Today I noticed that the oldest compost bucket is squirming and writhing...
The change in temperature seems to have heralded the return of my wriggly friends, the Black Soldier Fly larvae. Although I probably don't feel quite as affectionate about them as Maria Gaura, who yells "come and get it!" as she tips out her food waste, I'm surprisingly glad to see them back; they feel like a sign that the compost is healthy, and actually that bucket smells more like forest floor than restaurant dumpster, which is presumably good.
In other compost news, although our system is working fairly well at reducing what gets sent to landfill, and is producing an explosion of tomatoes...
...we've noticed that, when we get to the point of using the compost to start a new planter, although the food waste has rotted beyond recognition, it can be fairly sloppy and oozy.
So we've got hold of a few more paint buckets, and have started to experiment with the "bucket in bucket" method: i.e. melt some holes in the bottom of one bucket...
The idea is that the junk juice that forms in the inner bucket can drain into the outer bucket, which stops the compost from getting too slimy, and yields a leachate which, if you dilute it to water plants with, is apparently called "compost tea" which plants love.
Although if you ask me, it looks more like fresh espresso:
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