Composting for lazybones: you’ve already done it, and the town has too
David Rambo in his office on Hunts Lane
March 28, 2008
by Christine Yeres
You may not know it, but you’ve been doing exactly the right thing by not disturbing last fall’s piles of leaves. If you want to see the results of the composting that’s been happening all winter under your benign neglect, scratch down now below the leaves and see the rich, black soil that’s waiting.
How clever you were to leave the piles undisturbed until now. Although your spring-summer-and-autumn compost pile will benefit from regular tossing, advised David Rambo, New Castle’s assistant commissioner of public works, “stirring it in winter would have exposed hard-working insects and bacteria to cold that could kill them.”
A master gardener himself, Rambo is committed to composting. “First, it’s weight we don’t have to pay to have carted away,” he pointed out. “Second, why put it into the waste stream when it can benefit our plants and gardens? Plus, once it’s in a landfill, it’s not getting air. So although it will decompose eventually, it will do so much more slowly.”
Perfect time to make the move
If you want to make the move from passive to active composting now, start with a new, or existing, pile of leaves at the edge or back of your property. You don’t even need a cage or box, although it will delineate where the pile is and make it easier for air to enter.
Once you begin to weed and cut your lawn, you can add grass clippings and weeds to this pile. You can make this an “everything” compost pile, adding organic kitchen waste as well (never meat, bones or grease). But if you fear feasting fauna, compost kitchen waste separately. See Shobha Vanchiswar’s “In the Garden” column this week to read what she does with kitchen waste http://www.newcastlenow.org/index.php/article/in_the_garden_with_shobha_vanchiswar22/Black Gold in Your Garden.
Call on your helpers: feed the pet, feed the compost pile
“We all live busy lives,” acknowledged Rambo. “We take kids places, to baseball and soccer practices, but this is something really important that kids can get involved in. They can take the garbage out, they can take the recycling material out and feed the compost pile as well.”
New Castle’s own vintage, in big amounts at a great price
The town offers residents its own, rich black home-cured compost as well as golden mulch (on its way to becoming next year’s compost). Already a steady stream of residents who value the water-retaining, nutrient-delivering, weed-discouraging properties of a generous layer of compost in garden beds and around shrubs and trees are visiting the town’s Recycling Center on Hunts Lane, check book in hand, to order compost or mulch delivered to their homes. The compost and mulch cost $20, the cost of delivery is $40. So that you know how big a delivery you’re getting, check out the Center’s photos (below) that show what four or five cubic yards of mulch or compost look like.
Cobb Stewart reserves her mulch at the town’s Recycle Center with Bart Carey
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