Composter on the move

Before... weedy...

Today's monthly volunteer day was a challenge. I had long wanted to move the composter so it was easier to use. Situated facing the tool chest, the space between them was too narrow to make shoveling in, or out, weeds/compost very easy.

Matt empties

That's led to us not using the composter much - that, and the fact that people tend to put non-compostable stuff in it, which I always had to fish out.  Don't put twigs, branches, wood, trash and other junk in there!

We determined that turning the composter 90 degrees against the fence would be ideal, so I started our crew on removing weeds and trash in the area, and leveling the ground so it sits (somewhat) level. We removed the composter's instructional sign so it can go on the other side and be visible when the composter has been moved.

Team levels

Luckily we had a good number of people, so while it was heavy work we managed it. And we also got a lot of weeds cleaned up too: Amanda and Katsuro weeded the back slope and steps areas all day!

Matt, Chris, Aditi, Leslie, Amanda, Katsue, and Mikey joined me on the task, and we pretty soon had all the weeds removed from the area, as well as a lot of rooted yucca cuttings.

Amanda weeds

We removed a dozen tubtrugs of good compost from the area behind the composter, and piled it at the top of the garden to use later.

In the meantime, Matt and Chris removed all the contents of the composter bins, including a lot of branches and twigs (ugh!) and several wheelbarrow loads of fresh compost from the bins and spread it around the base of some hungry plants.

Result!

After that we started leveling the dirt so the composter would sit straight. A lot of bricks were unearthed, and we used them to shore up various areas by placing a board held with rebar and backfilled with bricks and dirt to prevent everything falling through the fence.

Next we worked on seeing if we could even move the (very heavy wooden) composter at all. It took 6 of us to get it going, pivoting around one corner.

Almost ready!

We finally got it in place, and reattached the composter sign, started attaching a board to reinforce the base, and ran out of time.  We still need to fix the lids, finish shoring up the base, and make a gravel base to stand on there, as well as in front of the tool chest. Quite a lot of work to go, but we will soon be ready to start composting again. Yay hooray!

Great job team :D