drill, baby, drill.... making my little compost bin

so one of the first projects i spotted in my country wisdom: everything you need to know to live of the land book was making a little compost bin for my kitchen veggie scraps. i have been getting tired of burying them in the garden and i though this would be easier and hopefully produce some lovely compost as well. unfortunately i didn't find a second hand container, but if this works (doesn't smell to high heaven) i will be on the hunt for more containers to make more and more compost. we'll see. till then here is the basics of my little compost bin.

container with lid.

using my neighbor dave's super duper 1/4 drill bit (this thing was sharp) i drilled holes all over the top, bottom, and sides.

to help keep the smell down, my book said to cover the scraps in dirt.
so first in, a layer of dirt from my dirt pile.

then stinky veggie scraps that have been hanging out on the kitchen counter.

dried out lettuce scraps from the garden and a couple of corn husks.

then another layer of dirt.

slap on the lid and hide it in the front garden bed behind a bush.
only time will tell if this is going to work.

in the meantime, let's check in on the tomatoes. some plants are doing well, and some are fairing poorly, and some are just doing. the three that are in the ground are doing much much better than the ones in containers, which i guess is to be expected. i was feeling pretty good overall about the tomatoes, until yesterday when pig girl told me her tomato plants that she got from me (martin's roma and HBPL) are ALL taller than her. my martin's roma are in containers and only about 3 feet high. 2 of them have really good looking fruit on them, but only 4 tomatoes on each plant and very little blooms. the other 2 are sharing a container, and while they are producing more, yet smaller, fruit, one plant's tomatoes all have bottom rot, while no bottom rot on the other plant. so this weekend i think i am going to be brave and possibly split the two sharing the container and get them in the ground somewhere. next year i am dedicating the entire left side of the house to tomatoes. and this fall after all the tomatoes are done for the year, i will definitely be amending the soil and gathering caging material. the little spindle stakes i have might work for smaller tomatoes, but my HBPL plants are doing a number on them and will need to be re enforced again this weekend. here are some quick pics from the garden yesterday.

cherry roma plants doing ok. not great, but ok.

the few HBPL plants that are in containers are producing just a few fruit and all have bottom rot. i think i am going to pull those up and use the containers for growing some herbs.

while the in ground HBPL tomatoes are looking good baby.

my new garden friend. i've been spotting him for the about the last week. last year we had another frog that looked like this. i wonder if this is the same little guy.
i should give him a name. any suggestions????

the aspargus pea plants are starting to flower.... perhaps i will get some fruit soon.