Posts Tagged ‘composting’

Winter Compost

Posted on December 29th, 2010 by Tonia 3 Comments

Christmas 2010 has come and gone, and our house now looks like a compost pile of wrapping paper, fur tree needles, and cookie crumbs.  It’s time to start thinking about cleaning up, taking down the tree, and regaining our normal daily life…but I don’t want to!

I’m not quite ready to stop listening to Christmas music…not quite ready to stop scouring the internet for new, scrumptious cookie recipes and staying up way too late baking…not quite ready for the steady stream if Christmas cards and letters to stop filling our mailbox…not quite ready to stop pinning pictures of eco-friendly ways to wrap gifts.

The end to the holidays marks the beginning of a long, cold, dark stretch of winter with nothing to distract us from the fact that we live in an icy tundra.  We’ll be shoveling our walk, scarping ice off our cars, chopping wood with frozen fingers, bundling up in a million layers…for three more months with no reprieve.

Thankfully, we have several {rather wonderful} things to carry us through to spring:  a warm home, plenty of firewood in the woodshed, friends and family that occasionally drop in for visits, a warm little snuggle-bug dog, an ice-rink nearby for impromptu games of one-on-one hockey, a wood-fired sauna {the only way to REALLY get warm in the middle of January}, and a cookbook dedicated to crock-pot stews.  These are our secret weapons for surviving the post-holiday part of winter.

I actually enjoy the quiet, cozy activities of winter, but I can’t help feeling a little restless…This will be our first spring at the farm, and we can’t wait to sink our shovels into the earth for the first time.  There isn’t much we can do to prepare for the growing season right now, so we’ve just been wistfully staring out the window at the spot we cleared for our future garden, imagining it bursting with new life come May and June.

Meanwhile, our compost bin on the back porch is steadily filling up.  Every time I contribute to it, I get excited for the moment when we’ll finally scoop piles of it into our new garden.  Yummy yummy plant food, that’s what that is right there.

Speaking of compost/winter…how do you compost in the winter, anyways?  Jared is back to talk to us about this.  Thanks for paying us another visit, Jared!  It’s always a pleasure to learn about composting from you, and I’m extremely excited to be able to swap gardening stories this spring!

When I began to write this I had spent the morning pulling sleds full of kids up the hill in knee-deep snow so they could tumble down the hillside in clouds of fresh powder as many times as their numb-noses would allow.

I had spent the afternoon with neighbors, heaving shovel-loads of snow from behind cars so that those who needed to get somewhere wouldn’t be trapped behind the massive ridges of snow left behind by the plows.

When the work was done we threw the shovels aside and dove off the massive plow-piles outside our apartment, landing in snow so deep and soft we almost disappeared.  It was the biggest snowstorm I’ve experienced since I moved to Minnesota, and it’s days like these that make winter so incredibly exciting.

Ohh… and did I mention I trudged my way up to the garden so I could mix and turn the compost pile?

Yah, it was weird to be in the garden wearing full snow gear; weird to dig around for the pitchfork that had fallen from its place along the fence; weird to have to chop through the icy top-layer of the compost pile, using the shovel like a sledge-hammer; and weird that in the middle of a blizzard, with temperatures barely above zero, I found warm compost and worms still slowly at work.

Composting in the winter can be tricky.  Compost thrives in warm muggy weather, needing both moisture and heat in order to sustain the process.  It’s no surprise then that the frozen winters of the upper Midwest pose quite a challenge for those who want to continue turning their organic waste into luscious soil.  But it can be done.  And although the return is a lot slower and the work a little harder, you’ll thank yourself in April when all of a sudden that pile you’ve struggled to keep alive for 4 months bursts with fresh dirt just in time for spring planting.  Here are some things to consider:

First, if you’re using an official compost bin, complete with an instruction manual and nifty diagrams, I’d suggest consulting that for cold-weather compost tips.  Most of those can be used year-round, so you’ll just need to shovel yourself a path and go mix the things occasionally.  Again, it may take a little longer because the heat is harder to come by, but with a little attention, the compost process should continue.

If, however, you are composting in some sort of container you’ve developed yourself, you can try a few things:  First, you can move the container to some place where it won’t freeze, perhaps a shed or garage.  Again, compost needs heat, moisture, and organic waste, so as long as you keep it from freezing up or drying out, you should be fine.  However, if you are worried about the stink or the critters, you might not want it indoors.  If that’s the case, you’re next best option is to insulate the container in some way.  You might pack a bunch of snow around the container to keep the temperature relatively stable or wrap the thing in some sort of insulating material.  My favorite idea, however, is to use hay-bales as insulation.  They’re thick, they’re natural, and they can be used in the spring for mulch or weed cover.  If you can get your hands on some hay bales, do so, and use them to keep your compost warm and cozy.  And remember, as long as you’re adding to and mixing your compost regularly, the odds of it freezing into one solid chunk of organic ice are pretty slim.

This leads us to our last consideration.  If, like me, you prefer open-air compost (no container, just a pile of organic waste), then you will face quite a challenge keeping that compost alive all winter.  But I intend to try; I mean, what’s the worst that could happen – my pile freezes solid and some giant raccoon drags it into its den and waits for the compost to thaw so it can feast for weeks?  Give me a break, do raccoons even have dens?

Anyway, my plan is fairly simple.  Currently a few fellow seminarians and I collect our organic waste in our homes and bring it to a large, lidded tub behind our building. When this fills up, I bring the tub up to the community garden (currently buried in two feet of snow), and add the new organic waste to the compost pile.  The pile is covered by a tarp and I’ve laid two bales of hay across the tarp for insulation.  Whenever I add new material I simply pull off the hay bales, lift the tarp (which carries the snow with it), and mix in the new compost.  This usually takes a little hacking and poking with the pitchfork, but once I’ve broken the frozen layer, the underlying material looks fairly lively.  As I mentioned, I was up there during the blizzard last weekend and found a few worms still wiggling away deep in the warmth of the pile.  This was encouraging, and just like container composting, frequent mixing will keep the process working as well as possible.

So it takes some effort, I’ll admit that. But I think it’s worth it.  Most of us will host parties, bake piles of goodies, and cook delicious feasts these next few weeks.  The holidays are a blast, but with the celebrations come a lot of trash and waste.  Winter composting ensures that in this season of excess we maintain some level of responsibility.  Oh, and if you’re anything like me and absolutely love winter weather, then hey, it’s one more excuse to go outside and enjoy this awesome season!

To read Jared’s other post about composting, click here.

Composting 101 with Jared

Posted on October 27th, 2010 by Tonia 9 Comments

Remember when Mike and I visited my parents and I came back home all bummed about the fact that we didn’t have our own compost pile?  That was just one year ago, but it seems like ancient history.  So much has happened since then…we got married, we moved out of the city and into the woods, and, we started our first compost pile!! 

 We’re so excited about the fact that we can finally compost.  Cooking and eating together is even more enjoyable now because we no longer have to endure the awkward moment after every meal when we solemnly scrape our food scraps into the trash.  I always dreaded that moment.

It was very rewarding to scrape those scraps into our shiny new compost bucket for the first time.  However, almost immediately Mike and I realized we don’t know the first thing about composting.  I could just Google it and read a bunch of boring science…or, I could call upon a good friend of ours who happens to be a serious composter. 

Jared is a husband, father, bocce champion, blogger, and avid gardener.  His family grows everything from strawberries to squash in their hill-top garden, and his two young daughters are growing up the best way kids can- with their hands in the dirt.  He has taken time to educate us on the fundamentals of composting here on the blog.  Thank you so much, Jared!

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My favorite chore growing up was mowing the lawn.  I sat on the front step on Saturday mornings as the sun slowly burned the dew off the grass, and as soon as the Colorado landscape went dry, I pulled the cord on our family’s old Toro and I made our lawn look like the outfield grass where the Rockies played.  I took a lot of pride in that chore, and if I wasn’t satisfied with how our lawn looked, I fixed it.  Sometimes the wheels from the mower pressed the grass down without cutting it, and the next day, when the grass had straightened, there were narrow rows of long, messy grass where the wheels had trod.  I hated this.  Those unkempt strips of grass tormented me.  On Sunday afternoons I could be found on my knees in the grass, pulling those uncut strips down to size with my bare hands.  It was an obsession.  And to this day I can’t help but notice when a lawn has been sloppily tended.

There were other things too.  I would reset the Nintendo no matter how far into my Tecmo Super Bowl football season if I lost a game or if Barry Sanders didn’t rush for 100 yards (yah, I was always the Lions).  And after a snowfall, nobody was allowed to walk in the part of the yard visible from my bedroom window.  I didn’t want to see footprints or exposed grass.  I needed to gaze out over a smooth, pristine blanket of white.  It was an obsession.   

Why do you care?  You probably don’t.  But I tell you this to give you an idea of why I can sometimes be found digging through my own trash looking for potato peels or apple cores that may have gotten thrown out within the chaos of trying to clean the kitchen before our two-year-old climbs her little sister’s hi-chair and force-feeds her a biter biscuit.  Composting has become a bit of an obsession of mine, and it bothers me when I see a luscious piece of organic scrap being truly wasted in the trash.  So I shake out my rags over the compost can, and I empty the sink-trap the same way, and sometimes I paw through our trash looking for those precious, forgotten kitchen scraps.  That’s just how it is now.

can-of-compost-stuff

So I warn you now, before you read any further, if you are anything like me and tend to get carried away over certain fascinations, composting may become an obsession.  A worthy and fun and rewarding obsession, but one that may have you chasing the garbage truck down the road because you just realized you accidentally dumped all your watermelon rinds in the trash the previous night.  The horror!  The horror!

With that being said, here’s an overview of some basic composting guidelines which should serve as a helpful starting place for reducing waste and generating healthy soil for your garden or houseplants. 

What is compost?

I’ll spare you the scientific details and give you the gist of it:  Compost is the nutrient rich dirt that’s produced when organic material undergoes the natural decomposition process.

We all paid attention in middle-school science class, we know that any material that was once alive, if left outside long enough, will break down and become dirt.  And we’ve seen the cool Sun Chips commercials where the bag decomposes in time-lapse.  Pretty nifty.  What composting does, however, is expedite and intensify that natural process by combining a healthy mix of organic materials into a single system — perhaps a pile in your backyard, a large bin in your garden, or a crate on your porch.  It’s really that simple. 

What kind of stuff is compost-able?

The short answer:  Anything that was once alive. 

apple-in-hand

This is what amazes people when they start composting – they can’t believe how much stuff can actually be composted.  The internet is full of these lists so I won’t offer an extensive summary here, but some of the more common items are: fruit and vegetable scraps; most paper products (including coffee filters, brown bags, egg cartons, etc.); most baked goods (yah, those burned cookies should go in the compost, not the trash); plant waste (decorative flowers, wreaths, leaves, grass-clippings); and even clothing scraps (cotton, wool, silk). 

In the majority of households, the things that can’t be composted should be rather obvious:  glass, metal, plastic, rubber (although, latex can).  Also, I would avoid heavily soiled paper products like pizza boxes.  And as far as food goes, meats and dairy aren’t good – they take a long time to decompose and tend to attract the wrong kinds of pests.

So that’s the general breakdown between compostables and non-compostables.    And while that seems pretty simple, there are a few other things to consider. 

First, healthy compost requires a good mix of “green” (nitrogen) and “brown” (carbon) materials.  “Brown materials” are those that are woody – things like leaves, paper, dry stems, dead grass and hay.  “Green” materials include fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, fresh flowers, green grass, and egg shells.  Again, you can find more extensive lists elsewhere, but as a guiding concept, those more juicy, luscious scraps tend to be nitrogen based, while the dry, crinkly scraps tend to be carbon based.  An even balance of both types of materials is needed for healthy compost.

I encourage you not to let this “green” and “brown” balance intimidate you.  After a little experience with your own compost and the type of waste generated in your home, keeping a healthy mix will become intuitive.  You don’t need to weigh and measure your greens and browns or run to the internet every time you come across some material you don’t know how to classify.  There is no exact science, and natural processes like composting tend to take care of themselves.  In general, if your compost pile looks like a heap of dead twigs, you need to add more juicy “greens.”  If your compost looks like a pile of wet mush and it smells like ammonia, it’s time to add some “browns.”   So really, it’s not all that complex; just be willing to experiment and adjust.

compost-pile

But we still need to consider a few other things when developing compost and deciding how to use the waste generated in our homes – we need to ask the question:  What is the best use of this “waste” item?

The driving consideration in our homes shouldn’t necessarily be whether or not something is compostable, but what’s the best use of any given item that we are throwing out.  So for this consideration, I offer four ways of categorizing the discarded materials in our homes.

The first question regarding anything we are throwing out should be, can this item be reused?  This applies to the usual things like plastic bottles, yogurt tubs, baggies, and jars, but even compostable items should first be considered for potential re-use.  Different sorts of paper products and fabrics can be used in all sorts of creative ways, and so for materials like these I would suggest ­re-use rather than compost.

Many compostable materials cannot and should not be reused, so once we’ve addressed that first consideration we should ask, is this material good for my compost?  Obviously, if it’s not compostable material then the answer is no.  But even with compostable materials, not all are good for your compost at all times.  Like I’ve said, compost needs a good balance of “green” and “brown,” so trying to compost your whole Sunday paper with only an apple core and carrot stick probably isn’t going to work.

Since most of our households do tend to produce a lot more “brown” material than “green,” the next best thing is to recycle.  Thus our third consideration is, can this material be recycled?  Most recycling services can handle a variety of paper products, so most of those “browns” that would dry up your compost can simply be recycled.  Familiarize yourself with your recycling service and take advantage.

And lastly, if your waste material can’t be re-used, composted, or recycled, it may just have to go in the trash.  But if composting becomes as exciting for you as it is for me, you could find yourself digging through that trash, making sure all your marvelous kitchen scraps find their rightful resting place, where they can someday become the soil that nourishes the peas and carrots that nourish you. 

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I hope this serves as a helpful introduction to the work of composting.  These tips should be enough to get you started, even if it means simply throwing your scraps in a bucket in the kitchen for the time being.  And please join us for my next post as we discuss in more detail the management and use of compost throughout the gardening cycle.

-Jared

Weekend in the Woods

Posted on November 18th, 2009 by Tonia 4 Comments

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.”
 
-An excerpt from Robert Frost’s poem “After Apple Picking”

I spent this past weekend at my parent’s house in northern Wisconsin.  We cleared their cross-country ski trails of fallen tree branches in preparation for the winter. It felt great to breathe some fresh air and walk in the woods…as much as I love Duluth, I get homesick for the boonies sometimes.

While I was there, my mom was given an enormous basket of apples by some friends. We made an apple-pie and some German Apple Pancakes with them, but there were still apples left after that. My mom showed me how to peel and core the apples using the handy little contraption in the photos below…

PeelerPic

This old-fashioned apple-peeler worked so well!  It sliced the apples into perfect spirals.  We packed the slices into plastic bags, sucked the air out of the bags using straws, and threw them in the freezer where they’ll sit until our next apple-pie craving.

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My parents have a huge garden, which is fed by their huge compost pile.  Composting is something I have not been brave enough to try in the city yet.  I’m afraid it will attract pesky city critters like skunks.  But it is an excellent way to fortify your soil, and composting reduces the amount of waste each of us sends to the landfill.  In fact, up to 30% of the material we send to landfill is organic and could be composted at home.

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…So I returned to Duluth resolving to figure out a way to safely compost in our backyard.  Expect a post about this endeavor in the near future.  And if you have any tips about urban compost piles, please share!

I’ll leave you today with my mom’s German Apple Pancake recipe, which is a great twist on regular old pancakes.  This recipe originally came from The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas, but has been modified over the years by my mom.  Gut essen!

german-apple-pancake[1]

Itty Bird iconGerman Apple Pancake:

Pancake:

3 large eggs

¾ cup milk

¾ cup flour

½ tsp. salt

1 ½ T. butter

½ c. thinly-sliced apples 

Filling:

1 lb. tart, fresh apples

¼ cup melted butter

¼ c. sugar

powdered cinnamon and nutmeg 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450º.  Beat together the eggs, milk, flour and salt until very smooth. Add the thinly-sliced apples. 

In a heavy 12-inch skillet, melt  about 1 ½ T. butter.  As soon as it is quite hot, pour in the batter and put the skillet in the oven.  After 15 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 350º and continue baking for another 10 minutes.  The pancake should be light brown and crisp. 

During the first 10 or 15 minutes of baking, the pancake may puff up in large bubbles.  If it does, pierce it all over with a fork. 

While the pancake is baking prepare the apple filling.  Peel and thinly slice a pound of apples.  Sauté them lightly in a ¼ cup of butter and add ¼  cup sugar.  Season to taste with cinnamon and nutmeg.  Cook about 8 to 10 minutes – the apples should be just tender, not too soft. 

When the pancake is ready, slide it onto a platter, pour the apple filling over one side, and fold the other side over.  (Or, just pour the filling over the top and cut the pancake in wedges to serve.) 

Serve at once, with plenty of warm (real) maple syrup.