DIY Trash Can Compost Bin | At Home Composting: Garden Home VLOG (2019)

[Music] hey who doesn't love beautiful gardens and flowers and all those fresh vegetables well you know it all starts with the soil and a lot of people go hey my soils not that great so I'm going to show you how you can make your own soil with some really basic elements that I promise you will make your garden sing the garden home vlog is made possible by the following sponsors Gilbert H Wilde and son son patience Arkansas parks and tourism Ralston family farms first community bank and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for more information log on to PL and smith.com now back to p allen Smith and the garden home vlog hey welcome back to the show thanks for joining me I just want to talk today a little bit about soil I hear people rumble and grumble about their soil and they always are almost competitive about how bad their soil is compared to the next person one-upsmanship as it were but today we're going to talk about taking some elements fundamental elements and creating rich delicious soil that your plants will absolutely thrive on and it's I'm going to give you a simple little project where you can make some of your own compost there there are a lot of recipes out there for compost but I just want to kind of cover the basics because I think that sometimes these things get a little too complicated so this is really fundamental and what we might even say elemental because you're using elements elements of water oxygen and just some basic things that you might have that you're disposing of presently that could be turned into something well akin to pure gold with regard to how your garden performs so why don't we get started with this just basic concept of what goes into making good compost basically you're looking for brown and green okay so Green can be in the form of and what I have here is just some green grass clippings that I put in this container for you and you can they're already just heated up I wish you could feel them just in this container over the last several hours these are hot I would say they're almost 90 maybe a hundred degrees and temperature because they're already beginning to decompose the other is you won't browned okay and brown can be in the form of leaves can be in the form of sawdust splitter from if you raise poultry or rabbits or livestock all these things combined is where the magic really begins to happen what comes from the green which can take the form of many other things besides grass clippings is nitrogen and to decompose the brown or the carbon you need nitrogen so bringing these two carbon and nitrogen again very elemental here together that's where that decomposition begins it begins to heat up with a right amount of oxygen and then the right amount of water again basic elements what you can do is you can turn your soil into something that looks like this this is some of the compost we made and we have worked into the soil a little bit but it shows how that soil will just break apart in your hands and with that you can grow just about anything you want now I wanted to say this before we jump into this this project where I can show you how to make a basic compost bin with just a plastic garbage can that has a lid on it and that is the soil is so important there it's its own universe you've heard me talk about this over and over again and it's something that we're just really I think getting our heads around how important the soil is and what goes on in the soil there are so many microbes that that are at work that benefit the plants and when you have that environment that underground environment as healthy and as active as it can possibly be that's when you're going to get the healthiest plants ones that will be the most resistant to stress and to pests and so forth and that's why I think this starting at ground level quite literally with the soil is fundamentally important to a good gardener and have have success so this Plus this can equal this by just following a few basic steps and what I want to do is start with just taking this plastic garbage can that I picked up at a discount store it really just involves drilling holes in it I mentioned to you that oxygen is very important so we're gonna drill some holes in here and then this has a lid on it you can see here we'll drill some holes in the top of the lid you'll notice that this is one of the plastic containers that will actually lock down and that's important particularly if you're using some table scraps or kitchen scraps I certainly don't recommend anything that has any fat or meat in it we make vegetarian compost here and what you can do is you can take your basic potato peels tops of radishes or carrots and you're the root vegetables peels of all kinds apple peeling whatever you have that is in the form of something that's fresh that will be considered a green element that goes into your compost okay and what I like to do is layer it and by having a little brown carbon so you're like almost creating this parfait and and then you'll keep it moist you'll receive oxygen through the holes and then by turning it every once in a while you begin to you'll begin to see this decomposition happen very quickly there are also compost accelerators that you can buy that can enhance that microbial activity I've used those before they really do work so you can check those out and add to it so why don't we get to work on on getting these holes drilled into this very simple where some safety glasses always recommend and what I have here is a 1/2 inch drill bit and what I'm going to do is from about the top here you know I'd say fifth and then the 4/5 of this I'm going to drill holes in it's just simply boring into them like this about every four inches apart and then I'm going to also go all the way to the bottom and I'm going to repeat this across here four inches very easily very easily done so you get this idea of this grid that goes all the way around and then on the bottom I'm gonna do the same thing [Music] so I'm just going to go around here and maybe a few in here that'll make sure that we end up with water not settling in the bottom of it which is important and then what I like to do is just set this up on a couple of bricks or so and you can see I've just brought a few up here just show you three is all you you need that elevates it just a little bit again we want to make sure that the the any excess moisture is draining out of it rainwater is great there's a lot of nitrogen as you know in rainwater so this layering will occur and then again as I mentioned you'll you'll turn it you can add the compost accelerator to it if you like it's really as simple as that I like to have three of these going at one time and as the compost matures and is ready you can pour it out onto the garden at the finished level and work it into the soil how do you know it's ready all of this is pretty well broken down and if you can chop up some of the leaves the smaller the particles the faster this is going to turn into compost so just bear that in mind so if you've got a chipper or grinder you can crush the leaves or run the mower over the leaves and then there's smaller bits they're going to compost much much faster I have to tell you over the years here at Moss mountain farm we have used compost every year we've got big piles of it but this technique is one that anybody can have if you live in an apartment you have a small plot of vegetables that you want to grow and you want some of your own compost you don't have to have a big farm to produce compost you can do it very I think concisely and in a limited way but in a very productive way in a in a in a container like this there's a lot of ways to make compost you can find the tumblers and all these this is a basic way that anybody can create good living soil for their plants I hope you found this helpful and I hope you will continue watching our YouTube shows and if you like what you see give us a like if you haven't subscribed subscribe to our channel and if you want notifications just ring the bell okay alright happy gardening until next time

Channel: P. Allen Smith

Views: 55,386

Keywords: how to make compost bin, trash can compost bin, trash can compost, how to make compost at home, compost bin diy, garden home vlog, p. allen smith, compost, gardening, garden, composting, at home composting, diy, soil, organic gardening, green, organic, how to compost, homesteading, sustainable, sustainability, dirt, compost (material), compost bin, best compost material, how to make compost, compost tumbler, homemade compost, making compost, p allen smith, p allen smith garden home

Id: 28nJ_LzgSMk

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2019