Our first co-sponsored event! Composting 101 with Mike
On Thursday evening, May 27th, we gathered behind the library for our first Climate Smart Community co-sponsored event. Farmer and former college-level biology teacher Mike Cotrone of Bonhomie Farm gave us residents the essentials in backyard composting.
Personally, I have read a ton on both the importance of and methods for composting over the years. And yet, the idea of turning my backyard food scrap pile into beautiful compost still felt intimidating and, frankly, just too much work. However, Mike’s practical guidance during the workshop got me pumped to finally confront my neglected food scrap pile. I went straight home and gave it a couple of jabs with the pitchfork and realized, to my pleasant surprise, that it was in much better shape than I anticipated. There was nothing to be scared of; just do the following three steps.
Three Essential Steps for producing compost:
Shoot for the right ratio of browns to greens in your pile. The ideal ratio would be 30 to 1, but you can get away with as low as 5 to 1 browns to greens.
Turn your compost 1/week with a shovel or pitchfork.
Keep your compost as moist as a wrung-out sponge… so water it like you’d water your plants in dry times.
Beginner composters may want to stay away from adding meat and cheese to avoid introducing harmful bacteria. To check the health of your compost, you can take its temperature. You want it somewhere between 120-170 degrees inside of the pile.
For me, the hot tip takeaway was to keep paper and cardboard on hand to shred up to add to my pile in the case that I have too many greens. You can also even add soil as a “brown” if need be.
You can find Mike at the Hudson Farmers Market on Saturdays or at Bonhomie Farm right here in Germantown. The library will be planning a tour of his operation later this Summer so stay tuned!