4’x2”x2”cedar wood and made four “frames” then stapled hardware cloth to each frame, zip tied the four together to make a square. Originally, hook and eye latches kept it together but they rusted. Zip ties are awesome and cheap. In the fall, I fill my wheelbarrow with the compost and when I pull out an annual I fill the hole with a shovel of compost and then around the garden. I love composting!! So simple!❤
Haha thanks, my compost is pretty hands off too. It takes a while but I'm ok with that!
Shredded leaves and grass clippings mixed in my raised beds with mushroom compost and what ever potting soil and dead annuals mixed up and left over winter. Promptly forget until spring. Mix it up and add some fresh mushroom compost.
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."
G. K. Chesterton
Erin, I live in the region that recently of Maine that experienced a Mass shooting. Once the lockdown ended, gardening was one activity that helped restore a positive frame of mind, as well as watching a couple of your down-to-earth, helpful, knowledgable and slightly humorous videos. Point being, I appreciate you. Know that you are making a positive difference in the world.
Sincerely,
An Avid Gardener But Crummy Composter
Thank you, Christina. I’m glad it offered a moment of distraction from that horrible tragedy. A dear friend lives close so I know how difficult it is been in a small, tight knit community. Best to you. 💕
@@TheImpatientGardener Thank you for taking a moment to respond. Best wishes and thanks for everything!
Lazy too! Erin, I do compost exactly the same way...2 bin system and I turn it once a year. EASY PEASY
This is so incredibly helpful! We've been intimidated by composting because I didn't know all of the chemical and scientific rules that it seems like others follow but I think we can definitely handle throwing in a pile and getting compost at some point! Thank you
I put my plant tags in a garden journal. But I too am a lazy composter. I have one of those bins where you put stuff in the top and take the compost out of the bottom. Takes a year because I just pile it in. But it works!
We had a couple of ooen bins we used only for garden waste, but are giving those up in favour of more plastic compost bins. Finding rats nesta in the piles was pretty grim.
Last fall I started a new raised bed with only shredded leaves, grass clippings and clumps of dirt and grass (on the bottom) from edging inground beds. I grew in it this summer and everything did really well. The bed has settled quite a bit so needs to be added to but everything was free. This is another form of lazy composting for me 😁
THANK YOU for this video Erin! I have been wanting to learn how to compost for a while but always felt intimidated that I would get it "wrong" ... this video was inspiring. I want to try now!
Great video and loved the new way you filmed it
lol. Yes! I'm the best of the best when I am getting my compost going. Then it is a forgotten pile of crap. lol. I always find good gold in it the following year. Loved this video.
I compost like you though I do water it intentionally in the summer as we live in a drier place. We tend to get compost when we want it. Never enough but we get it. I too have put those biodegradable bags in the not-often-hot compost bin. It takes a very long time and I still see pieces in my beds. Fun video, very validating. BTW, I often use my compost pile as a source for my work bin which I find very very fun
Great video….just signed up. Erin, you even make compost interesting, loved it….All the best from the UK 🇬🇧🇬🇧
Exceptional segment. Very true, compost happens. This has helped me to keep on no matter how much time I spend on the pursuit [which is not much]. Thank you!
I got excited about composting a few years ago. I was discouraged by finding jumping worms in the compost. I gave up. I didn’t want to move the worms to the vegetable garden that has been a spared of their infestation.
I've composted like this for years. The pile/piles get turned in the spring and in fall if needed. I bought a double compost tumbler on a stand years ago and found it more trouble than it was worth. It makes a great place to store finished compost though. One thing I really like is the compost screen my husband made following Joe Lamp'l's instructions on RUclips. It breaks up any clumps in the pile when I get ready to use the compost. As I read once, it's not rocket science, it's rot science.
Non-related topic of humor. I have been following you for over 2 years. I recommended your videos to my partner when he got banana trees this past year. Yesterday he was talking about watching the "Maniac Gardener" again. I asked who? We finally figured he meant the "impatient Gardener". While neither one of us think you're a maniac, I thought you might get a chuckle out of it.
Love your style, approach to gardening, energy and your presentation! Thanks!
My hubby is the worker of our composter and does a excellent job. We compost all food scraps that are acceptable for composting, leaves and garden plants ( no weeds ). Thanks for being real and sharing. 👍❤️😊
Great video!! I'm on team Erin. This is exactly how I compost. It takes longer, but you still gets results.
LOL!!! That reminded me of the very very old Steve Martin comedy bit where he says, “How to turn a million in real estate into $25 in cash.”
Love you!! Thank you! Irma 6b
Oops,,, caught me! I haven't really composted at all unless you count pulled plants thrown into an unused area of my veggie garden😁. Jim Putnam's advice of calling the debris jet fuel for the soil😁. Thank you so much for this video. So informative and to the point. Some of your fellow RUclipsrs have gone from informative to purely show-n-tell. You are appreciated Erin!😊
Your title…🤣😆😂I HAD to click on it (as soon as I finished laughing.) Because hey…a girl’s gotta have goals! And I DO have good intentions, but…I think I’m already well on my way to being a terrible composter too. (I just hate turning the pile. Shrug. So sue me.)😂
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I am the same kind of composter as you, and am tired of compost shaming! Ok, maybe people don't try to shame us, but I can see a lot of people being scared off unnecessarily because they don't want to put all of the time and effort into maintaining their compost piles. And, holy cow! Great strides, Proven Winners. I already love their plants, and would definitely choose a PW in a compostable pot over a different grower if they were available.
Compost happens even for those of us who aren't very attentive. On a side note, one year, I added my chopped leaves to my garden beds. The next spring, there were no weeds! How great was that?
I have 5 compost piles, plus bags of leaf mold.
Erin, I love your composter confession. I am also a terrible composter... as once it's in the pile... I promptly forget about it. Thanks for giving us your thoughts and experience with the compostable PW pots. I will do my best to crunch them up before adding them to my sadly neglected compost piles. I hope you and your sweetheart have a great weekend. ~Margie🤗🍁🍀
I’m a very old (77) composter and I dump it where it goes and walk away. Stuff happens! 😊
Hi Erin. I am a packaging engineer and a home gardener🙂. As a packaging engineer I work to make Packaging sustainable. Home compostable packaging is the holy grail! I am very interested to see the outcome of your compostable pot experiment.
I found my compost person. 👍🏻😁. Sometimes I don't turn for 2 years even. We've got 3 palette bins and a large old wire fencing cylindrical bin for the weeds and "junk". I get gorgeous black compost eventually. 😁
I watched a video recently that is hopefully the best tip ever for me because the deer come to eat my kitchen scraps 😳😫I learned to put a tarp over it! Simple enough not to require more attention! I have two trash cans near my back door (20’ away) that holds my brown peat and I place some in the bottom of the other can and add kitchen scraps almost daily and more peat in between to hold down smells and wetness and therefore mold. So when it’s full it gets dollied down to the compost pile that is actually an old pick up truck bed on the ground. I add grass clippings and leaves I pick up and mow. But the deer still would snag watermelon rinds and pineapple skins. Now with the tarp I’m hoping to get at least ten wheelbarrows full in the late spring.p.s. I never turn it over unless it’s to dig down to what looks like compost 👍😁
Thank you for showing us the comparison on these pots!
Looking forward to an update on the small pieces you added to compost.
Very interesting!
Love the camera work!!
I was inspired! For years we’ve piled leaves and grass clippings behind a low wall in a the back yard behind the shed. I occasionally rake it. Today I scraped off the top layer of grass clippings and dug it up. I sifted using one of those flats ground over comes in and picked out grubs , so many grubs. In a couple of hours I filled a 30gallon trash can. There’s more to be mined. Thanks for the motivation!
Tips on how to avoid grubs appreciated
The compost pile takes so long here. I’ve been adding direct to the garden especially vines. I chop things up as small as I can tolerate, but a lot of the nutrients drain to the bottom of pile so why not add directly to my garden. It seems to work as I’ve done it for years and I need a large pruning shears to take down broccoli, sunflowers, ect.
I think Erin calls that chop and drop and it works great, too.
@@anisebutler5220 I chop and dropped buckwheat this year and larger items I dig into a trench in the middle of wide rows to help hold moisture and stays out of the way to plant down both sides.
Great title. I clicked on it immediately!
You are just the encouragement. I don't have the strength to turn it ( I'm a seventy year old single woman). I don't have a sunny spot. I don't have a "hidden" spot for a bin. But, on the other side of my property fence are woods and I have my neighbors permission to dump yard waste there. Because I knew I wouldn't be diligent comma I stopped dumping leaves there last year. You've inspired me to go for it this year rather than bag my leaves.
Love this! I’ve wanted to compost but has seemed more complicated. Your video has helped me to give it a try! 😊
Thank you! I have a compost pile (started a couple of years ago) that we just add to, but In the Spring, I'll "turn" it so I can get to the Black Gold at the base.
I compost like you do!
No Turn style composting.
Makes me want to complete compost!! Works love a video on exactly how to start, and info on the bins you have, Erin. Thanks so much for the info, and the always enjoyable entertaining video!!
She did one a couple of years ago.
@@karinjohnston6568 really! I'll have to look for it😬 thank you Karin
THX Muchly for reminding us about this basic need - COMPOST!! EDIT: Erin, which Dahlia is that in your compost pile??!!??
Me too! Currently getting completely soaked. I will have to wait for it to dry out to see what I have.
When ever I dig anywhere in a bed or the veggie garden I always find tags or remnant pieces of plant tags. I am also a terrible composter tell you what tho if you ever just make a big pile of grass clippings it gets super hot and quickly shrinks down to nothing. Always impressive to me how fast
I used the PW small compostable seed starter pots last year and they have not broken down. I love PW but I won't use these again.
Great video. Real life composting. 😊
Great video, I wish I had room for one! So fun to find garden gold! It will be interesting to see how those containers break down
I broke into my twice turned compost pile today not too bad. I’ve found that holding the moisture in with a tarp really helped.
Hi Erin, thanks for the heads up on the PW composting pots! It will be interesting to see how long it actually takes for them to decompose. I agree, there's to much plastic in gardening! Hopefully that will change.
Years.
Erin, you just encouraged me to go out back and turn my compost! Ha….I’m also a terrible composter! I do love the stuff so I’m going to do more this fall. Did I tell you it’s 38 degrees here and wet! I knew if I put it off until the weather improves I’d forget. Turned!
Same goes for me, double. It’s not difficult 😅
Love composting! Have you read The Compost Coach by Kate Flood?
So fun & so informative!
Thank goodness I'm not the only one 😂👩🌾
You are very trusting that those pots will break down and will have disappeared by the time you want to use the compost. I’m hoping that next year you will not have to be sorting out plastic bits as you plant. I garden an acre that was gardened by my grandmother and then, in turn, by my mother and, while I do treasure some of the gardening bits that I find from days gone by (100 years ago there was no garbage collection in these back woods areas)I doubt that I would feel the same about thousands of plastic bits. Good luck…love your videos😍
It’s not plastic. Even if it’s slow to break down, it’s still made of plant materials, so she can either sieve it out or just use it with container bits in it.
Laura from Garden Answer pulled a compostable pot from PW also. It looked like yours. I wonder if they take years to breakdown??
Loved yr compost video !!
I suspect it’s going to take quite a while in a home compost situation but time will tell.
Only you can make compost fun & entertaining ha!!
Ohhhh. This is my kind of gardener. 👏🏻 👏🏻 My mama sent me this video as I’m trying “again” to start a compost pile, as if I needed anything else on my plate. 😂 Thank you!!! **subscribed**
Sincerely,
Tired Homeschooling Mama of 5 😉
Love your new style! Keep up the good work. Also, I copied you with the chive hedge. I have loved it. It gets a little wild now and then but that is the charm!
Great video!
My idea of composting is not raking the leaves out of my garden in the fall 😂
I found that compostable produce bags can take quite a long time to compost. The best reason for using these kinds of items is that if they are sent to a landfill they will disintegrate, unlike plastics.
I just started a compost pile this summer, I’m sure I’m not doing it correctly but we will see. I THINK that I’ve also heard that in the compostable PW containers they have somehow added nutrients to the compostable containers ? Good luck Erin, I hope they break down for you. 🎃🍁🍂💚🙃
I do love some good, fresh compost!!!