Composting With Jodie

May, 2003

The Enchanted Garden has been fortunate enough to receive a nice load of compost each year from Bronx GreenUp or GreenThumb. Lately though, we have become more self-sufficient, and have been able to create much of our own compost. Teachers leave compost scraps by the garden gate daily, and those are added to the regular weeds, leaves, and other garden clippings already part of our process. The Enchanted Garden makes use of a three bin system, but also has a hotbox and tumblers set aside primarly for food scraps. The breakdown process is faster with these contraptions, and access more limited to the kinds of varmints that are attracted to old, smelly food items. After they have largely decomposed, we then move the stuff to the open bins.

What follows are some of the key steps to composting as set forth by Jodie.

Jodie shows us what are considered appropriate compostables. These scraps can be kept in plastic bags. If you happen to live in an apartment, and don't have a compost bin nearby, it is possible to temporarily store the scraps in the freezer. It is not recommended that you keep it lingering for long in the kitchen or anywhere else in your home, as it will attract all types of vermin, and cause a stink in little time!

The best kinds of kitchen scraps are veggie remains, fruit peels, coffee grinds, old flower cuttings, grass clippings, egg shells, old pieces of bread, to name the most common deposits. Do not include meats, dairy, or any kind of grease. Use of these materials in a compost pile could casue a whole host of problems, including smells and vermin. Above is a typical bag of scraps left by a teacher at the Enchanted Garden.

Break it down!

To speed up the process, cut, squish, or stomp on the scraps!

If the scraps are kept in a bag, it is much easier to squish up the scraps before dumping everything in the bin.

After placing the compostables in the scrap bin or composter, turn the kitchen scraps into the larger pile. Put some old brown leaves or other kind of mulch above the scraps to accelerate decomposition. The moisture above the scraps will hasten the breaking down of the compost.

Turn the compost!

On a regular basis, stir up the compost, frequently mixing up the "greens" and the "browns" (eg. grass clippings and old leaves). This creates a rich biodynamic environment for microbes which like to munch on the goodies, and break things down for us. If the weather is dry for a spell, water the compost on occasion.

The final product should look something like this. In the Enchanted Garden, we have a rotating three bin setup, in which we place new scraps in bin #1, and take finished compost from bin #3, which contains the compost that has been sitting around the longest. Bin #2 is the intermediate bin, and after we are done with the compost in Bin #3, the compost in #2 is hopefully ready.