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My Compost Bin And I
John writes "There they were, staring at me with a last glimmer of hope. I tried to turn to avoid the cries of help they echoed, but they were too much for me to bare. Minutes later, with an insight of knowledge, I quickly devised a plan to rescue these dying souls. And out of the bitter remains I found around my place of refuge, I constructed a home for them - somewhere where they could be in peace - a compost bin. The vegetable scraps rejoiced! Their time of suffering was no longer, for my divine plan had taken effect. "
What a bunch of rubbish. I cannot believe /. would post this pile of rotting crapola.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
People have been building compost heaps for years and years and years. How exactly is this news? Oh!!! I think I got it! A geek who went outside!
"Minutes later, with an insight of knowledge, I quickly devised a plan to rescue these dying souls. And out of the bitter remains I found around my place of refuge, I constructed a home for them -"
Anybody else read that expecting to hear "And then I rolled a three..."?
Lisa: My name's Lisa Simpson. I think your protest was incredibly brave. ... I started an organic compost pile at home.
Jesse: Thank you. This planet needs every friend it can get.
Lisa: Oh, the earth is the best! That's why I'm a vegetarian.
Jesse: Heh. Well, that's a start.
Lisa: Uh, well, I was thinking of going vegan.
Jesse: [chuckles] I'm a level 5 vegan -- I won't eat anything that casts a
shadow.
Lisa: Wow. Um
Jesse: Only at home? You mean you don't pocket-mulch? [takes out pocket
stuff for Lisa to feel]
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
... really makes a case for moderation of articles, and not just comments.
zing
I recently bought a house. One of the first things I did was build a compost bin and buy a greencone. Between that and recycling, I have very little garbage each week. Another benefit is no smelly garbage in the house since everything that rots or decomposes goes in either the green cone or the compost.
I am currently taking a class on Sustainable Resource Sciences. Last week we had a lecture on composting. I can't believe that people pay the city to take their yard waste away, and then pay someone else money to buy soil amendments for their garden.
Here are some other links my professor provided:
http://compostingcouncil.org/
http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/
Or here is the lecture in pdf format
In the article, the author mentions that "Four upside down pot plants." help with circulation. I don't know about him, but four pot plants, upside down or otherwise, don't help me with circulation... they knock me on my ass.
Oh yeah, standard designs all have drainage, and most are made to work indoors (low/no stink, if done properly). Just check out a link or two.
I've never quite understood what the purpose of a compost pile is. I'm vaguely aware of the organic matter in the pile decaying, and large piles can get rather warm (a big enough pile may burst into flame, or so I've heard). But, uh... why are we making compost piles, exactly?
Oh, yeah, and add me to the growing list of people who vote this article Least. Relevant. Slashdot. Article. Ever.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
What is this I see?? An article on Slashdot that's *NOT* about Evil Microsoft or the Evil government? Be still my beatign heart! Is this an acknowledgement that there are geeks that don't just sit around and write angry letters to senator's junk mail boxes about the evils or Microsoft and the lack of privacy while waiting for the last hour's version of Mozilla to compile on a Gentoo box used to play Quake 3? Dear God! I am *so* impressed. As a part time biology geek, I was fucking thrilled to see this post. Keep it up. There's more to true geekiness than OSS and boring anti-privacy law garbage.
Cuba is about to start the nation's first-ever sugar cane harvest in which a sugar mill will not make SUGAR, but instead will be generating electricity from the biomass.
wellllll....let's take a look at the old faq:
Slashdot is many things to many people. Some people think it's a Linux site. To others, it's a geek hangout. I've always worked very hard to make sure that Slashdot matches up with my interests and the interests of my authors. We think we're pretty typical Slashdot readers... but that does mean that occasionally one of us might post something that you think is inappropriate.
That's why.
Sent from your iPad.
It's in my sink. I use a stack of dirty dishes to protect it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Slashdotted already. :-)
Glad the guy is composting, but--for whatever a gardening discussion is worth on a tech site--I don't think he's got enough air circulation going on.
The holes look too small. He also doesn't discuss how he's going to turn the pile, which is real important in closed compost bins.No oxygen equals stinky sludge. Mmmm...nummy!
The simplest (and one of the most effective) compost heap is just a big ole pile laying directly on the ground. Put a bit of carpet remnant on the top to hold moisture, and you're golden. Piles can be made neater with a bit of chicken wire and some supports. Real low-tech stuff.
Here's a link to all things rotten:
http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/
Twinkies don't compost, by the way. Something my kids discovered.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
A poem by Walt Whitman, innocently entitled "This Compost" (http://www.riles.org/compost.htm), reveals all there is to know about compost. On the earth beneath our feet he asks where all the rotting corpses have gone and how such sweet things like blackberries and apples can grow "out of such corruptions". But read it for yourself and behold the awe and mystery of the grand design. When looked at it this way, each of us becomes fodder for something else!
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
1) Who cares about the compost getting wet when it rains? So long as the drainage is fairly good, a bit of rain won't hurt.
2) It looks like it is sitting in the sun. That's going to really stink in the summer. Instead of being a nice place friendly mold/fungi/insects to hang out, it is just going to attact wasps and roaches in the summer.
3) How do the worms get in? Worms really help to make good compost. They mix it around, while eating much nasty bacteria.
Not that I'm an expert in composting or anything. He should have just cut a couple of 6 inch holes in the bottom of his box and sat it on some soil.
A neighbor I once had composted all their kitchen scraps in our shared back yard and there I learned that not all things rot well. It stank, but that was the least of it's problems. The pile fed rats and scattered the mess all over. I was not happy to think of the backyard as a magnet for flea bearing pests and kept the cats inside. Cats that got out got fleas and had to be treated. Fleas are a serious health hazard. The raccoons I feed don't seem to give me the same problems.
Other nasties can flourish in your obstensibly friendly compost heap. Crop pests have been known to winter in compost heaps outside processing plants. Pests like potato weavils can decimate crops and require extensive use of pesticides if they are not all eliminated from a given region. While the chances of such pests wintering in your pile may be remote, you might not want to make that pile if you don't know how to recognize the pests. Molds and blights that might have slipped past customs can also take up residence in your given area if you simply throw your wastes out on the ground to rot. Whole regions of Florida have been ruined by citrus blight.
The landfill is a good place for food wastes. Sanitary landfills are called that because they get sealed up. Clay lined and capped, stuff goes in and does not come out. It's one place I don't mind food wastes becoming black gold.
According to the cited article, food wastes make up 10% of the waste stream on average but they can represent much less than that. I hate putting food wastes into the trash, so I try to eat everything. Carcases become stocks, leftovers are frozen in meal size portions, Jambalya, pasta and tacos eat all the spare meat. It's not that hard to do. Modern food processing assures that most food mass is used.
Want great soil? By all means, composte your lawn clippings, the leaves you rake and other stuff that naturally hits the ground. Oak leaves are some of the best and you can find wonderful soil in gutters where people are sloppy about raking their yards. If you must tread into the wild world of rotten food, please watch your pile and try not to obnox your neighbors.
I don't have much garbage either.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.