Green Tip: Learn to Compost in Your Backyard

Hey! One of the Sierra Club's Earth Day videos is a YouTube hit! Watch it here:

Comments

[Mary]

It would be polite to note when a link (in the emailed newsletter) opens into a video.

[ml]

This guy was genuinely annoying! He wasted way too m uch time saying nothing and then became a pitchman for an expensive piece of equiptment. Mike McGraph on NPR's You Bet Your Garden should have been the expert on this.

[Nancy J. Silberstein]

My back yard is 9' x 16' and half of that is in patio. Don't think I'll dedicate any of my small remaining space to a compost pile. Sorry. njs, city dweller

[Diane]

I have heard that biodegradable waste cannot biodegrate in a landfill because it lacks the airation necessary. Is that true? If so, that would be an extra reason to compost. If not, won't your compost just biodegrate in a landfill anyway? What happens to landfills when they are full? Can't they be developed into something else?

[Diane]

I have heard that biodegradable waste cannot biodegrate in a landfill because it lacks the airation necessary. Is that true? If so, that would be an extra reason to compost. If not, won't your compost just biodegrate in a landfill anyway? What happens to landfills when they are full? Can't they be developed into something else?

[reason17]

Not only will organic waste not biodegrade in a landfill (the rule of thumb is that nothing biodegrades in a landfill) but it will release greenhouse gases while it sits there. So composting serves two purposes--to reduce the amount of landfill and to reduce the part of the landfill that produces the most greenhouse gases. If you don't relish a compost pile in your backyard, try a composter container made from recycled plastic. My city (Portland, Oregon) actually offers these at a subsidized price. The city is also working on creating a compost facility that could process all of Portland's residential and commercial compost. Right now commercial compost pickup is available but the compost has to be trucked several hours north. You might ask your city to provide curbside compost pick up along with your recyclables.

[Tim]

I loved the composting video but am a little confused. A YouTube video by Kitchen Gardeners International stated that the ratio of green-to-brown should be 3-to-1 whereas the Green Tip here suggests much the opposite. Which is correct?

[Michele]

I got a "Tumbleweed" compost container, highly rated, though a bit expensive, it's not a pile that's "out there" and is easier, also makes compost quicker. Since recycling everything and composting, we only have to put our trash out for pickup on average less than once a month instead of once a week...i guess this also cuts down on greenhouse gases, as the trash truck is not stopping and idling in front of your house to pick up and dump your trashcan every week...it all adds up!!

[carol]

If you don't like the smell of rotting compost here's a suggestion.

Back in the 60's we lived in an area that had no trash collection. So to get rid of trash we had to drive quite a distance, then pay to unload. The neighbors took turns doing this. But because of costs and limited space in the vehicles, we kept garbage volume to a minimum. AT THE TIME, we burned all the paper items(of course). But every thing else that was in any way biodegradable (we called it rotting)was saved in a small can and then buried in the vegetable garden on a weekly basis. Every fall and spring we plowed (adding organic fertilizer-our own chickens' manure). Everything we'd buried had completely composted by then.

By necessity, I developed several tricks to keep our dog from finding and digging up the garbage. These worked best:
Don't let the dog see you bury it.
Make the hole about 2 feet deep.
Step on the refilled hole to compress it really well.
Slide some of the surface soil from near by on to the shovel and carefully place it over the area you just filled.
For good measure you can dig around a bit in the area you took the surface soil from. If the dog digs at all, it will dig in the loose soil and then give up.

[Christiana Drapkin]

I live in a 4-story walkup apartment building in Brooklyn. We've been composting for years, and now we added on a second bin. Not this tumbler, but the discounted one we get from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, or from the Council on the Environment. It does not smell. Why? We don't let the stuff rot, we turn it over. Believe me, it's right under my window. We used to have a pitchfork, but now we bought this big cork-screw-like device, and it works like a charm. 2 or 3 times a week, we turn it. If we forget, then it can start to smell, so turn it a couple of days, and it's fine. We have NO RATS, NO COCKROACHES. Why? There's no meat in it, no grease. Only the families in our building who're committed to composting participate, and, boy, you get to know your vegetarian neighbors. It's really great. Twice a year, we have beautiful compost to add to our front planters and to the back garden. And the amount of our kitchen waste has shrunk to a tiny little bit. I got a handful of worms from a neighbor to speed up the process, and they love those coffee grinds....

[Heidi]

The compost idea is great. When I grew up in the 60's and 70's, the old timers all had compost piles in their back yards, back in a corner of the yard. It's a simple process, that anyone can do, even city dwellers. We lived in the inner city and had small yards. We just would layer it everyday with leaves or grass clippings, and then soil. it doesn't take much space either. Why, because the pile keeps growing upward. You can cover it with a tarp also, and just put some bricks or rocks to hold it down while it's breaking down. You would be amazed at how beautiful everything you grow is, with this method of making fertilizer. By the way coffee grounds are great for roses too. Just sprinkle them around the base of the plant. Also plant marigolds or onions and garlic around your veggie or flower gardens and it helps keep the bug population down. And a can of beer poured in a pie dish and left out over night keeps the slugs out of your garden as well. Happy composting!

[Wes Gallaugher]

Composting is great, but what do you do with your potential compostable materials while the batch in the composter is composting? Does one need a half dozen composters like the one shown in the video to compost year around?

[Ruth Mendes]

We've been composting kitchen scraps, leaves, etc., for 38 years and have never had problems with creitters or smells. We do have the biffest earthworms in the world! It would be nice if you had a printable article on composting, however.

[Ruth Mendes]

We've been composting kitchen scraps, leaves, etc., for 38 years and have never had problems with critters or smells. We do have the biggest earthworms in the world! It would be nice if you had a printable article on composting, however.

[Cindy Donahey]

Has anyone ever heard of drying kitchen compost, and using it as part of the cooking fuel. This would include everything from corn silk to dried oranges. Imperial French refugees were notorious for doing this with oranges. The ashes from this kind of fuel was supposed to make quite good fertilizer. Some pioneer families did this; sometimes they put the material on the roof.