Friday, March 10, 2017

Compost Update + Help + Tips

If you'd like to receive these updates and/or get involved in composting with us, please contact Gabriela.

Elisa's visits:

Saturdays at 11:30 am unless otherwise noted.

Compost update.
The winter composting season is going great! The active (left) bin has been between 80-115ยบ through the winter thanks to you and Elisa, who has been tending to the piles weekly. We have filled the left bin with veggie scraps and now are ready to turn the bins. The contents of the center bin will be moved out to cure for a couple of months in a pile - location TBD - and the contents of the left bin will be moved to the center bin to continue composting while we continue adding to the soon-to-be empty left bin.

We need your help!
1. Somewhat confused by the above? Come help us turn, or just stop by to provide encouragement! We are waiting for a warmer day to do this (we missed the warm weather spell!) Let us know if you're willing to give us a hand and we'll let you know when we pick a date and time.
2. Please let us know if you regularly contribute scraps to the pile. We're trying to figure out how many people are contributing to the pile and how often/how much, so we can know what our capacity has been, better calculate our need for browns and measure our efficiency.


Tip of the week: how to break down egg shells

Egg shells are welcome in the compost pile, BUT they take a VERY LONG time to compost, so it is particularly important to break them into as small pieces as possible so they turn into compost faster. This is sometimes tricky because of the thin, elastic membrane right under the shell. But MJ provides a practical and easy solution:
1. Keep two stackable containers handy (e.g., yogurt containers)
2. Place the egg shells in the top container and let them dry (this will make the egg membrane become brittle)
3. Take the bottom container and put it on top, pressing and rotating
4. Now you should have small eggshell pieces suitable for the compost bin.

Thank you for being a part of this and we hope to see you around, especially as the weather gets warmer!