Composting is a wonderful practice because it improves the fertility and drainage of the soil while it keeps otherwise useless rubbish out of our crowded landfills. And with the proper container, composting isn't very difficult. In fact, it's habit forming.
Tomorrow, the City's Recycling Office presents its GreenCycling Expo, a free event designed to make converts out of all those who bundle their lawn clippings for the rubbish collectors.
Mark Takemoto from the University of Hawaii's Urban Garden Center will demonstrate how simple the process is, and will have a variety of compost bins on hand. Participants will learn which is best for where they live and for the amount of energy they intend to devote to the process.
These run all the way from a Smith and Hawkins rigid black plastic stack of round bins that you wouldn't have to hide behind a hedge to a large garbage bag that you would.
The bin from the mainland catalog runs to three figures, the garbage bag is in the neighborhood of $1.
No matter what you choose, the job the bins do are all the same. They contain the raw material-grass clippings, fallen leaves, weeds, garden pruning, vegetable and fruit peelings, coffee grounds and tea leaves, faded cut flowers and eggshells. They must have drainage holes at the bottom and ventilation along the sides.
With regular watering, within about 6 months you will have compost. The stuff at the top will not have decomposed, but at the bottom you will have rich black soil. You dig that out, let the new material fall to the bottom, and add more material at the top. This is not high tech.
Takemoto got into recycling his lawn debris in a simple manner, and at the same time developed the cheapest way to do it: "I was trimming my yard and jamming the stuff I cut into a big black plastic garbage bag.
"Every once in awhile a small branch would poke a hole into the bag. When several bags were full, I left them under a tree and forgot about them. Several months later I noticed the bags were getting flatter, and when I opened one, there was real compost."
The random holes cut into the bags provided ventilation, the rain fell on them and eventually the bottoms rotted out. If you are going to use this method - and it isn't wildly attractive in your garden, so it should be out of sight - use hardware store plastic bags made for contractors and not the thinner supermarket variety .
It works fine, Takemoto said, but you won't win any neighborhood beautification prizes.
Compost bins should not contain meat, fish or bones or any oily or fatty matter that might attracts rats or cats and dogs, and will certainly smell bad. Don't add paper, either. "There is a potential problem from the ink which in time becomes toxic," Takemoto said.
Paper also slows decomposition - readable 1975 newspapers are forever being found in landfills. If you want to speed up decomposition, add lime, chemical fertilizers or soil compost activators available at garden shops.
"I wouldn't bother with these unless you have palm fronds, mango and litchi leaves or anything tough that won't break down without some help," Takemoto said. True composters believe in patience and the natural order of things.
Takemoto advises adding 1/2 to 3 inches of compost to your garden soil and the surface of your lawn each year. "Not all at once, though," he said. "It's better to do a little at a time. Add compost to the hole every time you plant something in your yard."
Straight compost, though, is too strong for potted plants. He says the best potting mix is two parts compost to one part sand or soil.
It's great stuff, Takemoto says - a simple way to deal with garden refuse and enrich your soil at the same time. It's free and it's there - you don't have to run to the garden shop, but just shovel it out of your compost bin. And, hey, everybody grinds some potato peelings down the disposer now and then.
Where:Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden, 45-680 Luluku Road, Kaneohe.