April 15th, 2011 Compost expansion
When I decided that the backyard would become a vegetable patch it came to stand that the one large compost bin and the two domestic black compost bins would not produce enough compost to service all of the gardens. I immediately had two additional bins built. Garden waste builds up quickly and so I have a building pile which will be used to layer with the kitchen waste and grass clippings as they come in.
To date I had kept it fairly simple… layers of leaves, yard waste, grass clippings, and food waste… water to keep it most and a long stick and pitch fork to stir things up.. I loved how the heat could have cooked an egg.
Generally I have emptied the bins twice a year; enough for a nice layer on all of the beds. Now with double the gardens I have decided to take the compost more seriously. My personal kitchen waste along with the yard waste will no longer be able to sustain the amount of compost that I will need so I have spoken to Chef Beth (from our banquet halls at OCTAVIENS) and Chef Kumar, the owner of Pelican Catering to collect all vegetable matter which I will pick up every couple of days. My parents religiously save all of the compost material and bring it to my house….We laugh… some guests arrive with a bottle of wine and my parents come baring the back of kitchen waste…. I love it!
An old food processor will be used to chop up all the kitchen waste and all leaves will be mulched before being thrown in…
This will speed up the composing process… My goal is to increase to three batches per season.