More
Preposterously Named Composters
Green
Johanna Hot Komposter – A Swedish contraption that
generates high internal temperatures that decompose meat,
bone and dairy—usually verboten in backyard compost.
One selling point is its locking mechanism, which “helps
keep… children out” of the rotting meat. Johanna is
making a tactical blunder, though. It doesn’t take
a genius to realize that she should emphasize Swedish and
Hot, and drop the Green Komposter from the title.
Worm-A-Roo
Vermiculture Factory – What segment of the population
are they trying to appeal to with “Worm-A-Roo?” A.
A. Milne readers? Kids of Australian expatriates?
The
Volcano System – Fondly known as “The Disintegrator,”
the Volcano System claims to handle meat and pet waste,
which sounds like a recipe for disaster, as it basically
is just a 3 ½ foot tall plastic cylinder.
Wriggly
Ranch, Worm Condo, Worm Bungalow, The Worm Chalet
– Four names for the same concept: plastic containers
that hold worms.
Brave
New Composter – Not sure what this has to do with
Huxley’s satire of H. G. Wells, but any product that relies
on your own recycled milk jugs for structural support—I’m
not making this up—is dubious.
The Swag Hanging Outdoor Worm System – This isn’t
the type of swag that most people dream of. Cate to
Leo after opening her swag at the Oscars: “It holds
20,000 red worms. Gorgeous!”
Tumbleweed
Pet Poo Converter – Here’s an enviable bit of marketing
copy: “Now, instead of throwing the crap down the
toilet, in the trash or into the neighbor's yard, you can
help eliminate part of your waste stream by using the power
of composting redworms to do the dirty work for you.”
Also on the market: The Doggie Dooley Pet
Waste Digester. If I ever have the misfortune
of knowing someone who owns one of these, please let it
be someone who reads the instructions, or failing that,
at least has the sense not to put the compost on the leeks
or leafy vegetables.
Playing
Loose With the Puns
Resigned to an online purchase, I decided to forgo the crazy
names at Composter.com and buy a low-tech composter subsidized
by the city of Oakland. I ended up with a big plastic
cylinder, but at least it was cheap. I was a little
disappointed when I pulled it out of the box and it was
already muddy, but what do you expect for $30? As
a bonus, it included a How-To video, called “Do the Rot
Thing.” It’s not quite the polemic that the Spike
Lee classic is, but it does seem to deal in racial stereotyping.
Why, I ask, is the white guy the expert composter, who turned
his pile into humus in only three weeks, while the Latino
and Asian families took three months to finish theirs?
Did the video need to show the Latino family eating salsa
and the Asian woman chopping her yard waste with a cleaver?
Worst of all, the head of the African-American family was
a single mother who didn’t even have a compost bin and had
to put her yard trimmings in a chicken-wire hoop.
It took her compost nine months to fully decay. If
this video was produced in a less diverse locale it might
raise some eyebrows, but it was filmed in the hometown of
the Black Panther Party. By the way, if you have any
more questions after watching the video, the host invites
you to call the Rotline. Oh, composters, how we do
like our puns!
Minor complaints aside, “Do the Rot Thing” was very helpful,
describing the optimal mix of air, water, nitrogen-rich
and carbon-rich materials that need to be present for the
inner temperature to reach the high level necessary for
fast decomposition. Here are the composting basics:
-
The compost must be moist “like a wrung out sponge.”
-
The pile needs oxygen, so frequent turning is necessary.
-
Half the contents should be nitrogen-rich “Greens”—grass
clippings, fruit, vegetables, egg shells, pine
needles, coffee grounds. The other half should be
carbon-rich “Browns”—leaves, vines, wood chips,
bread.
-
No diseased plants, weeds, dairy or meat. NEVER
USE DOG, CAT OR HUMAN WASTE.
-
Cut everything that goes into the bin into tiny pieces.
Small bits decompose fast, big chunks slowly.
-
If the pile isn’t decaying quickly, add more Greens and
turn it. If it stinks, cover stench with a layer
of Browns.
Thinking
that this seemed pretty clear, I combed our yard for waste.
Unfortunately, in my zeal I neglected the weed interdiction
because our lawn is nothing more than a patchwork of different
grass-like weeds.
Soon, I also began to question the nature of “Greenness”
and “Brownness.” Sure, grass is green, but egg shells,
pine needles and coffee? All of our leaves were still
green—at what point do they become a Brown? Are leafy
vegetables Greens or are they vegetablesque Browns?
A call to the Rotline would clear this up, but I don’t like
to talk on the phone, so I decided to learn by trial and
error.
A
certifiable error occurred a week later when I turned the
pile without wearing a nose clip. “Good God!”, I gasped,
memories of the dead rat in my bedroom wall streaming back
to me. Smell is a fantastic conduit for memory.
I staggered upwind and when the shock had passed, I gathered
up an armful of leaves and jogged back to the bin, holding
my breath. Not taking any chances, I slammed the leaves
onto the pile and sprinted around the corner before the
odor could get me a second time. Thankfully, “Do the
Rot Thing” was right—a layer of leaves masks smells marvelously,
reducing the vicinity of the bin from “dead-rat horrific”
to a mere “dookie-foot stinky.”
Looking Forward to Life in the Hot Zone
For
Christmas, my friend Beth gave me a great and thoughtful
present: a compost thermometer. Her mother is
an expert composter, whose pile gets enviously hot, so we’ve
had a few discussions about composting in the past.
The best composting results occur in what the brochure that
came with the thermometer calls “The Hot Zone.” At
130 to 160 degrees, the microorganisms go wild—sometimes
generating so much heat that they can catch a dry pile on
fire. Back in the BCE, that’s got to have beaten the
heck out of all that flint striking and stick rubbing nonsense.
Until
I improve my skills, the Hot Zone is out of my reach, but
there’s still the “Active Zone” at 100-130 or, failing that,
the “Steady Zone” between 80-100. Earlier in the winter,
I’d noticed a little steam coming out of the compost and
I could feel a little warmth on the sides of the plastic
bin, so I was pretty excited to learn which it would be,
Active or Steady. I had a hunch my pile was just Steady,
but I held out hope for the higher levels.
I
couldn’t believe the results. If I hadn’t tested the
thermometer before I stuck it into the pile, I would have
returned it, knowing it was broken. Fifty-nine degrees!
59! It was fifty-five outside. I couldn’t do
better than four degrees?
Measures
Must Be Taken
One
of the keys to efficient composting is a multi-bin rotation
system. If you keep putting new waste into a composter,
it’ll take forever to finish breaking everything down, so
Master Gardeners generally have several compost piles in
various states of decay. I decided, therefore, that
if I ever was going to break sixty, let alone reach the
Active Zone, I needed a second composter. This left
me with a dilemma because our yard doesn’t have room for
too many large composters. There are plenty of expensive
small plastic ones on the market, but I’ve converted from
my early days when I ogled the $150 models. I’m now
in the “$150 for a plastic tub?” school of thought, so I
bought a $17 trash can with a locking lid and drilled a
bunch of composter-like holes in the top, bottom and sides.
After
a week, this second compost pile—comprised of the most decayed
contents of my primary bin—languishes in the high fifties
and I’m getting frustrated. During a recent hot spell,
both piles were actually cooler than ambient temperature.
My last, best hope comes in pellet or liquid form:
composting enzymes. Allegedly, they can jumpstart
your compost, giving it the pep needed to reach the Hot
Zone. But can you really call yourself an organic
gardener if you need to sprinkle chemicals into your compost
heap? Maybe not, but you’re not an organic gardener
if your compost can’t crack sixty degrees. As soon
as I get the opportunity, I’m buying the chemicals.
Copyright,
Jeff Lewis, 2005.
Jeff
can be reached at jeff@babblog.com. |
