Composting

I have always wanted to compost our kitchen scraps, but I think the last time I asked my parents a few years ago if we could have a pile, they said no because they thought it would attract bugs.

This morning, as I was slicing the strawberries that Torrey and I picked at the CSA yesterday, I told my mom I wanted to start a small compost pile. She said “yeah, inside or outside?”. I was expecting her to at least be hesitant about the project, so I was pleasantly surprised. I told her that I wanted to do one outside, and she told me that she was going to buy one of the composting bins that the city sells, but never got around to it.

So this afternoon I have been doing some research about the best way to go about composting in urban areas. I have this book–withhold smirks please–called Country Wisdom and Know-how, which is a compilation of everything you ever wanted to know about how to live off the land. It details everything from raising chickens, growing tea herbs, making homemade yogurt, owning felines and the uses of lemon balm. This thing is like 400 pages long. It’s a good guide and a fun read, but the one frustrating thing about the book is that while it provides information on a number of interesting subjects, it doesn’t really go into enough depth about them. For instance, the section about composting shows the different types of containers and structures you can compost in, how to build them, and their pros and cons. Great. But it doesn’t really go into much detail about how to compost; what can be put into the bin and what can’t, how things should be layered in the bin etc.

If you don’t know, composting is basically turning kitchen scraps (eggshells, raw veggies, coffee grounds, teabags) into nutrient-rich dirt, or ‘black gold’, that is a really great plant fertilizer. One of the most important parts of composting is making sure that you maintain the right balance of ‘brown’ and ‘green’ materials. Brown materials (wood ashes, shredded cardboard, fruit waste, peanut shells, sawdust) are carbon-based, and need greens (nitrogen-based materials like coffee grounds, food and garden waste, grass clippings, veggie scraps) to help break them down. The key to effective and quick composting is to keep the carbon to nitrogen ratio at around 25-30:1, or, 25 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. Composting101 has a good reference guide for this, but honestly, I wouldn’t be too worried about the mathematics in the beginning. Just remember that not everything can go into a compost bin; don’t put in meat or fish scraps, dairy products, fats and oils, dog/cat poop etc. Compost piles aren’t warm enough to kill the bacteria found in a lot of these things.

There are lots of methods of composting and lots of different types of composting bins, including ones that are electric and cost upwards of $300. I can’t really spend $300 on a compost bin, so I’m trying to find a really cheap and easy way to make compost in my backyard. A quick google search for ‘urban composting’ led me to yougrowgirl‘s page about….. urban composting!. It seems pretty easy. All you have to do is drill some holes in a large Rubbermaid bin, create a mix of brown and green materials, stir it up occasionally, and in 6-8 months you’ll get nutrient-rich dirt!! The one downside to this is that it might be harder to keep inside, since it will probably leak a bit and it be a little smelly. It might be better if you have outdoor space, but not a lot, like a balcony or maybe a rooftop deck.

pretty ingenious

In terms of composting in backyards, I found out that residents of the city of Boston can buy a compost bin for $35 at the Boston Building Materials Co-op in Roxbury. It’s like this one and is best placed in the backyard. It’s rodent/racoon/safe and weatherproof, obviously. The good thing about something like this is that its much bigger than the Rubbermaid method, for instance, so if you have a big garden or lots of plants, this might be better for you. Also, you get the added benefit of the sun, whose heat will make things compost a bit faster.

There is also vermicomposting, or composting with worms. This one seems to be the best for people who can’t do any outside composting and don’t need a very large amount of dirt, like students in dorms and people in small apartments. The good thing about vermicomposting is that it’s really cheap and easy to do. It’s also the most clandestine method of composting, good for people who are not supposed to be harboring bins of decomposing food in their quarters (students, for example) With this method, compost is created by feeding red wiggler worms (you need this specific type of worm) a diet of kitchen scraps. As the matter starts to break down, they crawl through the soil, both aerating it and nourishing it with their own waste. It’s really easy to make a vermicomposter, pretty much the same as the Rubbermaid method. All you is drill holes in a Rubbermaid container, add shredded (non-colored) newspaper, wet the newspaper, add the worms, then add about a cup (at first) of scraps, gradually increasing the amount to “a third or a half of the vegetable waste one normal-sized vegetarian human who eats at home once a day can produce.” (yougrowgirl) The New York Compost Project has nicely detailed instructions about how to make a vermicomposter.

tastes like chicken

Still interested? Here are good composting links:

The NYC Compost Project
Treehugger.com’s composting basics
cityfarmer.org
yougrowgirl.com…a good resource for everyone, not just girls!!
City of Boston composting resources
Mass Department of Environmental Protection waste & recycling

Since we don’t need a lot of compost right now, and I am intrigued by vermicomposting (cheap, easy, animals involved) I think I’m going to experiment with that first. I found a red wriggler supplier in the Boston area, called Cape Cod Worm Farm. If you’re in NY, you can check out Worm Power or New York Worms. If you’re in neither of these states, city farmer maintains a good listing of worm-suppliers in various states.