THE Com POST

Your weekly update on all things compost related!

Happy St. Roch Sunday, y’all! As you can tell from the photo above, we had a light collection of scraps today. I only put out two bins this morning, expecting less visitors as Mardi Gras is in full swing and it’s the Super Bowl Sunday. For this week I would jot us down as a quarter of a bin of scraps collected. Think I’m rounding up by the measuring the amount of scraps in the photograph? Well, I assure you I am not. Why, you ask? Allow me to explain…

Somebody is dropping off scraps directly into our compost pile, so I’m including this in the tally. This is of some concern to me. While well intentioned, this mystery composter isn’t doing it right. It’s not the first time this has happened, so we’ll need to get creative and come up with some kind of deterrent. The problem with someone just putting a cardboard container of eggs is the pile is it messes with the ratio. It attracts unwanted pests to our piles (leading to more problems). So while we’ve caught it within a few days each time it’s happened, I’d prefer it to stop. The downside of the pretty new bins is I can’t just put a pallet board on top of them as now the design is slimmer, and a tarp isn’t sufficient for someone who is dropping things off (outside of our collection open hours) thinking their doing good for the environment and/or the garden. Some pretty and direct signage might do the trick, so I’ll start with that approach. Admittedly, this means more work for me, so that’s a bummer, but worth it if it works.

On another note, we’re approaching our one year anniversary of working with Compost NOW! One year of free of charge services provided to our community is something to celebrate. I can’t think of a better way to commemorate this than by adding a Native Garden to the property! I met with the City Park project lead for the Pelican Greenhouse on Saturday to take inventory of their native plant stock and I’m excited about all the various new plants we’ll be adding to the Galvez Garden! Just look at how this swamp sunflower has tripled in size since planting last spring! Among the other varieties selected, the plan is to purchase ten more of these and scatter them through Galvez Garden. It will be beautiful!

We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the nature of the Native Plant Initiative as we learn more. Until then, happy almost spring and good luck with all your composting and gardening!