The reasons are as follows: Peat extraction from the earth causes a tremendous amount of co2 to be released into the atmosphere. “Around half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted each year as a result of peat extraction from UK sites for horticultural use.” (source) And that’s just in the UK! “The destruction of peat bogs in Indonesia, partly to grow supposedly “green” bio-fuels, releases more carbon dioxide every year than all of India or Russia, and three times as much as Germany.” (source)

Another major reason is that peat-bogs are an ecosystem that is slowly being destroyed due to our harvesting. Many birds and wildlife live in these areas that after harvested turn into wastelands. This is causing a growing number of endangered species and turning these thriving locations into wastelands.

Peat moss is a non-renewable resource, and we know how we feel about those :)

Some alternatives: Leaf mould, when it’s old and falling apart, is a perfect alternatve, although do not use evergreen needles. Tree bark that has been shredded down. Look at your local urban gardener/farmer store for some peat-free alternatives, there are plenty of products out there.

Remember, peat is used to help aerate and retain moisture without need or worry of pesticides. It’s used to pot plants, as a mulch for garden beds, and to help seedlings grow. You can blend compost with many things to recreate these solutions

They’re everywhere I know. You start with an acceptably clean and organized kitchen…used-looking like a good kitchen should be. After cooking one evening you leave a heaping mound of sweet dumpling squash peelings, onion skins, and purslane ends topped over with some steaming decaf coffee grounds scooped from the french press with a rubber spatula. And now miraculously fruit flies evolved from a mold spore in your bathroom and they have created a Utopian society in your most sacred place.

Dealing with them must be done qiuckly and efficiently! First off, dead fruit out, clean the kitchen once again, and check for stale plant water in your vases and other areas that might have still water. Defenses laid let’s tackle the compost.

Lid your compost. Fruit flies are tiny and can get through tiny holes, they’d have to get into that compost somehow, don’t give them any openings.

Setup traps. After clearing out the causes we need to eliminate the issue. I am into animal rights as much as the next gentleman but for one reason or another fruit flies don’t fall into my pity category. The best way is to drown them. They can sense smell and like damp things (ie. fruit gone bad) so let’s recreate that where they enter through a tiny opening and lured into deathly liquid where it’s difficult to escape:

1. Bottle of Wine, 1/10 left of bottle left out, uncorked
2. Rice Vinegar, pour some into an old wine bottle and let sit out

Now that we’ve got the traps set it’s purely a waiting game. The first night should be the true difference but it may take a few days to finish the issue. It feels good to breath again (without the added protein.)

Alternate strategy #1: Vacuum.
Alternate strategy #2: Venus fly trap. (the family with multiple heads)
Alternate strategy #3: …spider web?

Gives nearest grocery stores, coffee shops, movie theatres, restaurants etc… How well do you score for being able to do everything you want without hopping in your car? Find o

“There has been a bit of a stall due to cold weather the last week or so. I went to add green material yesterday and change buckets, but everything was frozen. Good thing I haven’t bought the worms yet. For brown material I used the shredded paper from my document shredder after doing some research into whether or not it was a good source. Turns out that it is, and I have an abundance of paper shreddings. To turn the bucket once a week, I just dump one into the other. I’ve been doing it after carrying a batch of green material out in the small plastic ice cream bucket I keep on the kitchen counter for food scraps. It serves as a scoop to help transfer material from one bucket to the other.

The buckets are white, but I just painted them black to help them absorb the sun’s heat the compost and cause it to break down more quickly. Sadly, I am running out of room already! I hope the warm weather we are getting now will cause the process to move faster. I would hate to have to dump my green material back into the garbage bin.”

I let her know that running out of room is one of the number one concerns of the Simple Style Composter. Once you fill up one of the buckets you are down to just one bucket without being able to turn it unless of course you go with a third bucket. Time to become friends with a gardener and share your bounty for barter! Also it is a good time to start looking at worms a secondary output for your kitchen scraps. It’s always good to have your buckets for easy drop off access and any composting experimentation you can think of. Not to mention how nice they are to keep your worms safe over the winter!

paraphrased from: earthfriendly.com

When it’s just 4 digits they are conventionally grown. When it’s 5 digits and starts with a 9 they are organically grown. When it has a 5 digit code and starts with an 8 – genetically modified.

So they’re on every piece of produce, and those happen to be some super compostable household items. I know I’ve thrown countless stickers into my compost bin, but I’ve also seen those countless stickers in what would be brown composted material. Why aren’t they breaking down?

Half of the PLU stickers in the US come from the same company. When asked about the material components of those stickers they are a “water-resistant polyethylene” aka, not compostable.

My suggestion, peel ‘em off and throw ‘em away. Or else you’ll be picking them out of your compost so you can have pretty garden soil. Worms won’t touch them too, but they won’t hurt them either. So it comes down to an appeal question, do you care about little red yellow glossy stickers in your garden?

Some of you may have noticed talk of Carbon Nitrogen (C/N) ratios being thrown around like it’s going out of style in the world of compost. But what’s it all about? Is it even important? If so, how can I use it to my advantage? Well look no further.

All organic material and otherwise have a defined C/N ratio. This is pointing to whether a specific item is high in carbon or high in nitrogen. When an item is considered to be high in carbon it is also considered to be “brown.” And likewise, when high in nitrogen the item is considered to be “green.” Simple enough.

Next step here is to figure out what a C/N ratio is and what numbers mean it’s high in carbon or high in nitrogren. Let’s take a tomato vs. a nut shell for our example. Tomatoes have on average a C\N ratio of 15. Meaning for every 15 parts of carbon there is 1 part nitrogen. Seems high right? Well a nut shell has a C\N ratio of 60. So the carbon:nitrogen is 60:1. So yes, even the materials high in nitrogen have a much higher carbon component than nitrogen.

So where is the line between Green and Brown? I’ve read on some sources that 30 is the line, and I’ve read some places that say 25. So we’re going to say between 25-30 is considered ‘Neutral’. Below 25 is considered ‘Green’ and Above 30 is ‘Brown’. And what you’re looking to do is have your compost in the bin in the neutral line. So you’re in a constant game to keep the two amounts even.

The big question here is “how am I supposed to know what the C/N ratio is of any particular item?” Well, other than taking it to a Soil Nutrient Analysis Laboratory you can take advantage of the leg work I’ve done in the “What to compost” section of the website. Which I have gotten from various sources including this one. If anyone else reading has some more resources for more c\n numbers please comment them below!

Now does anyone really expect you to do this C/N thing perfectly and have the perfect neutral mix of your compost? No! I’m certain I don’t have it down. In fact it’s kind of confusing and I feel like I have way too much carbon most of the time and still want to add more paper to soak up some of the moisture! The key is to keep in mind what you typically compost, and think of it by weight knowing that the greens are probably going to weigh a lot due to water saturation. Add some dead things or shredded up stuff to help keep the ratio and suck up the smells and you’re good to go :)

Luckily there is a farm next door that I plan on going to to see if they have extra chicken wire to setup a nice outdoor freestanding compost setup. Maybe even some chicken poop to get it started!! I’ll pick up some free range organic eggs while I’m out it. Since I’m interested in setting up my own chicken system within the coming years I’m sure I’ll be fascinated enough with it to do a photo blog of my time over there for all my beloved readers.

One big reminder of the importance of a composting system here is the septic system. This means no garbage disposal, and thus a massive amount of loose organic material just asking to be composted! I’ll feed them to my worms for the time being but space is running out!

You may have heard that there is a known lack of calcium within our soils causing our plants to suffer from a sort of calcium deficiency. In fact some fertilizers with a more than healthy dosage of potassium or nitrogen can be the causers of this issue.

So what do you do? Why you create the Egg-Shell Calcium Enrichment Treatment! ESCET! Or ‘escet’ if you prefer.

Now instead of throwing away or doing the normal composting with your egg shells, let’s try out a new technique. Have a small jar or ceramic container to place your egg shells (preferably washed, but not mandatory) then use an unobtrusive beating tool to smash down the egg shells into tiny bits on the bottom. My beating tool is a bottle opener.

ESCET

This way they will be compacted allowing for more room, as well as 1 step closer to becoming paste. When you are about half full with your container or at a level where you feel it sufficient we will commence with our finishing grind of the egg shells. This is best done in a style similar to grinding corn meal from corn kernels. But being that I’ve never done such a thing I will probably just put it in a big ceramic bowl, take the back-end of some tool I have and go to town. I will then dilute the paste into my watering vase and further the lives and lusciousness of my beautiful plants!

My ESCET Container sits proudly on top of my oven where I won't forget :)

For urban composters such as myself this technique is perfect because I can still compost, creating something wortwhile, while not having to worry about my space requirements, smell, or putting something outside when it may be freezing!

Another worthwhile benefit to note is that worm don’t enjoy feeding on half-broken egg shells in their bin. They much prefer things broken down before inhaling them. SO, use this technique for all of your egg shells and then add some to your worms with some water later in the month, they’ll thank you for it.

But then it got warmer! As it often does here in Denver, popping into the 60s! So I decided to dig around in the ‘ol bin and see if I could spot any live ones or if they were all sadly composting themselves into the dirt they so long to make. To my surprise I was able to find about 11 thick and juicy guys right on the top stack of the bins and now I have them saved in a 5 gallon bucket in the closet until the spring arrives again. Of course I filled up the bucket with some things for them to work on in the time being.

Do not underestimate the power of the red worm! They are a lot more complex than you think! See visual:

So the name is still up in the air on the new mascot, and anyone out there reading this blog PLEASE HELP. The options are: Wormy the Worm, or Reggie. Please let me know!

I’m thinking about adding him to numerous other sections of the website to help move people in the right direction. Let me know what you think! Thanks