I moved into my house last year. So have making a pile of boxes, as we slowly unpack and get settled. The recycle bin is always full so I couldn't figure out how to get rid of them. In addition we have 6 people, 4 dogs, and 2 cats living here so the waste bin is also always full, and with a ever growing pile next to it. This year the spring rain hit, and within 2 days we had weeds up to our knees. To say the least the green waste bin couldn't handle the load, so last week we started our first compost heap. Until yesterday it was only a pile of green weeds and roots, and I turned it every time I added more. I didn't know about the brown waste, and thought I still had to put the cardboard in the recycle. :) Well now that I know its 2 brown : 1 green, I'm glad I have so much card board, and junk mail. ;) Yesterday I didn't know about layering, so I turned the brown with the green. I don't have a shredder so this was difficult. In 24 hours I've learned so much about it. Now I have a 3'x3'x2' heap with the original green waste on the bottom, and lots of brown on top, I also just been throwing my kitchen waste in it, no meat or bones, but just about everything else. I also found a bag of rotting chicken feed, a stack of soaked egg crates and a bin of mealworms and beetles from a failed project to raise mealworms and crickets from last year. lol. In storage I had an old thick and really heavy area rug that my mother once loved, but is now so stained that I had no trepidations on using it to cover my pile. We still have 2/3 of the weeds to go, and at least 2x that mass of boxes from the move. So by the end of this week my heap will probably be about 4'x4'x'4, if not larger, luckily the area I have for it is 7'x7'. The funny thing is our yard is very small, so I only have room for the one pile, and I'm planning on going hot, mostly because I understand and trust the bacterial process better for it than the cold. So I mostly expect to turn it whenever it gets cold. Even better though and maybe even a little saddening is that I'm actually excited to have a way to dispose of all of our waste, that the city's bins just couldn't handle. Ok done with my book.

'Glad you asked - it's an issue I've struggled with especially since the summer began and all I had was one bin under my kitchen sink. I've discovered that I produce a lot more food scraps than my one bin can consume. Since I'm hell bent on keeping it out of the regular rubbish stream, I stored food in plastic buckets, with lids, on the balcony over the winter, which is as good as a freezer up here. But, it got to be soooooo much that I eventually had to take most of it to green bin recycling centre when temps warmed up in early summer. I now have a couple buckets in freezer and am hoping that the 2nd bin I have recently started will help me to get the worms to consume the food I've accummulated over the summer. Over the summer I once again had to resort to storing some food on the balcony. I have about 2.5 buckets out there right now. Despite the warm weather we've had, flies/smell have not been a problem. To make sure the flies don't get in, at a minimum, I've sealed a full bucket of food with gaffers (electrical) tape. Alternatively, I've also put an old plastic bag on a buckef full of food and then put the lid on top of the plastic (to fill gaps flies could get in threw) and then put some heavy stones on top of that till I can distribute the food among the bins. This seems to have worked fine - no maggots, no smell. I've had guests for dinner on the balcony and they didn't notice a thing. Chris

OK, so potatoes and onions are fine playmates. Bad apples, OTOH, are a problem. Everyone gets along with cold ale (isn't the wet sides of the bottles a problem? Plus, I prefer my ale room temp, but that's OK). Plllog - I am having a hard time analyzing the experiment: 'do these last'? I think "these" is a very moving target. I think when onions come from the store the freshness is hugely variable. When they come from a farmer, though, they can vary a lot as well - sometimes soggy in which case they won't last, quickly. I've had some that go on and on though. I just can't really quite make out what determinants really are at play. I haven't made a careful study but it's bedeviling enough that I just might (though I know I won't; I'll rely instead on all this seemingly-knowledgeable hear-say. Life is just too short...) Thanks, all, for the explanations and photos. I haven't yet seen any eureka! product for my needs, and I I'm thinking creativity will be adequate -- that is, there don't seem to be obvious rules beyond - air flow, darkness, coolness. I don't think anyone's worked out the ideal mousetrap yet for this, seemingly. I wonder if there are wicker colanders? I think that might be ideal - small, non-metalic mesh.... Plllog, I may have relatively good unrefrigerated luck due to our microclimate - at the base of a hill (=wind generator), relatively close to the ocean things are often fairly refrigerated ambiently around here. Couple that with dh's obsession with growing shade and lath-and-plaster on at least two rooms, plus high vented ceilings, and the house stays pretty cool all on its own. For example, I'm freezing right now.... (indicating it's time to go hang out some laundry, boost the vit D levels, dry the clothes and stir the blood into warmth in one fell swoop).

One 'at home' example. My farm produces about 3-400 pounds of rhubarb. No deer or critter touches it so the rows I've transferred corms, or whatever they are called, over the years are out in the open field, in rows. Critters do not touch it. In the markets it looks limp and crappy. At 7-8 dollars a pound. If I put 15 to 20 pounds into my fridge in bags it lasts garden fresh for three-four weeks. if I place one stalk on a fridge shelf uncovered it will go limp in two days. Just like carrots. It really is a fridge/crisper design that keeps produce fresh. -if I continued 20 years ago, dividing and transplanting rhubarb once a year, I would have a very nice $$$ farm. We joked about a rhubarb retirement in our late 30's. Oh well. Had I continued transplanting once a year with not much effort...we would easily have a few thousand pounds in just a couple acres. (it grows without any extra food or water.) Garlic is another crop that does really well. I send 5 pounds of rhubarb to my MIL and SIL every year. Down south where rhubarb does not grow. It is a weed to us but I do make juice, etc. We all have what others want.