Yes in My Backyard
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The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
The great turning There is both fear and mystique surrounding the turning of compost piles. Many people never turn their compost, but there are benefits to turning that are worth the effort. Turning our compost gives three distinct benefits; aerating the whole pile, blending the different layers of ingredients and seeing what is happening right…
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The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
Carbon cap and store There is a little trick you can do every time you add ingredients to your compost pile that can really improve how well it works. Cap your compost with carbon. Now, this might sound like something from the Kyoto Protocol that governments couldn’t get international agreement on, but it is much…
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The Compost Conversation – with Joel meadows
The good, the bad and the beautiful In my work as a compost educator and volunteer on the YIMBY* team, I have stuck my nose into quite a few compost piles, and I can tell you that not all compost piles smell the same. So why is it that some compost piles stink to high…
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The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
When I go out door-knocking with our YIMBY* composters, looking for households to offer us weekly buckets of food scraps, I am amazed by how many people in our area say they are already composting. As someone who is fascinated with compost, one part of me wants to jump for joy, the other part wants…
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Feeling the heat?
It can be hard to stay warm during these winter months, and let’s face it, it can be hard to make it out to the garden, where everything is cold, and it’s been oh so wet! Thank goodness for microbes, who, given the right conditions, keep reproducing, creating heat, and breaking down our discarded food…
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YIMBY compost hubs expanding
YIMBY is set to expand access to backyard compost hubs in Castlemaine after a very enthusiastic response to a call for new composters earlier this year. Having completed an intensive advanced composting workshop with YIMBY educators, Mikaela Beckley, Joel Meadows and Nico Pye, the new team is ready to make some great compost, from your…
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Art under the microscope
Lisa DennisAs part of the Castlemaine Fringe Festival’s ‘Art Window Trail’, passionate local backyard composter Mikaela Beckley has created an art installation that celebrates microbes and the Yes in My Backyard community compost initiative. The artwork on ‘The Hub’ Building in Barker Street incorporates paper mache, recyclable materials and a video presentation and celebrates the…
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Breaking down compost
Lucy Young for The Hub Foundation This month YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) hosted an enthusiastic group of composters at an advanced composting workshop. We got down and dirty, hands in buckets of ‘ingredients’ for a balanced compost, and our noses being used as finely balanced instruments to analyse the quality of finished compost. As…
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Collaboration for change
Mount Alexander Shire residents plan to reframe and refocus their efforts to address climate change through the launch of an innovative new project – the Wararack Initiatives. Launched at Victory Park last Thursday, the Wararack Initiatives will see council and the community work collaboratively on a 10-year Community Transition Plan addressing climate adaptation, cultural renewal…
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Excited about compost?
YIMBY is calling for experienced and enthusiastic composters to come on board and join The YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) team. They’ve been busy behind the scene since receiving funding to roll out phase two of the YIMBY composting trial across Mount Alexander Shire. “This is an exciting milestone towards creating a truly local system…
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Yes in my backyard
A trial neighbourhood solution to reducing organics in landfill will be expanded thanks to a $60,000 grant from the Victorian Government’s Recycling Communities Fund.The YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) model, run by The Hub Foundation in Castlemaine, aims to connect people through small hubs, nurtured by a small team of community composters. The community composters…