composting

[Guest guest]

Leah and Jen:

 

Composting and gardening are not necessary but they can be fun and deepen our

connection with 'life'. Do a search for composting or permaculture at the

local library or on the net. It can be a way to use our improving health and

energy level in a responsible way.

 

Composting my kitchen scraps has help me see the benefit of insects,

bacteria, fungi and recycling. I have even composted the young coconut shells

although they take 3-4 years to completely break down into 'soil' doing

composting my

low energy way (little or no turning)

 

I have also used kitchen scraps in 'in situ' composting or sheet mulching.

Sheet mulching is a 'no till' way to turn grass into garden. Books by Bill

Mollison and Toby Hemenway (Introduction to Permaculture and Gaia's Garden) can

help explain the principles and methods. This site has pictures of Bill and

his founding partner and lots of information

http://www.permacultureinternational.org/whatispermaculture.htm. Toby's site is

also excellent

www.patternliteracy.com/ .

 

Now I feed my kitchen scraps to my chickens and I compost their manure. I

also have friends who compost humanure. There is a funny book called the

Humanure Handbook that is free on-line and $20 for a hardcopy. Feeding kitchen

scraps to rabbits can make quick fertilizer as I understand rabbit manure can be

added directly to plants soil.

 

I have one friend who does not have the time or energy to compost herself so

I purchased two 5 gallon buckets for garage storage and a small container for

under her sink. I collect one of the buckets each week from her and I give

her egg from my chickens. She likes the idea that none of the food she

purchases is wasted or buried in a landfill 100 miles from us.

 

:>)

 

Bill

 

Meadows Tilth Urban Farm

360 695 4482

Vancouver WA 98661

" The Place to Bee "

 

and can't believe there was only one reference to compost among all the

people here to eat raw.

 

The person I learned composting from did it in a small apartment in downtown

in Philadelphia. He used five gallon buckets stacked on top of each other

(from home depot) with holes in them. He was also growing a tray of

wheatgrass or sunflower greens per day and would put his finished root mats

in the bucket and then dump his veggie cuttings on the root mats lining the

bucket. Any excess liquids from the cutting soak into the root mats.

 

I asked him if he really had no smell. He swore that the smell only happens

when you allow a non-aerobic breakdown process to occur and this occurs only

from improper aeration. If you have your compost system near the kitchen you

can dump your fresh cuttings directly into the top bucket. He said that he

stacked his buckets in pyramid formation so that if there ever was any

run-off from the top bucket it would flow into the lower buckets.

 

And finally the more you chop up your cutting before throwing them in the

compost the better it will do. A whole uncut grapefruit can anaerobic in the

center. If you cut it up into pieces it will do much better.

 

If you are doing a lot of raw, composting just makes sense.