The Cheapest Composter You Can Build, Tested Properly: Turn Trash Into GOLD!

Two identical trash can composters. One in shade, one in full sun. 60 days, logged daily. 📕 EBOOK — It's Not Your Soil: https://edgargardening.shop Most trash can composting videos are filmed in climates that get rain. Mine isn't. So before building this, I wanted to know what actually happens inside a sealed black can when the outside air is pulling moisture out of everything it touches — and what the temperature inside that can really is, because I've never once seen anybody put a probe in one and show the reading. This video is the build and the baseline. Both cans, both hole patterns, the fill, and every number I'm logging for the next 60 days. The results video comes after. WHAT'S IN THE BUILD 32-gallon can, locking lid 6 bottom holes at 2 inches — and the structural reason you can't just drill more 24 side vents at 3/8 inch, upper third only — why 1/4 inch clogs and why placement matters more than count Sunk two-thirds below grade so the intake air comes out of the soil instead of off the patio Browns: shredded cardboard and dry leaf litter. Greens: kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, soft prunings WHAT I'M MEASURING Internal temperature, probe in the centre of the mass, same time daily Ambient high and low logged beside it — the gap is what matters, not the raw number Volume drop against a marked fill line Moisture by squeeze test, weekly, from the middle THE PART MOST VIDEOS GET WRONG A pile needs roughly a cubic yard — 27 cubic feet — before it generates and holds its own heat. A 32-gallon can is about 4 cubic feet. Roughly a sixth of what it needs. So neither of these cans will heat itself, and every degree the probe reads above ambient is sun on plastic rather than biology. That sounds like a problem and isn't: it means the only thing separating my two cans is how much sun hits the wall. THE FREE CHECK FROM THIS VIDEO If your compost stalls, the reflex is to add nitrogen. Before you spend anything, reach into the middle — not the crust on top — grab a handful and squeeze hard. A drop or two means moisture is fine and nitrogen might genuinely be the issue. Nothing coming out means nitrogen isn't your limiting factor and adding it won't do anything except cost you. MY CONDITIONS Zone 9b hot desert. Alkaline soil around pH 8.2, alkaline irrigation water, summer highs past 110°F, single-digit humidity for months. If you garden somewhere similar, most of the standard composting advice needs translating before it works — that's what this channel does. Watch: This Forgotten Fruit Tree Produces America’s Most Addictive Fruit -    • This Forgotten Fruit Tree Produces America...   📕 THE EBOOK It's Not Your Soil: The Garden Problems Almost Everyone Misdiagnoses — 27 chapters organised by cause instead of by crop, each with a free check you can run before buying anything. Chapter 2 is the buying loop. Chapter 23 is five symptoms mapped to the products people waste money on. https://edgargardening.shop Subscribe if you want the 60-day results. Both cans come open on the same morning, against a definition of "finished" I wrote down on day one. #compost #composting #trashcancompost #desertgardening #zone9b #gardeningtips #diycompost #hotclimategardening #edgargardening