My composting system has been turned upside down this year. Normally I spend quite a bit of my time foraging the ingredients for my compost pile–leaves, grass clippings, coffee grounds–and managing a three-bin system for turning it all into the primary means of maintaining fertility in my vegetable beds. Despite all of that work, and [...]
Entries Tagged as 'composting'
I’m Composting My Wardrobe
April 4th, 2010 · 3 Comments · garden
For years, my wife has been complaining that I hog too much of our closet with clothes I never wear. So finally I’m going through all my old duds and lots of them, frankly, are not even worth giving away. But why throw them in the trash? Most of the pants I’m getting rid of [...]
Tags: composting
D.C. Gardeners: Learn to Compost Like a Pro
March 21st, 2010 · 1 Comment · garden
From our own Department of Parks and Recreation:
Intro to Urban Composting
April 14th through May 12th
Wednesdays 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Columbia Heights Recreation Center
Master Composter Kaitlin Rienzo- Stack will lead a five week course on the wonders of “black gold,” with a special focus on urban composting issues. Learn how to turn kitchen scraps and other wastes (leaves, [...]
Tags: composting
The Gift of Compost
March 1st, 2010 · 3 Comments · garden
I do a lot of foraging for compost ingredients. But sometimes compost comes from unexpected places.
Our friend Timothy and her housemates had been making compost in a Rubbermaid trash can using all their kitchen scraps. When it came time for them to move, Timothy asked me if I wanted their compost-in-progress. Yesterday, while they were [...]
Tags: composting
150 Degrees
November 10th, 2009 · 2 Comments · garden
This weekend I recorded the highest temperature ever in our compost pile here in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House: 150 degrees. I love digging into the pile to deposit kitchen scraps, seeing steam wafting out of the debris, feeling a blast of heat.
That’s bacteria at work, thermophiles who thrive [...]
Tags: composting
Compost Powered By The Internet
May 28th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Blog
Recently I received an e-mail from a graduate student in India who had viewed the composting videos I made for Monkeysee (click on “video” above) and wanted more information on how to compost in rural areas. This is what he wrote:
“Hey Bruske,
I saw your videos on monkeysee and believe me they helped a lot..but i [...]
Tags: blogging·composting
Time for a New Compost Pile
March 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Uncategorized
If it’s spring, it must be time to start a new compost pile. Here are some of our favorite ingredients: leaves collected in the fall and chopped fine in the leaf grinder, coffee grounds from Starbucks, and something new: horse manure.
For years I’ve been passing a small riding stables on our usual route to [...]
Tags: composting
A Little Compost with that Latte?
February 28th, 2009 · 12 Comments · Uncategorized
Did you know that Starbucks has a corporate policy of making its used coffee grounds available free as a soil amendment or composting ingredient?
For months I’ve been working up to introducing myself to our neighborhood Starbucks and starting regular pickups of grounds for my compost pile. A fellow gardener here in the District of [...]
Tags: coffee·composting
My New Forked Spade
February 2nd, 2009 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized
How do you like my new spade?
I got tired of my wooden-handled model breaking in winter, usually around the compost heap or digging up carrots or wherever the earth was a little bit frozen. So I ordered this one from Lee Valley Tools. It’s stainless steel with a plastic cover and grip, guaranteed never [...]
Tags: composting·garden·tools
Can Compost Save Planet Earth?
November 23rd, 2008 · 13 Comments · Uncategorized
That’s the question I posed in my Powerpoint presentation yesterday at the Historical Society of Washington. And about 60 determined souls braved arctic temperatures and bitter winds to show up at 10 am to hear it.
During two years as president of D.C. Urban Gardeners, I never ceased to be amazed at the number inquiries about [...]
Tags: composting
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
