Oh No, What a Disaster!

We got our latest CSA share on Thursday. Not much again: about 8 radishes (though they were quite large), some bok choy, curly endive, a large bunch of kale, escarole, and a head of Boston lettuce. Now, there's even less.

This afternoon I discovered bits of green glass in the refrigerator. Two bottles of sparkling water froze and blew up in the back of the fridge. The water soaked the bags filled with our vegetables and then re-froze. A lot of the vegetables (escarole, lettuce, and endive) were ruined. A few, but not all, of the radishes were also frozen. That leaves us with kale, bok choy, and radishes.

There is a silver lining though. "Bob" made us our garbage can composter today. After hemming and hawing about this for weeks (buy a new one or try and get one off of Freecycle or Craigslist?, make it out of metal or plastic?, are plastic garbage cans safe or should we buy a foodsafe plastic container?, and so on), we decided to go the plastic garbage can route. We have plenty of these cans on hand since we do a lot of home projects and use them for hauling and storing renovation and landscaping materials. After a quick viewing of this "how to" guide on About.com, "Bob" made the composter. Then he filled it with various "green" and "brown" materials. Last week I trimmed the wisteria so we had plenty of green material. Plus we had a huge cardboard box that he ripped up, so that took care of the brown.

Afterwards, "Bob" rolled it around the yard and then put it on the cement base he had made for our long-deceased rain barrel (it was plastic as well and the seams burst one year; the composter now fits perfectly on this old base).

What else can be composted? We can throw our chipboard products in there, and I read that you can put junk mail in as a brown material too. I didn't toss in the stems, branches, and leaves from my rose bushes because they had a lot of black spot on them. Though I think the compost will get hot enough to kill the fungus, I really don't want to push my luck just yet.

After we thought the composter was done for the night, I discovered the destoyed vegetables. We were able to fill up the can that much more. Paper towels went in there too as well as some coffee grounds, egg shells, and some vegetable ends I'd saved up in the fridge for this occasion. Remember, you can't throw everything in a composter (dog and cat waste and meats are verboten).

These sites provide a lot more information on the ins and outs of composting:

Everything you wanted to know about plastics and composters:
http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/2007/08/compost-tumbler-solution-to-potting.html

The About.com video that we watched for making our bin:
http://video.about.com/greenliving/Homemade-Compost-Bin.htm

The metal versus plastic debate:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nwgardens/321517_smith30.html

You shouldn't use dog waste in your compost, but you can compost the stuff on its own to keep it out of the trash:
http://www.plantea.com/dog-waste-compost.htm

Another garbage can how-to:
http://www.ehow.com/how_16876_make-compost-bin.html

A source (free) with a list of other sources (not free):
http://www.idealbite.com/tiplibrary/archives/scrap_happy

Making compost tea:
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/

The EPA's guidelines; hopefully, in the future, we'll be able to trust this agency again:
http://www.epa.gov/composting/by_compost.htm

One of the best, most comprehensive composting guides I found online:
http://www.compostguide.com/