Compost Curb Appeal
As with its backyard counterpart, community composting follows the time-honored commandment Thou Shalt Be a Good Neighbor. Although some of us struggle to remember that a heap of rotting kitchen garbage and leaves isn’t inherently beautiful to most people, we do try to take seriously the aesthetic and olfactory concerns of our neighbors. And while our primary beneficiaries are generally microorganisms, earthworms, and soil structural
Save the Dates, Upcoming Events
As we shake of the sluggishness of winter, the Kompost Kids are gearing up for an active spring. Come join us for compost turnings, tabling events, and community outreach. Our sites are thawed out and warming up, and as usual, there’s a lot of maintenance and tidying to do. Four exciting events in April. April 16 – Compost Turning and Education in River West
Home Site Maintenance
Through our network of community compost sites, the Kompost Kids offer a decentralized approach to community composting. We believe our model represents the future of municipal composting, or at least an important piece of the larger fabric of solutions that cities like Milwaukee will embrace to confront the significant economic, environmental, and logistical challenges of progressive waste management. And the Institute for Local Self
Winter Composting in Milwaukee
Temperatures are dropping outside, and we’re doing our best to keep things warm in our piles. Consistent temperatures below freezing, as we experienced last winter, are very tough to fight off in your pile unless you are working at a very large scale. But for most people composting in backyards and community gardens, this time of year is all about season extension, or delaying
November Turnings in River West
As part of our preparation for winter temperatures, we’ll be hosting a series of public turnings and compost education events at our network sites in River West. We’ll be getting things ready for winter, moving compost, helping gardeners winterize their beds, and learning about compost pile maintenance and troubleshooting. We’ve got lots of compost, so bring something to haul it away in and take your
Beware: Coffee Pods Lurking!
Sorry, Keurig converts, but coffee pods are simply no fun in the compost bin, community or otherwise. Thrice in the past several weeks, I’ve pulled a load of single-serving pods out of our contribution bin at the Scooter Foundation at Buffum and Wright and brought them home to harvest the grounds and paper filter and pitch the remnant unsavories, the foil top and plastic
Spring Heat
It’s still pretty chilly in Milwaukee, but things are heating up at our compost sites. All four of our River West sites are back in action, ready for new contributions, and are looking especially good after some spring cleaning. It’s a wonderful thing to behold a once-frozen pile of material having fully thawed out and beginning to reheat as the bacteria rapidly colonize and
Winter Composting
Community composting can be performed all year long, but the hard freezes encountered in colder climates pose special challenges. It may be that winter composting is limited to stockpiling frozen kitchen scraps for later incorporation after spring thaws. Decomposition slows down considerably at the lowest temperatures and may stop completely, but frozen material will “ripen” upon thawing and create more surface area for the
How to Maintain a Compost Site
You will flip your contribution bin or ADD HERE bin (Bin 1) whenever it gets full or at least once per month into your next available bin (Bin 2). You will not add fresh contributions to Bin 2, and you may even post a sign that says “DO NOT ADD” to make it clear for all users. When your ADD HERE bin gets full