Our Third Harvest!

I haven't needed to harvest bin 3 until now but it worked out fine because I was able to confirm a hypothesis of mine. I had put too many leaves in to make sure there would be no odors, and that just made everything decompose slower. So, letting it sit longer, I assumed would produce dark, rich humus unlike what we got from previous harvests. We let the first bin sit for 19 weeks, and the second for 20 weeks, while this one had been sitting for 35 weeks since it was filled. It worked! We got loads of perfect humus.

Also, as you will see in the pictures below, we sifted the compost finer this time, which gave us better final results too.

So, the lesson is put fewer leaves in the mix and you won't have to let the compost sit so long. If you put too many leaves in, then let it sit longer. Simple.

Here are some pictures from today's harvest.

Community Composting One Year On

Our little recycling project has completed its first year of life. It has been the subject of a two-page article in a local newspaper, the topic of a small project for some Master degree students in a local university and the object of two talks to environmental education classes in a local high school. Conversely, it has survived workers stealing the bamboo infraestructure, smear campaigns from neighbors, being associated with an infestation of rats and a long, wet rainy season. After all of this, it seems to be emerging stronger than ever, ready to prosper and grow.

The project languished for about two months when many neighbors associated it with the infestation of rats and as the rains kept the whole place wet and somewhat muddy. During that time, only two families contributed regularly, down from seven during the rest of the year. Then, it occurred to me that instead of fighting their erroneous notion about the rats, it would be better to solve it beyond any doubt and allay their fears.

On the Internet you can find lots of compost projects, but they are all either for one family (in an enclosed bin) or huge, industrial deals inside large areas. Very few are outside, and those are mostly for leaves, cut grass and small branches, with very little kitchen waste. Putting the whole operation within an enclosed area would be too much work and expense. So, I figured that rats only like the fresh stuff and if we could decompose the fresh waste in a closed environment, then they would have no reason to come around. Once it gets hot enough and the waste decomposes beyond recognition, then it can be poured out into the open air bins to be finished.

So, we bought several new garbage bins and drilled holes all around them. The procedure is to fill up one bin with waste and leaves and once it is full (which takes 1 to 3 days), then put the top on it tightly and start filling up the next bin. Once they are all full, then the first one is emptied and it is ready to be filled again. Because there are 7 families participating and we only have 4 bins, each bin stays full for a little over a week until it has to be dumped into the outside compost area. Of course, one week is not quite enough for the kitchen waste to become unrecognizable, so we need more bins. However, during that week, the waste inside each enclosed bin really heats up and the volume is reduced by approximately 30%, so a lot of action takes place in there.

The bins in the back are full and so are waiting their turn to be emptied and filled again.
The grey bin in the foreground is getting filled up.

Here are the 4 spaces for compost.
The second one, where the rake is,  is currently being filled up.

This is how the garden area looks now.

This has convinced some of the sceptical neighbors and they are participating once again! With this resolved, I see no reason the project can’t start growing considerably. For this second year, I would like to double the number of families participating (from 7 to 14) and double the amount of kitchen waste and leaves we recycle this year (from 320 to 640 bins). Further, I would like to consider this as a model method for enclosed housing developments around the city and the country. If this idea comes to fruition, I would like to make an introductory video in Spanish, put it up on youtube, and use it to see if other housing developments would be interested in starting small projects. Of course, this is just an idea, we will have to see how things unfold this coming year.

Soon, I will post news about our third compost harvest, about the little vegetable garden that has been started up with our soil and some amazing statistics that I have been compiling about how much kitchen waste is produced in a typical house around here each week and month.

Our First Harvest!

Aerial view of the project

Lots of exciting things have been happening with our community compost project recently. First among them was that a local newspaper published a two page article about it, detailing how it is a great way to combat contamination and bring neighbors together. I doubt if any of the neighbors read it because very few people read that paper, but I printed a pdf version and spread it around. The neighbors loved it.  Then about a week later, our neighborhood got suddenly invaded by rats, big, ugly ones, and everybody jumped to the conclusion that the compost project was to blame! Never mind that the project has been functioning for six months with nary a rat in site.  A bunch of neighbors went to the housing development administrator and demanded that he take the whole compost project away immediately and so he hired a truck and the project was doomed! I didn’t even find out about this until the truck was already hired! Of course I called him as soon as I found out and explained to him that the sudden invasion was due to a hole the rats had dug under the wall protecting the housing development and that he had better not take the project away without making a bit more inquiry into the matter.  With a little poison the rats disappeared and then I had to win back participants who had jumped ship!

Then a week later we harvested for the first time.  We got 14 bins of sifted dirt from the 84 bins of kitchen waste and leaves that went into this first section of the project, which means that the whole deal was reduced by 83% in the process.  It really puzzled me that there was no humus, no rich, black dirt.  It just looked like a pile of decomposed leaves.  This pile had been sitting for 19 weeks, which seems like it should be enough time for humus to form.  I think that the mix had too many leaves, too much carbon content, which slows its decomposition time.  I admit that I cover the kitchen waste with quite a few leaves every day to make sure the pile is well aerated and clean-smelling. A longer decomposition time is a fair price to pay to make sure the pile smells good. I would not want to give the neighbors any more reasons to complain! In any case, I will try to reduce the waste - leaves ratio as much as possible to get some humus for the next harvest.



When we harvested, we took the dirt around to the participants and gave each one a full bin or two for their potted plants or ornament garden.  They loved it and could not believe that their kitchen waste had transformed so much.  We even gave some to the lady who led the commission to denounce and eliminate the project, and she gladly accepted it! The whole neighborhood was outside painting the curbs and the driveways, so we really got some positive public relations in right when we needed it most. I hope this will encourage more people to participate.

The next harvest will be put into starting a small community garden, and I am sure that will get more people involved too. So far we have recycled 282 bins of kitchen waste and leaves, which seems like a good start.