Guest blogger Cher Mohring
I love my job so much it’s hard to even
take a vacation without thinking about reducing waste. That’s why during a
recent trip to the Bahamas I discovered I had as many pictures of compost as I
did of the beach! Because most of my
Facebook friends are not that interested in seeing compost pictures, I decided this
was a good place to share them.
Here in Southwest Ohio, we use compost
to loosen our clay soil for better root penetration, improve its capacity
to hold water, and add essential nutrients.
Grand Bahama Island’s soil is
very sandy. Sandy soil has large air
spaces between particles, allowing water to drain very quickly and microbes to
consume organic matter quickly. For this
reason, amending their soil with compost is essential to hold water and add
nutrients for plants to grow.
Wish you lived in the Bahamas? Me too!
Let’s live vicariously through these Bahama residents and see how they compost
in their backyards.
Mary has a beautiful, eclectic landscape. She has a constant supply of palm tree leaves
to feed multiple compost sites.
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This three bin unit is overflowing with material.
Piles of palm leaves.
Karl and Eva have amazing vegetable gardens that require
lots of compost. As you can see from
their pictures below, they are also excellent at reusing!
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One of three compost bins made from old skids.
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Check out the size of this bin!
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They like to sift their compost before using it in the garden. |
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Here are some of their container gardens where they use the compost. |
Tom and Marilyn have piles of palm
leaves like Mary, but they are just getting started with composting food
scraps. It will be interesting to see
how long those coconuts take to decompose...
Ol’ Freetown Farm grows papaya, bananas, sugar cane, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, and
various other vegetables and herbs. They
also keep chickens, horses, and goats. What a great combination to make and use
compost!
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Compost pile of horse manure and sugar cane. |
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Finished compost pile with volunteer potatoes growing in it. |
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One of their sources of compost material. |
Just in case you’re not as much of a
compost geek as me, here’s a picture of the beach.
This guest blog is written by Cher
Mohring, Program Specialist at Hamilton County Recycling and Solid Waste
District. Cher assists schools, events,
and multi-family residences to set up waste reduction programs.
Now that I am focused on recycling materials for compost, I've started paying more attention to recycling other things as well. I routinely recycle plastic bags, clothing, old books and magazines, as well as metal, glass and plastics - and so on. I'm a greener person now - thanks to the mindset I got from composting.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Doris! I love to hear that composting has affected other habits as well. (:
DeleteGreat article.Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete