YIMBY composters
-
The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
Pre-soaking for happy summer compost Now that the weather is getting warmer, our compost piles can start to suffer from drying out too much. Letting our compost piles dry out will force our compost microbes to go into a dormant mode, protecting themselves from the dry with an impervious layer and taking a break from…
-
The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
Chop till you drop? Imagine what it might be like being a helpful microbe in a compost pile, building the proteins of your body from nitrogen-rich food scraps, getting energy for your work from the carbon-rich additions in the pile and all the while swimming on the film of moisture around these materials, breathing in…
-
The Compost Conversation – with Mikaela Beckley
Layer your compost like a lasagne! Regardless of whether you are cold composting, hot composting, or somewhere in between, paying attention to your layering technique will help your compost microbes stay alive, and thrive! Picture a delicious piece of lasagne. Each layer spread evenly across the surface, thin enough for just a hint of the…
-
The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
A tree stole my compost! Does your compost pile never seem to fill up, always seems dry and powdery and no matter how many kitchen scraps and garden prunings you put in it, never seems to be rich or crumbly? It could be that a tree is stealing your compost. Now, don’t write me off…
-
The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
Is your cool compost… cool?Most backyard compost piles are cool, which means they don’t achieve consistent temperatures over 55 degrees Celsius for three days or more. They can still make good compost if we follow a few simple rules. The lower temperatures of cool compost mean we can’t trust the heat of our pile to…
-
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…
-
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…
-
The Compost Conversation – with Joel Meadows
Hot, or what? There is a fever that gardeners catch once they have made their first successful hot compost pile, it can be quite contagious, and the benefits of hot composting are formidable, let’s have a look at five of them. 1. Hot compost is a sign that we are getting our compost in balance.…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…