My handy-dandy compost bin topper

I'm a fairly lazy composter. Constantly turning the pile, monitoring moisture levels, ensuring the precisely right C/N ratio... this has always seemed like too much effort to put forth for such a simple thing. I mean, come on, you stick stuff in a pile, and you wait for it to rot. We're lucky if I remember to take a stick and poke some air holes into it periodically.

But since we're in a fairly urban environment, with the neighbor's house within 10 feet of ours, I do need to make sure that nothing's getting overly aromatic. There's no back 40 to hide the piles in. So I got irrationally excited when I saw the giant bag of sawdust picked up by the vacuum system in my father's workshop. A couple of handfuls of high carbon sawdust would be the pefect thing to add on top of anything wet and sloppy with the potential for ickyness.

I'm pretty sure dad thought I was nuts when I asked if he could save it for me. But they humor me, so a couple of weeks ago my parents came over with a big bag of sawdust for me (along with the newspapers I'd been asking mom to save).

It worked pretty well, and also made a nice addition to the potting mixes I'd been messing around with. The dry sawdust was always blowing around and getting in my face when I scooped some out, though. Seemed it needed some moisture, and maybe a couple of additions to make it just perfect.

Which is how I justified spending the better part of a day hand mixing the perfect compost topper, shifting things from bucket to bucket every time I added something new. It's the closest I get to playing in the sandbox these days.

I do think the end result is pretty great, though, and wanted to make sure I remembered what was in it for the next time around. No clue about proportions, since I just kept adding a handful of this and a bucketful of that. But here are the contents:

Sawdust (carbon, absorbent)
Leaf mold (from cleaning gutter-- nitrogen, organic matter)
Composted cow manure (a small amount- nitrogen, organic matter, beneficial microorganisms)
Blood & bone meals (small amounts)
Backyard soil (a couple of shovels full-- microorganisms & other critters)
Bokashi (what was left in the bag after a critter got into it-- beneficial microorganisms galore)
Water
Liquid nitrogen source

Good thing my dad is always making things in his workshop-- now I need more sawdust.