FYI,
The following taken from a newsletter.
Phil
I think the original question came from out West, where finding sufficient
high carbon feed stock can be tough (leaves, straw, etc - could be
cardboard
if you had a lot of it, I guess).
A couple quick observations, based on NC experience:
In a community garden, one job of the composting area is to help gardeners
be good stewards and compost/recycle all the organic material they can, to
build the soil. We purposely start with tree company 'waste' and leaves,
giving gardeners lots of brown leaves(C) to put their weeds (before seed
set), rotted fruit, spent plants in. Yes, building in a "batch" gives much
better temps and consistency, but we practically do best with a big
windrow,
adding stuff progressively.
Of course, that means also that you need to teach gardeners about things
NOT
to put in the pile, and how to keep the pile actively decomposing.
We've had problems with the pile offending gardeners and others, even
ecologically-minded ones. Sometimes (especially when weeds get growing in
it) when it looks less than lovely, and some people insist that it breeds
vermin and insects - and they are very outspoken. It's our culture, we
seem
to generally find it easier to be confrontational and _against_ things
than
to be compassionate and _for_ things. So, keep whatever you do, keep the
compost area away from people who'll freak out.
Also, try to get someone to keep the pile neat and turned. This has been
spotty for us. Real spotty.
In the end, our best solution (might work this year, hopefully) was to
spread out the pile of leaves, old mulch, and garden debris in a 'path'
about 8 ft wide behind the garden back fence, and just toss our garden
debris on top of it. We have a huge flail mower come cut the grass outside
the garden monthly, more or less, spring through fall, and he just chops
it.
When time and energy allow, we repile it. Breaks down like magic! Plus,
the
pest paranoids are happy too, and the aesthetes.
I shouldn't be so snide - bringing me to kitchen scraps. In urban areas,
they _DO_ attract pests if not composted properly and carefully, like rats
and flies, (we also get possums and raccoons - and dogs in our suburban
location) . I remember the late Adam Honigman (who is no doubt reading
this
somewhere on cosmic email while tending some celestial garden - while
letting God know when He's screwed up) telling me about the rats in NYC
that
could chew through metal.
So, if you are going to do scraps, add them in a measured way and never
overload your pile. I tend to agree with Mike that worms are best for
scraps, and that's what I use at home. 2 big worm bins. I haven't yet set
up
a vermicompost unit at either community garden I work with, though - it
isn't rocket science, but they are critters and need care. (Any compost
pile
is full of critters, of course, they do all the work. But the microscopic
ones are a bit more resilient.)
Which brings me to bins. Like "framed" beds - everyone says "raised beds",
but you can have a raised bed without a frame. "Frames? I don't need no
schtinking frames..." - bins are mostly for the builder and human
sensibilities, not the composting microbes, which don't care at all
whether
they live in a simple heap or a fancy schmanzy expensive bought "tumbler"
or
a colorful pallet project. If you got the time and $ (or scrounged stuff)
to
do a big, great. If not, don't worry - make a pile. Don't use not having a
bin as an excuse to not compost.
Exception one is worms, which do do better in my experience in some kind
of
container (at home, I use two modified "Covered Bridge" composters, with
the
big lid). Exception 2 is when you need to fence out rats. A real
challenge,
that.
Two indispensible books: Diary of a Compost Hot Line Operator, Spring
Gillard (particularly the essay "Shit!") - she's Canada's green answer to
David Sedaris in laugh power (plus there's a lot of good advice in her
books...); and Worms Eat My Garbage, Mary Appelhof. The classic. You know,
I
don't think there is a particularly good plain ol' compost how-to book
these
days - the best was Easy Composting, Bob Kourik and Jeff Bell's guide they
did for Ortho (of all people). You can still find that at
http://www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Ortho%20Books, though.
So, a good project for somebody is writing the 21st Century compost
primer.
Meanwhile, while I'm here - Charlotte is not feeling the drought any more
(though it could return). At Urban Ministry, we're feeding more than
double
the number a year ago. It really is hard times for our sisters and
brothers
who don't have a roof over their heads.
Don
Charlotte, NC
www.urbanministrycenter.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20090127/4f1524bc/attachment.html>
_______________________________________________
The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of
ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and
to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org
To post an e-mail to the list: community_garden@list.communitygarden.org
To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:
http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
