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Hi'iaka's Healing Herb Garden : Column Index : 2004 : Jan04
Coming Soon...
Post-Holiday Thoughts About All That Food
It's December 26 as I write this month's column and I'm still feeling full from my family's fabulous California Christmas dinner last night. It's a blessing when we have plenty of food on the table and that's something I'm always grateful for. But what about all that rubbish at the end of the meal? I saw so many food items go down the garbage disposal during my trip to California -- it made me sad that I couldn't take it home to the Big Island and feed it to my chickens! What a mess that would have made in my suitcase.
We are a nation of plenty and we should all give thanks for that. It definitely goes against my beliefs to simply throw away leftovers when it's so easy to recycle them in your home and property. You can provide food for animals like chickens and ducks by feeding them your food scraps. And it's simple to turn food scraps into compost that will fertilize fruit and vegetable crops and keep on giving you more food.
Even if you don't have a lot of property, you can help the environment and our too-full landfills by building a small compost pile to take care of your moldy bread and wormy papayas. Here are several simple methods of creating an abundant, environmentally friendly, non-stinky compost pile.
The Chicken Method of Recycling Food Waste
I keep a large plastic jar right on my kitchen counter, into which I put all food scraps except fish, chicken and meat bones. It fills up every day with orange peels, wilted lettuce, papaya rinds and seeds, two bites of sandwich I didn't have room for, etc. I like the chicken method the best: they're adorable little creatures who provide not only nutritious eggs but incredibly rich manure. What they don't eat rots in their yard, and then every couple of months we rake out the muck and throw it into a compost pile. This method is simple and satisfies me because it's such a beautiful "full circle" approach to living lightly on the Earth.
Creating a Simple Compost Pile
It's so easy to create a compost pile that you don't even need to build one. Here are three ways of composting that are either free or cheaply done.
Just do it on the ground. I like to start with a layer of broken-up twigs, perhaps some old tomato plants, green bean or squash vines. Dump them into an area about four feet by four feet round. I do mine on top of solid pahoehoe lava. Then you can add other organic materials like grass clippings, leaves that you strip off branches like invasive guava, etc. Toss your food scraps on top of this and then add some dirt if you have it, cinder, wood ashes, straw from the chicken coop, whatever you've got. It's not rocket science! Anything works. Then cover your pile with black plastic to keep out bugs and critters. When you get more food scraps, uncover your pile and add them, making sure to cover them with more dirt, cinder, ashes, leaves, or whatever.
A Plethora of Papayas
Note: Seeds from tomatoes and papayas will almost always sprout after you use your finished compost in the garden. Although compost piles heat up, they never get hot enough to kill certain kids of seeds. This can be a blessing... or not! The first time I used my homemade compost in Hawai`i, I ended up with a carpet of baby papaya trees. Perhaps you could start up a papaya nursery with all those keikis, but I weeded them out and threw them back into the compost pile.
Poultry Wire Method
Method number 2 is tidy and doesn't even require a cover of black plastic. I bought $14 worth of poultry wire, which is like really small hog wire. It made a cylinder two feet in diameter and four feet high. I used a 6-inch pieces of metal clothesline to attach it to itself at the top, middle and bottom, secured it with sticks into the ground, and started tossing in food scraps and the other items that go into a compost pile. Simple, clean, compact. The stuff on the bottom will be ready to use within three months. Just unlatch your bottom latch and shovel some out, leaving the uncomposted materials on the top.
Consider a Purchased Composter
Method number three is even easier but may cost $40 or $50. I once owned a black plastic composting cube that I bought from a catalog. It was great because I lived in a residential area and it looked tidy and attractive, and had no odors because of the fitting lid. You assemble this type of composter by popping it together and then place it anywhere you want. It's almost cute. And because it has a tight lid, you don't have to worry about adding a layer of straw, dirt, cinder or leaves after every addition of food scraps. With this method of composting, you open one of the lower doors and scoop out finished compost from the bottom of the heap when you need it.
Turn It If You Want
After your pile is about three or four feet high, let it "cook" for two or three months. This is the easy part: just cover it and forget about it. The composting gurus say to turn your pile periodically, but sometimes I forget. It turns into nice, crumbly, fertile compost anyway. Then you can dig it into garden beds, surround plants with it as mulch, or plant a tree right there in your finished pile.
Take a Class
There are some great classes being offered by Kona Outdoor Circle, the Kea`au Recycling Center, and other people and places. I want to learn how to do worm composting, but didn't write about it this time because I've never done it before. Just think: all those worms will probably become my pets, just like my chickens.
Post-Holiday Thoughts About All That Food
It's December 26 as I write this month's column and I'm still feeling full from my family's fabulous California Christmas dinner last night. It's a blessing when we have plenty of food on the table and that's something I'm always grateful for. But what about all that rubbish at the end of the meal? I saw so many food items go down the garbage disposal during my trip to California -- it made me sad that I couldn't take it home to the Big Island and feed it to my chickens! What a mess that would have made in my suitcase.
We are a nation of plenty and we should all give thanks for that. It definitely goes against my beliefs to simply throw away leftovers when it's so easy to recycle them in your home and property. You can provide food for animals like chickens and ducks by feeding them your food scraps. And it's simple to turn food scraps into compost that will fertilize fruit and vegetable crops and keep on giving you more food.
Even if you don't have a lot of property, you can help the environment and our too-full landfills by building a small compost pile to take care of your moldy bread and wormy papayas. Here are several simple methods of creating an abundant, environmentally friendly, non-stinky compost pile.
The Chicken Method of Recycling Food Waste
I keep a large plastic jar right on my kitchen counter, into which I put all food scraps except fish, chicken and meat bones. It fills up every day with orange peels, wilted lettuce, papaya rinds and seeds, two bites of sandwich I didn't have room for, etc. I like the chicken method the best: they're adorable little creatures who provide not only nutritious eggs but incredibly rich manure. What they don't eat rots in their yard, and then every couple of months we rake out the muck and throw it into a compost pile. This method is simple and satisfies me because it's such a beautiful "full circle" approach to living lightly on the Earth.
Creating a Simple Compost Pile
It's so easy to create a compost pile that you don't even need to build one. Here are three ways of composting that are either free or cheaply done.
Just do it on the ground. I like to start with a layer of broken-up twigs, perhaps some old tomato plants, green bean or squash vines. Dump them into an area about four feet by four feet round. I do mine on top of solid pahoehoe lava. Then you can add other organic materials like grass clippings, leaves that you strip off branches like invasive guava, etc. Toss your food scraps on top of this and then add some dirt if you have it, cinder, wood ashes, straw from the chicken coop, whatever you've got. It's not rocket science! Anything works. Then cover your pile with black plastic to keep out bugs and critters. When you get more food scraps, uncover your pile and add them, making sure to cover them with more dirt, cinder, ashes, leaves, or whatever.
A Plethora of Papayas
Note: Seeds from tomatoes and papayas will almost always sprout after you use your finished compost in the garden. Although compost piles heat up, they never get hot enough to kill certain kids of seeds. This can be a blessing... or not! The first time I used my homemade compost in Hawai`i, I ended up with a carpet of baby papaya trees. Perhaps you could start up a papaya nursery with all those keikis, but I weeded them out and threw them back into the compost pile.
Poultry Wire Method
Method number 2 is tidy and doesn't even require a cover of black plastic. I bought $14 worth of poultry wire, which is like really small hog wire. It made a cylinder two feet in diameter and four feet high. I used a 6-inch pieces of metal clothesline to attach it to itself at the top, middle and bottom, secured it with sticks into the ground, and started tossing in food scraps and the other items that go into a compost pile. Simple, clean, compact. The stuff on the bottom will be ready to use within three months. Just unlatch your bottom latch and shovel some out, leaving the uncomposted materials on the top.
Consider a Purchased Composter
Method number three is even easier but may cost $40 or $50. I once owned a black plastic composting cube that I bought from a catalog. It was great because I lived in a residential area and it looked tidy and attractive, and had no odors because of the fitting lid. You assemble this type of composter by popping it together and then place it anywhere you want. It's almost cute. And because it has a tight lid, you don't have to worry about adding a layer of straw, dirt, cinder or leaves after every addition of food scraps. With this method of composting, you open one of the lower doors and scoop out finished compost from the bottom of the heap when you need it.
Turn It If You Want
After your pile is about three or four feet high, let it "cook" for two or three months. This is the easy part: just cover it and forget about it. The composting gurus say to turn your pile periodically, but sometimes I forget. It turns into nice, crumbly, fertile compost anyway. Then you can dig it into garden beds, surround plants with it as mulch, or plant a tree right there in your finished pile.
Take a Class
There are some great classes being offered by Kona Outdoor Circle, the Kea`au Recycling Center, and other people and places. I want to learn how to do worm composting, but didn't write about it this time because I've never done it before. Just think: all those worms will probably become my pets, just like my chickens.
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