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.
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| Bins at Red Shed Community Garden |
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| A new batch of compost sifted last week! |
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