Home > Relish Austin > Archives > 2009 > January > 06 > Entry
Much ado about composting
So I’ve resolved to waste less food this year. In addition to meal planning and leftover eating, composting will be a big part of keeping food we don’t eat out of landfills. Here is a three-minute primer on starting your own compost pile:
Two months ago, we didn’t have a backyard. Apartment living not only means you don’t have an easy place to compost, you also don’t have access to the single stream recycling program the city offers. We used to take out a bag of trash a day. (An entire bag of trash a day for three people is unacceptable — even if one of them is in diapers — but we couldn’t find the space to store the recyclables, which, unlike the city’s program, had to be separated and couldn’t include glass.)
Now that we have a big blue recycling bin out front and a brown cage of compost out back, it takes three or four days to fill up a trash bag, diapers and all. We’ve already cut our contribution to area landfills by nearly 75 percent.
Good news for apartment dwellers, however. The downtown farmers’ market at Fourth and Guadalupe Streets is now offering a compost bin on Saturday mornings for people living in apartments or for those who don’t want to make a compost pile themselves. You can bring in your compostable materials (see list below) and the market will give the garden goodness to one of the farmers, who will then use it to help grow more food.
Here are more tips on getting your compost started:
Don’t compost: feces, human or animal (unless you’re like my friends in Missouri, who have a very large, very hot compost pile), bones, diseased plants, chemically treated wood or sawdust
Compost, with care: meat, dairy (Meat, dairy and greasy food items are more likely to attract critters, but a little meat or cheese here or there isn’t going to be a big deal. Animals are probably going to be sniffing out your compost anyway.)
Keep your pile moist by adding water. Ideally, you want the material to feel like a wrung-out sponge. Water is necessary for decomposition, plus it attracts worms, which are a compost pile’s best friend.
To turn or not to turn your pile: My professional composter friends in Missouri don’t turn their massive beds. They are trying to generate hot beds (more than 130 degrees) and want to keep the bacteria colonies intact. Many backyard composters, however, swear by aerating their pile every so often, some as often as every few days.
My next step is to get a hold of a compost activator (alfalfa meal, barnyard manure, bonemeal, cottonseed meal or blood meal) and maybe a few worms to help get things going.
Renee Studebaker has lots more composting and gardening advice on her blog, Renee’s Roots. I’ll be chronicling my composting and gardening adventures here on Relish Austin, but she’s the one with the green thumb and expert advice.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Food in your backyard
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By Shannon
January 7, 2009 1:20 PM | Link to this
Thanks for the video! Great and so informative…considering I’m always in heels ;-)
By Winchester
January 9, 2009 11:56 AM | Link to this
Everything I’ve read over the years says to go easy on citrus, may make the pile too acidic. But you can use citrus peels to make your own citrus oil for fire ant control, so all is not lost. I tear tea bags since they always want to stick on the end of the turning fork when I turn the compost, personal preference.
By Addie Broyles
January 9, 2009 1:39 PM | Link to this
Thanks for the tips, Winchester. I’ll lay low on the citrus for awhile. Tearing tea bags is a great idea, too.
Good luck composting in heels, Shannon! ;)