Shred Your Leaves!

Wow, I got really lazy over the last few months in terms of shredding leaves. Yesterday, I saw there were some bugs flying around the top of the pile and realized it was because the last time I added fresh food to the pile, I forgot to add fresh leaves. The leaves I re-covered the pile with were un-shredded, and so it was only a matter of time until I needed to fix it. Not everyone has a shredder, but maybe your neighbor does?  It's really important and makes all the difference. By doing so, you'll get greater coverage for your food scraps, the material size is smaller, meaning it'll get to work quicker and lastly you'll see much higher composting temperatures. Further, you'll be able to store more in…

Continue ReadingShred Your Leaves!

Leaf Hoarding!

Luckily this wasn't far from home, so I got to work stashing bags in my yard to last me through the winter. I'm about to build a new pile altogether and I'm going to need a nice 12-18" base of leaves (the leachate sponge) to get started... this will do it!

Continue ReadingLeaf Hoarding!

Visiting the Family…and Their Carbon-Rich Back Yard

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun- visiting my parents' house out in the sticks was great. I really envy the variety of materials they can compost- tons of leaves, dead plants, weeds, pine needles, mosses... most of these items are hard to come by in my neighborhood. I wish I had my camera- I ended up building up a compost pile for my mom with the food scraps from dinner and huge piles of the aforementioned materials... I was tempted to get a garbage bag and bring a bunch of it home with me! Man, I screwed up... hope I get to go home for Christmas.

Continue ReadingVisiting the Family…and Their Carbon-Rich Back Yard