Journey to a Green Sanctuary ~ August 2022

From Mary Delbecq, UUCGV Green Team Member        
 
Some Notes from the “Compost Lady”

Do you compost your yard waste or food waste? In 2019 when the UUCGV Green Team surveyed folks at church, 40% were composting regularly, 12% occasionally, 10% wanted to and 36% were not composting at all. The national average for home owners composting yard and food waste is about  28% so it was good to see we were above average.
Here in Mesa County we can drop off our yard waste which I prefer to call yard trimmings at the county's composting facility at no charge. We also have leaves picked up in the fall and taken to the compost facility. Mesa County uses the the finished compost around the valley and also sells it to residents. Presently there is no place to take our home food waste so it all just goes into the land fill as garbage if you are not composting at home. You may think, the yard trimmings and food waste that goes into the landfill is no problem because “doesn't it just decay like it does in the compost area?” but the answer is NO. It breaks down anaerobically in the landfill  and releases methane into the air. Methane is a powerful green house gas contributing to climate change. Also in the landfill, the yard trimmings and food waste cannot release nutrients back into the soil. Composting yard trimmings and food waste is an aerobic process of decay that does not produce methane and recycles nutrients back into the soil. Compost is a valuable soil amendment that helps soil hold water and increases the activity of beneficial soil organisms. Gardeners have nicknamed it “Black Gold”.
For the past 3 years I have been representing the UUCGV Green Team volunteering at the Library's Discovery Garden as their “Compost Lady” a title I have come to enjoy!  Cheryl Roberts, my husband Eric and I constructed the gardens compost bins out of wooden pallets(non chemically treated) and surrounded them with burlap to help retain moisture.  I turn all the leftover and rotten produce from Tuesdays Mutual Aid  Food Distribution and all the Library's coffee grounds  into compost. It averages about 5 pounds of food waste per week in the winter and 15 pounds of food waste per week the other seasons. That's about 500 pounds of food waste per year that stays out of Mesa County's landfill and turns into “Black Gold”. It's  used throughout the garden and makes the flowers and vegetables grow and makes me very happy!  In the fall when the garden is cleaned up for the winter, additional compost bins are filled and when the 6 bins reach capacity the rest is hauled off to Mesa County's composting facility.
I will share my process with you in case you want to give it a try in your own back yard. It's simply Chop, Mix, Layer and Moisten.
Chop: Eric has sharpened the edge of my shovel so I can chop up all the food left for me into about 1-2 inch pieces. This is a fun work out and so far I haven't chopped off a toe. This step is not absolutely required but smaller pieces break down much quicker. Your home food waste can be easily chopped on your cutting board before adding to to your compost pile.
Mix: Here is where the magic starts to happen. I add dried leaves on top of the food mash and mix it up a bit and shovel it onto the compost pile. You need to get the Nitrogen (Green Stuff-fresh garden trimmings and produce) and the Carbon (Brown stuff-dried leaves and chopped branches) mixed together in a ratio of about 1 part Nitrogen to 3 parts Carbon. I just do it by volume, so for every shovelful of  Green Stuff I add on 3 shovelfuls of Brown Stuff.  I will spare you the science of decomposition and just tell you that this ratio keeps the microorganisms that are breaking every thing down very well fed and active. Your compost should have NO odor just an earthy smell. If it starts to smell like garbage you need more Brown stuff mixed in.
Layer: I layer the new stuff right on top of the old stuff week after week and every so often about once a month in the summer I get a real work out when I turn the compost . I shovel the new top stuff to the side and bring up the old bottom stuff. This provides good aeration and supplies oxygen to the microorganisms.  It also is the time you get to meet the macro organisms living in your compost pile that have been busily eating and breaking down the organic matter. My favorite are the Sow bugs and Pillbugs. The kids call them roly-polies because they call roll up into a ball when you pick them up. They are not really bugs but are soil dwelling crustaceans that breath through gills on their abdomen and have been nick named “wood shrimp”.
Moisten: Since we live in such a dry climate I give the compost pile a good water mist between layers. Without adding water the microorganisms will all die off and the whole process will come to a stand still. I aim to have the center of the pile a little damp to the touch. It takes about 3-4 months for everything to be decomposed and then the compost is ready to be used as mulch or mixed into the soil.
If all this sounds like too much work for you  perhaps you could invest in a tumbling composter for your backyard .  These enclosed plastic bins are easy to fill and tumble. They handle kitchen food wastes and small amounts of yard trimmings. You still need to manage the Nitrogen:Carbon ratio so you will need to keep a pile of dry leaves handy. The hard part is removing the finished compost so make sure to get one with a big side door.
It's good to know what not to put in your home compost pile: milk products, meat scrapes, dog or cat feces, weeds that have seeds on them and vegetation that has been sprayed with weed killers should not go in your compost pile.
Happy Composting!
Mary Delbecq