Mary Yee will talk to anyone about composting—even disinterested neighbors. The Hennepin County Master Gardener from Edina will talk about it at the risk of sounding preachy or even boring. But her message is simple: anyone can (and probably should) do it.
“Composting happens; nature does it,” says the member of the Edina Garden Council. “My approach is you can compost—anybody can compost. The only thing is, if you want it to go faster, you have to make a bigger effort. Otherwise, it’s easy.”
Here are some easy pointers to start composting in Edina:
Where to do it
Composting can be done in tailor-made, store-bought plastic bins and tumblers or in homemade boxes made of lumber, chicken wire and other materials or just straight onto soil, Yee says.
Consider city ordinances before composting. According to Yee, the rule states composting spots must be in the backyard and no closer than five feet from the property line. If neighbors live near, an enclosed structure is most courteous.
Ingredients
The rule of thumb is to have compost comprised of three parts “brown” and one part “green.” So, that’s three parts of high-carbon materials such as dry leaves, straw or wood chips and one part of high-nitrogen materials such as grass clippings, plant trimmings, coffee grounds or vegetable wastes. (Avoid using meat and dairy to keep smells at bay and animals away.)
Angie Timmons, environmental educator with Hennepin County, says the correct composition of compost is the No. 1 problem for beginners. Too much brown material and it decomposes very slowly; too much green material and it will be too moist, won’t decompose property and could smell bad.
The second-most common pitfall is moisture level. Timmons recommends a level like a “rung-out sponge.” Often times, beginners have it too dry, she says. To make it damp, composters should either expose it to rain or douse it with water from a garden hose.
Maintenance
A casual composter can stash leaves and grass clippings behind the garage, dump on dinner leftovers and wait a year or two for it to decompose. Or you could follow Yee’s lead of feeding her three bins with fix amounts of green and brown material, turn it routinely, and have composted soil ready in one season.
To speed the decomposition, the brown and green ingredients need exposure to air, and therefore, bacteria, which breaks it down.
“Try to get in there, fluff it up, give it some air, pretend that you are tossing a salad,” Timmons says.
Timmons warns that some beginners expect fine compost overnight, but that doesn’t happen by mixing ingredients and simply waiting. Timmons and Yee say cutting up your food with a knife and yard waste with a lawnmower will also speed up the process.
Why composting is important
Food waste accounted for 14 percent of total municipal waste in 2009, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And less than 3 percent of those 34 million tons was recovered and recycled, the EPA says.
“It’s a great way to reduce the amount of waste that you are throwing away and the best way to cut emissions,” Timmons says. “You don’t have to have a truck come by and pick it up.”
Alternatives for un-green thumb
If you live in an apartment or condo, you can still compost by getting some red wriggler worms and trying vermicomposting. All you need is a container, bedding, water, worms and non-fatty kitchen scraps. No backyard required.
“Instead of having it outside and letting the sunlight and the moisture and microbes do the work, you let worms do the work,” Timmons says. “That is a little bit more tricky, but people are doing it because they are seeing their wasted food.”
If you want to support the proper disposal of organic waste, but don’t want worms or dirty hands, Vierkant Disposal of Minneapolis will come out to Edina to pick it up for you as part of their Go Green program.
Disposal Bags
If giving it away is your plan, the State of Minnesota wants you to take note: Plastic garbage bags are out; clear composting bags are in.
State law says residents need to lessen the amount of plastic materials sent to local compositing facilities and this will enhance the quality of the finished compost for yards and gardens, says City of Edina Recycling Coordinator Solvei Wilmot.
Changing habits
“Once you’ve composted,” Timmons says, “it’s much harder to put that waste in the trash when you know it can be composted into such a valuable material.”
