Vitex, Chasteberry tree

Late afternoon fall photos, late blooming flowers

Jerusalem Artichokes

Mums

More Mums

Sunset

Okra seedpods

Yucca

Acceptable Materials for our Compost Bins

What can I compost here?

•       All raw fruit and vegetable scraps, including hard pits from avocados
•      Coffee grinds with filters
•            Tea bags, tags are ok (please cut open fancy tea bags made of plastic mesh)
•            Egg shells
•            House plant trimmings (no diseases)
•            Soiled paper towels (no oils)
•           Weeds without seed heads

What can’t I compost here?

•    Meat, chicken, fish scraps
•       Spoiled dairy products,
•    Grains, bread
•       Leftover prepared food with oily residue
•    Mango and peach pits (they take years to break down)
•    Treated wood
•    Charcoal ashes
•   Weeds gone to seed

5 steps for adding waste to bin:

1)  Make sure your scraps are chopped into 1-2 inch pieces.  This ensures that material will break down quickly.  You don't have to be so careful chopping up soft scraps like melon rinds, apple skins and banana peels, but please be meticulous when chopping tough woody scraps like broccoli stems, carrot tops, cabbage trimmings and brussel sprout stalks.  Woody material will take much longer if not chopped up.  

2)  Add your kitchen scraps to the bin labeled, “Active Pile, add material.”

3)  Evenly spread food waste over top of pile, no mounding please!

4)  Spread an even layer of brown material over food waste, so none is exposed (this attracts flies).  We have assorted browns like leaves, wood shavings and ripped cardboard.  All are fine to use.

5)  Moisten material. Either with the hose or by filling a bucket/red watering can with water, wet down material.

Viola!! You are finished.


Freezing food waste:
Some people who can't drop off their food waste as frequently prefer to freeze it instead of storing in the refrigerator.  This frees up refrigerator space and prevents any smells from invading your kitchen!  If you choose to freeze, please chop up material before storing it in your freezer. You may notice that when you add these frozen pieces to the active bin, they spread easily across the top of the pile, like ice cubes. If you store your food waste in yogurt containers, it may become a frozen blob, difficult to spread atop the pile.  Please make sure you chop it up somehow before adding,  for example:  smashing between 2 rocks.  You could also unmold the waste, tuck it into a warm spot in the pile, do something else and return in a few minutes. This will partially melt the blob, making it easier to break up.  The reason we don't want to add a blob of food waste is if we should do that, it won't be mixed evenly with browns and may become anaerobic, starting to smell and potentially attract rodents.

•       The other piles with labels, “Closed, Do Not Add,” are in the process of decomposing and no fresh material should be added.  It’s takes about three months for a full batch to mature into stable compost.  
•      When adding water, you may want to fill up the red watering can or a bucket with water instead of unwinding the hose as you'll have to wind it back up. 
•      You may add weeds to the bin, only if they have NOT gone to seed yet.  Please cut them up into 2-inch lengths with scissors or pruning shears. 
•      If you have a lot of food waste, you may wonder, how much should I add for 1 layer?

---A grocery size bag of food waste is what householders typically add, but commercial/restaurant kitchens have more waste to handle.  For larger quantities, add 1/2 of a 5-gallon bucket for 1 layer, and then add browns. Use an empty bucket in the garden to measure.  Basically, the food material should be a 1 inch thick even layer.

If you're contributing waste to our bins or those at another drop off-site, you know the value of composting.  We currently receive food waste from several sources including our gardeners, the campus cafeteria, a nutrition science class, and occasionally from produce markets.  Once in a while manure comes our way from Kensington Stables.  

Compost is beneficial on so many levels! It reduces the overall amount of garbage sent to landfills.  Methane gas is created in landfills when food waste mixes with other trash.  Adding compost to our plots and perennial beds improves soil texture and increases organic matter and nutrients needed for growing robust plants.  Thanks for doing your part, we LOVE you!

Composting: Next step... Multi Unit Wooden Bins

Thanks to all gardeners who have consistently brought food waste to our bins, to those of you who have picked up food residuals from the campus cafeteria, to Erika and her students who bring scraps from class and to Ernest who consistently picks up materials from a local produce market and stables.  We now have a finished batch waiting to be stored and three more batches cooking away. Roughly, we compost 185 lbs. of food waste per week!

My hopes are increase our waste contributor base to include 100% of our gardeners and many more students.  In terms of bin structure, we continue to use simple plastic fencing secured with posts, certainly adaptable to our space right now but difficult to turn and not attractive either.

Last Month, I attended a compost bin build workshop at the Red Shed Community Garden in Williamsburg.  The NYC Compost Project in Brooklyn (based at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden) led the event bringing all wood, hardware cloth and required tools.  A large group of us organized by Alison Filosa of Red Shed helped drill, screw, saw and hammer it all together.  It’s a simple construction really of four walls attached to a frame to make three compartments for layering and adding waste.  This is the sort of system we’d like at BC Garden; pretty, clean cedar wood, perhaps set on paving stones.  We may build a four-bin structure to accommodate what we currently process.  We may set this structure  either between the two Hawthorne trees or perpendicular to them.  Good thing is it can be moved when empty.

Now the money part…how to finance this project?  It will cost roughly $750., For the wood and related  supplies.  We originally placed this project post on IOBY (In Our Backyards) in spring but put off advertising because we couldn’t move ahead with any building projects due to the college delay on their construction plans.  Since the Softball field is underway, we can move along with this. 

Please support this project, which we’d like to start at the beginning of December.  Donate as little as you can/as much as you want to make these bins a reality!  When our project is fully funded, IOBY will reimburse us for materials purchased.  click here to find our project and donate!

Please see the IOBY donating page for more info. on how your contribution is processed and how we receive your money.

Share our project with friends and family through email, Facebook, Twitter.  If you have any questions about how to share with friends, please contact me.  Let them know that we are already successfully composting and are ready to beautify our operation and increase participation.

Bins at Red Shed Community Garden

A new batch of compost sifted last week!

Rosita with a compost sifter made last month

In the BC Health Clinic with Launa Smith
weighing finished compost for storage

Thank You!!