Hi everyone. :) These compost bins are what I use to fill up my raised garden beds. Please look at my earlier posts to read about them. I'll have a link to them at the bottom.
The first three bins are what I either found on the side of the road, got real cheap, or you guessed it, I used some of my old fence panels to make one. The biggest one on the far left is what someone had thrown out for trash. I could NOT pass this thing up. The next one I think I paid about $20 for and the smaller one I was able to purchase for about $5.
I put just about anything in these bins to compost such as my lawn clippings and leaves and whatever scrap items from our kitchen that can be composted. If I was to just buy my dirt, it would cost a pretty penny. Don't get me wrong, I have bought dirt to fill up some of my raised beds before and will continue to do so until my composting creates more than I'll be able to use. I really don't expect that to happen for a few more years though.
Here are the pictures of four of my bins. Our pitty Kila is also pictured. One of five dogs we have.
I do have at least one raised bed with nothing in it except for what I started composting from prior years. One of my newer beds has nothing but dirt I bought from the store in it. It will be interesting, for me at least, to see if I can tell a difference between my own dirt vs. store bought dirt.
Its funny because it never really hit me that composting things like leaves, grass and kitchen scraps really does turn into dirt until I was able to see it with my own eyes. I knew it happened because we learned stuff like this in school but I just didn't put the two together. Seeing it happen right before my eyes was really eye opening! I'll tell you what, taking grass and similar items and watching it turn to dirt over the course of a year or so and then smelling that freshly made dirt as I was putting it into my raised bed made me feel like I was on top of the world. It was one of the best feelings I have had in a long time.
A few of my friends made fun of me when I told them about my experience making dirt..heh heh.. but the jokes on them. I'm growing my own vegetables from seeds I have saved from the year before and my very own dirt I made! Hell yes!
I'm sure you can tell, this was a very fun and eye opening experience for me and I AM HOOKED on becoming a Backyard Gardener. Hopefully one day, I can become totally self sufficient by buying me a plot of land about 25 acres in size and become the Backyard Farmer. I think that would be really nice.
The reason I say 25 acres is so my dogs have a large area to be able to run in. As it is, we only have about 3/4 of an acre now. I'm sure my dogs don't like me encroaching on their running area.
I hope you liked this little bit of info about me and my journey to becoming The Backyard Gardener. Thanks for reading. :)
(I'll always provide a link to where I got images that aren't my own.)
https://www.publish0x.com/backyard-garden/first-post-xzwoqov
https://www.publish0x.com/backyard-garden/how-i-make-a-simple-raised-bed-xgpkzey
(Edited to fix one spelling mistake I've found. I'm sure there are many others. You can let me know about them in the comments and I'll fix them. I'm always open to being critiqued, good or bad. After all, don't we learn from our mistakes?)
