Gardening on a Budget Part 2: Trashing Your Urban Garden
By Michael Nolan
Show of hands - how many urban gardeners out there either bag up the leaves and grass clippings and put them on the curb or pay someone to take them off your hands?
Now of those, how many spend money on fertilizers and plant foods to give your garden plants an extra boost? That’s what I thought.
Today’s lesson on budget gardening is to get trashy.
No, not COPS trashy. In this case we’re talking about using what you already have on hand - probably what you’re tossing in the garbage pail - to turbo charge your urban garden. Now I understand that a lot of urban gardeners don’t have the space to compost (some of you don’t even have a yard at all), and I’ve got a few pointers for you in a minute. For the rest, stop throwing it all away already!
For starters, keep a large plastic zipper bag, old coffee can or margarine tub handy in your kitchen. You might want to label it so that no one reaches for your indoor compost container thinking it is something yummy. Into your container start keeping all of your plant-based scraps, within reason.
DO Use:
• rinds
• peelings
• ends
• spoiled/browning leaves and stems
• egg shells (I rinse them)
• coffee grounds
DO NOT Use:
• any part of meat or bones
• cooked vegetables
• canned veggies or fruits
Now with that out of the way, I am going to tell you how I composted my way when I was stuck in a 12th floor apartment in New York. Once a week I would grab my compost container from the kitchen and break it up into tiny bits using an old blender. Then I’d dump the lot into a lidded 5-gallon bucket on my terrace. I’d use the same blender to obliterate an equal amount of browned leaves from my house plants and add that to the bucket as well.
MICHAEL’S UGC TIP: An old blender or food processor can be a great tool for urban composting. If you don’t have one, stop by a thrift store or check your local Freecycle list.
When I’d repot a plant, I would add a healthy handful of the left over dirt to my bucket, too. Cover and shake, shake, shake. Remove the cover and let your mixture breathe for an hour or so every couple of days. When you first notice an odor, add just enough water to moisten your mix. I actually used leftover coffee most of the time, so my terrace smelled like a coffee shop.
By using the blender, I was breaking down the compostables into much tinier parts, and that made the process go by much quicker. Your mileage may vary, but this is the way I did it and it definitely works.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:36 am
Great post, Michael! I simply shudder to think of all that good compost going down people’s garbage disposals. Ouch!!!
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I used to call it a ‘metric f*** ton’ of stupidity.