MG’s Building Bins!

From the Weekly Weeder by the fabulous Cory Skurdal:

Thanks to Gretchen Heinke and Barbara Merritt for documenting the MG Compost Building Effort on Saturday, April 18th!

Look on our website for morephotos of the event:
http://franklin.osu.edu/horticulture

City cuts yard waste program...now what?

These are photos of compost bins, showing the immense amount of choices you have when building your bin...but wait a minute, why are there photos of compost bins? Well....

The city recently announced that they would no longer be picking up yard waste. Many residents are now frustrated and looking for solutions---and some it appears don't even know, as I have seen many bags sitting for days on the curb. Here is a link to a recent Dispatch article:

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/03/23/city_waste.html?sid=101


No worries! Here is a simple and cheap compost bin to take your unwanted yard waste and turn it into rich compost.

http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=445#ez

This is the same bin that Amy Youngs and myself are featuring tomorrow on 10tv with Anietra Hamper. There are many other options ranging from free to hundreds of dollars, to fit any budget or need, check out the "instructables" site and you could have any shape or size!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Composting/

You can compost all types of materials and there are some great sites that give you step by step instructions and also addresses Why? So why should you compost you ask? It is easy, you take something that would fill up our trash bins and create something you can use to grow produce, flowers and herbs. You can save hundreds of dollars on buying compost. It is the smart thing to do and what all of the cool people do with their yard waste....

http://compostinstructions.com/

Finally, you don't have to just compost with yard waste. I have a compost bin that the previous tenants gifted me (thanks to Meredith Joy and Mike Reed!) and I compost all vegetable, fruit peels, egg shells, coffee grounds and tea bags..anything but animal products. I also belong to the University Area Community Gardening Collective...so we have plenty of room for members to compost. You could also start a collective area in your neighborhood, with permission, to compost. One of our members of the Hudson and 4th Community Garden, Amy Youngs created a series of worm composting bin bags, a table and yes, even a composting couch. (she is an artist and all around brilliant person) See her own worm bin bag:

http://wiki.vermicomposters.com/wormbin/How_to_make_a_worm_bin_bag

Here is a link to her composting art:

http://accad.osu.edu/~ayoungs/digestive.html

So,you have a few options: Pay for a service $49.50 every 6 months, load up and drive your yard waste to the outer areas of Columbus, throw it all away or burn it---both TERRIBLE ideas for the environment or...COMPOST and do it easily.

So, what are you going to do?

Animal (poo) Dreams

are you a gardener frustrated by the lack of easy to get compost necessary to grow your toms, cukes, broc and corn? intensive planting requires a steady supply of goodness and making enough for one bed let alone an entire garden for a season means dedicating time and money toward collecting materials, compost pile construction and management. if you are looking for a poop connection and you are nowhere near horses, cattle, et al, sources from craigslist can help with free compost and affordable hay and straw. these last two have skyrocketed in price but keep looking until you find some in your price range. my chickens help out in the home garden but a community garden, unless secured and with caretakers on site, are not animal friendly places. being in the city look for neighborhood fertility options like krogers. i gave 2 garbage cans to a market where i lived and would pick them up every day filled to the top with discarded produce. hay mulch, alfalfa pellets, day-lay industrial chicken farm compost, cover crops and rotation have helped in the gardens i have planted recently but there is nothing like real compost from manure, urine, straw and time. as i meditate on next years projects and how to keep costs low and productivity ample i'd like to hear from columbus and area people who have a system, strategy or source ideas for soil tilth and plant happiness.

Compost Bin Extraordinaire

The garden in NY had a wonderful compost bin system that I want to share with you. I think it is brilliant. If you have any specific questions, be sure to let me know so I can add more details on this description I didn't think of!
Paul built the system into the standard three bins, but what is new to me is the idea of covering the final dirt so that the nutrients do not leech into the soil when it rains. Some other neat ideas that might be difficult to see are:

1. On the right hand side of the first stage of compost bin, there is a shelf for people to gather around to learn, talk, and add material, as well as a small foot shelf so that people can easily see into the bin.

2. The bin height is completely adjustable. Paul designed and marked boards to slide into the main posts. They are clearly labeled with A, B, C, etc so that all of the A boards go in one section, etc. You can see Ds if you look closely. This really helps for adding material, moving the pile, and making the process efficient. It only took two weeks for straight grass and leaves to turn into compost.

Here is a close up of the boards. As you can see, they have some room for air to get into the pile, even though they keep the material secure.

Paul covers the bin contents with carpet remnants. I have seen this material used in gardens in between rows, as well. It works great for keeping moisture and heat within the pile. We measured the heat in the pile at 180 degrees, and we could easily see the steam rising off of it in the middle of a warm day!

Paul seperates out his leaves and grass and stores them in a "cellar." Storing the material so that you can add it together keeping the ratio 1:1 is essential for efficient composting. In my own garden, I just added things to my compost bin as they came (so manly grass in the summer, leaves in the fall) and because I couldn't get into the full bin to really mix stuff around, it takes a very very very long time to make compost.

Paul also really chops things up before they go into the bin. He has this table out in the garden to process the material. The orange handle is to a big cleaver! Very theraputic!