Compost bins and garden update

"I only have one speed........GO!" - Charlie Sheen

As most of you know, there is little to no topsoil in the Ozarks. This is one of the reasons that the land is so cheap. Between the springtime deluge rains and all the damn rocks it’s a real pain in the ass to try and dig in a garden. This is where raised beds come into play. A big part of our plan is to grow most of our own food, and dirt is expensive…so we needed another option. Besides, buying dirt is kinda dumb.

I built a compost machine thingy. Well actually a double barreled compost machine thingy, because if one is good two is better right?

As you can see it’s been designed so we can pull right up and offload clippings or load up completed compost for the garden beds.

I got the barrels from a guy for 25 bucks each. good deal right? Most of the hardware I already had, and I 3d printed the handles. Its nice to not have to go the store every time you need a part.

I mounted the barrels to the axle so that they can both be turned by moving a crank. As it turns out, a 3/16 eyebolt is like WAY too little for this kind of work. Sheared right off once it was full of material. Who knew? I should have… I used to do this kind of stuff for a living. I’m going to replace those with 1/2 hardware. That should work a little bit better.

Next a crank. This scrap 2x4 should work fine.

Isn’t that just pretty?

Loaded up and in use within 20 minutes of completion. I wasted no time at all filling it with mulch and wood chips from our chipper that we kinda blew all over the driveway on Sunday. This is where I found out that the eyebolt used to attach the barrel to the axle is WAY to small. Oh well, we turn it by hand for the moment.

Farm Dog© is not thrilled about being tied up. Well, were not thrilled about chasing her all over the place when she sees a squirrel and the warp drive kicks in. Actions, meet consequences. We are working on that.

Anyway….here are a couple of pictures of the strawbale gardens in operation. We got all the tomatoes into the garden this week. The mushrooms are really digging the strawbale breakdown and I’m really digging them providing nutrients to the plants I intend to eat.

The irises(?) are naturally occurring here and we have like a million of them.

Well that’s it for this episode of “This old crack house”. Be sure to join us next time.

P.S. Its really nice being around normalish people