The Compost Bin

Have you heard about the Doomsday Seed Vault? They're stockpiling seeds inside of a frozen mountain on a remote Norwegian island just in case the end of the world comes. They're also doing it to ensure biodiversity of the world's food crops but the end of the world scenario is much more attention grabbing.



Since New Jersey is pretty far away from the artic, I think I may start digging my own Doomsday Seed Vault. I've got a nice supply of seeds for one family but if I'm going to start the New Jersey Seeds of the Apocalypse Vault (my name is a little more catchy) I'm going to need a lot more seeds. Where are my seed catalogs?

The other day I was wandering around Costco during my lunch break, enjoying a nice buffet of free samples, when I saw something that almost made me drop my Swedish meatball.

These Chinet Plates are marked "Biodegradable in Home Composting". How cool is that?

Paper plates have always been compostable but the good news is the fact that Chinet has decided that composting is now a selling point. Why in a few years, compost may even become fashionable. Who knew that us gardeners were ahead of our time?

Kermit knew what he was talking about when he said that it's not easy being green. Sometimes the most environmentally friendly choice isn't always obvious. Everyday when I get a cup of coffee at my 9-5 job I'm reminded of this. We have Styrofoam cups at the office and you'd think that would be the worst environmental choice for a coffee cup that you could make, right? Well not always.

Making a Styrofoam cup consumes less resources than when you make a paper cup. And what about bringing in a ceramic mug and washing it everyday. Well according to this study, it would take about 1000 uses of a ceramic cup before it becomes more environmentally friendly than Styrofoam cups when you factor in the hot water used to wash it. And then there's all the variables that these types of studies don't take into account. What if I rinse out the ceramic mug and have a second cup of coffee without washing it. What if I rinse out the Styrofoam cup and do the same. How about if I make a few cups of coffee and put them in a thermos at my desk and then pour them into a ceramic mug with a picture of my kids on it. What if the picture of my kids was taken at a nuclear power plant. And why am I drinking so much coffee anyway?

These are the kinds of questions that people are asking about Seeds of Change new plastic seed packages. I've included a snapshot from their newsletter where they announce the reasons why they're switching to the new seed packages (click to enlarge). They're obviously a very green company and I'm sure they've done lots of research into what the best solution for them.



The paper or plastic question isn't as cut and dry as you'd think anymore. My advice is to weigh your options and do what's best for you as well as what's best for the environment. And if I wind up making some of the wrong choices, well I'll make up for it by composting.

I'm cutting way back on my seed orders this year. There I said it. No, I'm not quitting gardening or anything, but I have a bunch of seeds leftover from previous years and I decided to use them before I buy more seeds.

I order way too many seeds every year. In the winter it's easy to over estimate the amount of free time that I'll have to start all of these seeds and I just order away.

My usual order fills my basement with seedlings in late winter and I barely manage to start half of the seeds that I buy. So this year I figured I should check out my seed stockpile to see what I already have. And I found out that I already have everything that I need. Tomatoes, check, peppers, check, root crops, check, annuals, check, perennials, check. Why I even have 5 pounds of blue potatoes leftover from last year's harvest that are full of sprouting eyes. I don't need to buy anything.

Now, you're probably saying what about those new seeds from Seeds of Change that I've been blogging about lately. Well I bought them with a gift card that my sister gave me so they don't count.

And the best part of not buying new seeds this year is that I can spend the money on something that the whole family will enjoy. A few more hydrangeas for underneath the dogwood would be nice and some ornamental grass would look good around the pool and ...

Yesterday, I said some good things about Seeds of Change and how they're using these cool new environmentally friendly seed packages. Well now today, I'm going to bad mouth them.

Take a look at this picture. One of these seed packages doesn't belong. I'm sure they're all great seeds and I'm going to enjoy eating the Spinach that I grow but come on. Don't send a shipment of those new fangled seed packs that have all of their cool features printed right there on the front of the pack and also send me this old leftover spinach in the same shipment.

Yeah, sure I know that they have to use up all of the old packages somehow but I just feel a little cheated. Maybe next time I order, I'll send them a really old dollar bill or something to get even.

Hey the other day when I posted about The Growing Challenge did you notice those funkey seed packages?

At first I thought to myself, what's with these plastic baggies? I couldn't imagine a company that was very into heirloom seeds and organic gardening sending out plastic seeds packages.

But then I read the fine print.



I like the part about being hermetically sealed and that the seeds will stay fresh for two years if unopened. Sometimes I'm guilty of ordering seeds and then not planting them due to lack of time. I may have stockpiled a seed package or two over the years. And it's nice to know that my stockpile will remain viable if all the seed companies start using seed packs like these.

Unlike my giant elephant ear, this hibicus made it inside the house for the winter. I trim it back to make it smaller and neater and it overwinters in my living room. Been doing it for 3 years so far and the plant is doing just fine.

But anyway, it was looking a little be droopy recently so I added shot of Sea Magic Fertilizer to my watering can and now it's flowering. Wow, this stuff is really good. I think I used it once on my tomatoes and some other vegetables very early in the season but really I just forgot that I bought it (my garage is a giant disaster).

You fill up a gallon bottle with water and add the contents of the package to make it in concentrated form. Then just splash a little bit of the concentrate into a full watering can and you're ready to go.

During the winter my hibicus doesn't grow too much and has never flowered inside before so this is kind of exciting for me. I plan on doing some experiments with my houseplants to see what other damage I can cause. Have to get my gardening fix somehow. Still have a long way to go until spring.

Oh my gosh. How much longer do I have to eat supermarket tomatoes? Is it spring yet?

Oh well, at least in another month I'll have some tomato seedlings growing in my basement.

This past weekend I was excited to see that the buds on my rhododendrons are starting to swell up. That usually means that spring is on it's way but as I'm typing this post, we're in the middle of a winter weather advisory in New York/New Jersey. It seems that after getting an inch or two of snow today, it has decided that ice should fall from the sky for the rest of the night.

Checking back on some old posts, my Rhododendrons don't usually open until April or May. So seeing that bud was really just wishful thinking on my part.

My rhodos will have to wait a few months before they can start blooming and I'm going to have to get the shovel out of the garage tomorrow morning and chip away that ice.

Whenever the authorities come knocking on my door, I quickly grab my secret documents and start shredding them. Oh wait, that's not me, I think that was in a movie that I saw recently. That's right, I'm just the guy that shreds paper for the compost bin.

When my compost pile is low on browns, which it usually is during the summer months, I grab some newspapers or junk mail and shred away.

Did you know that most newspapers use an ink made from soy? It's totally safe for the compost bin so why not shred up Beetle Baily and see how quickly he decomposes. Compost microbes love the funnies. In fact on a quiet night, I sometimes sneak up on my compost bin and I can hear laughter. Oh wait, that might have been something I saw in the movie too.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm taking part in The Growing Challenge. So the first thing I need to do is pick something that I've never grown before and get some seeds. This isn't a big stretch for me because I start almost all of my vegetables from seed every year. And I also like to try growing things I've never grown before. So it won't really be too different than what I normally do each spring but I'm definitely going to enjoy reading about everyone's adventures growing a new fruit or vegetable from seed.



I plan on growing Chioggia Beets, German Chamomile and Beetberry. Here's what the catalog says about each:

Chioggia Beets - Cut open the root and get an internal peppermint stick. This is an improved selection that originally came from Italy in the 1800s . A very popular fresh market choice. Light green tops with light red exterior on the roots make this beet very distinctive.

German Chamomile - A delight for your eyes, taste buds, and overall well being. Its fragrant, delicate, miniature, daisy-like flowers dance on lacy foliage. Known to be used medicinally for hundreds of years, the flower buds when dried can make a wonderfully soothing tea calms the nerves, upset stomachs, promote digestion. A companion plant, it can enhance the growth of cucumbers, onions and most other herbs.

Beetberry - A truly unique plant also known as "Strawberry Spinach." Sprawling plants are grown primarily as a nutritious green for salads and braising while the pleasantly sweet but fairly bland berries provide a fun accent to salads. Loves cool weather but also tolerates heat.

I came across an interesting blogging meme the other day. No, it's not another 8 Random Things About Me or 10 Reasons Why I Like Monkeys or any of the other ridiculous things making their way around the blogosphere. It's actually something related to gardening. I saw it first at InTheGardenOnline. Colleen posted about how she was going to start growing Lemon Cucumbers and Sage. How is that a fun new blogging meme you ask? Well let me tell you.

She's growing them as part of the The Growing Challenge. The Growing Challenge was thought up by Melinda at Elements in Time as a way to get people growing more of their our own food. With a looming recession in the US and the high price of fuel driving up the cost of everything it's a great way to save some money and try something new. It's also a way to get people to eat more local food and that of course is great for the environment. Think of the airplane and truck fuel that would be saved if they didn't have to fly those pineapples to your neighborhood in the middle of winter.

As I read the details on her blog, I was sold. Here's the rules:

1. For this challenge, you must grow one additional type of fruit or vegetable than you did last year, and grow it from seed. If you’ve never grown anything, well, grow one thing! Or if you’ve never grown beans or carrots or lettuce or strawberries, try one of those.... And if you don’t have a garden, you can grow it in a pot or on a window sill. The goal is to push ourselves to grow a little more food than we have before.

2. If rule #1 is not enough of a challenge for you, you may make your own rules. For example, I’m going to grow two fruits and three veggies more than I did last year.

3. You must post about gardening once each week. This could be a post about researching different plants, ordering seeds, buying pots, digging beds, planting the seeds, pruning, adding compost, all the way to preparing a meal that includes the food you grew. **Please include “Growing Challenge” or at least “growing” in the name of the post so I can find it easily.**

4. Every Monday I will go to every participant’s website and check out what you’ve written, and write a summary on this blog. This will be a great way to see what everyone is up to and learn from one another. If you don’t have a blog, you can email me a blurb about your gardening progress.

5. Let me know in the comment section of the first Growing Challenge post (click here) if you’re joining in the fun!

Since I try to grow something new every year, this challenge is right up my alley. I haven't finished ordering my seeds yet but I already have a few new things that I'd like to try. Now where did I put my seed catalogs?

Definitely in need of some pruning.

Welcome to TheCompostBin.com

With very little fanfare, I'd like to announce that I have finally moved this blog to it's own domain. I've been meaning to do it for a long time now but since this is really a hobby blog and not a money maker there really was no big rush. It's just a blog where I talk about compost and gardening and Blogger was just fine for that.

But today, when I was sitting in the dentist's chair getting a root canal, I decided to go for it. I took the whole day off from my 9-5 and the kids were at school and despite dribbling water from my numb mouth all over my keyboard, it went pretty smoothly.

Since I'm using the Custom Domain option for Blogger blogs, Google is automatically redirecting all of my incoming blogspot traffic to the new domain. I didn't have to spend any time setting up 301 redirects or worrying about lost traffic.

The decision really was a no brainer. $10 for the domain, no money spent on hosting, no learning curve for setting up WordPress Blog and really no downsides. Click a few buttons, change a few settings and I'm in business.

Special thanks to Amanda at Blogger Buster for great instructions on How to set up a Blogger Custom Domain with GoDaddy.

This is a blog about compost and gardening but today I'm going to talk about the Olympics. No, they didn't add a synchronized composting event to the games (although that idea has some potential) but they did use biodegradable plastic for food packaging at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The other day I did a post about how I thought that this company selling compostable cutlery was pretty cool. It's a step in the right direction when it comes to keeping things out of the landfill. So when I did some further research I found out that more than 75% of the 660 tons of garbage that was created at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney Australia was either recycled or composted. And biodegradable plastic used in the food packaging played a big part in that 75% number.

There's still some issues with this new products like the fact that it's more expensive than regular plastic. Also these products won't compost in your average home compost bin and will take 18 months in a commercial compost environment to break down. So that means that if you can't compost it at home, this stuff is going to wind up in the landfill. Sadly, I don't think anything composts in the landfill.

I recently read on Tiny Choices that biodegradable garbage bags are at the opposite end of the spectrum and are breaking down too soon. What good is a garbage bag that falls apart before the garbage men come to pick it up.

But like I said earlier, any step in the right direction is a good one. The biodegradable plastic people will figure it out eventually and when they do, think about all the different products and packaging that I'll get to put in my What's Decomposing blog posts.

Source for Olympic Data: