Inner City Farmer

In today’s world it’s easy for an environmentalist to get frustrated and say the whole world is going to hell—Bush lifting the ban on offshore drilling immediately comes to mind. But there are places that prove that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you look hard enough, you can find little pockets of hope.

One of them is the Danish island of Samso, which acclaimed environmental author Elizabeth Kolbert wrote about in a recent New Yorker article. Since 2005, the island has produced more energy than it’s used, and most of that energy has come from renewable sources like wind turbines and heating plants that run on biomass. In less than a decade the island’s residents went from heating their houses with oil brought in by tankers to earning an international reputation for living on “the renewable-energy island.”

Another example is Kamikatsu, a small town in the hills of southeastern Japan, which prides itself on producing “Zero Waste.” Residents have to compost all their food scraps and sort the rest of their garbage into 34 different categories for recycling. The one flaw in the plan, critics point out, is that residents have to drive their recyclables to Kamikatsu’s Zero Waste Centre.

For all its talk about being a Green City, Austin has a long way to go… but, seeing the change that’s starting to take place all around the world, I remain hopeful.

Until yesterday, the Inner City Farm didn’t have a compost bin. When I started my garden in the early spring, I actually went to a s-t-o-r-e—but, admittedly, a really cool one—and bought ten bags of their Revitalizer Compost. Nothing makes you feel like a bigger idiot than buying dirt, and shitty dirt to boot. I vow never to do it again.

I blame my hens for my lack of a compost bin. They have been getting all my kitchen scraps, and it’s hard to deny them this pleasure. They live to eat the stuff most people toss into the garbage. Whenever they see me walking towards them with the compost bucket from the kitchen, they race towards me with such enthusiasm it’s almost frightening. As excited as they get, there are certain things they just won’t eat: banana peels, lemon rinds, coffee grounds, onions, and their own shells, to name a few. These used to sit on the ground, rotting and attracting flies, but no longer.

My motivation to make a compost bin yesterday can be traced to a specific event—I mowed my front yard for the first time this year. Yes, I confess that I actually have a “real lawn” in front of my house. Because it consists almost entirely of Bermuda grass, it doesn’t require any watering so I have no real objections to it. Then again, if it were suddenly to die I wouldn’t be very upset either—I would happily plant native plants in its place. To mow my yard, I use one of those old-timey push mowers that leave the cut grass pretty much where it had been standing so it’s really easy to rake up and throw on a compost pile. One of the great downfalls of a compost pile from what I’ve read is lack of greens, but thanks to my front yard that shouldn’t be a problem this summer.

Building the compost bin was a fairly straightforward procedure. Luckily, I had all the materials I needed on hand. I knew when I hauled off the eight sheets of particle board I found at the fraternity house last fall I’d eventually find a use for it, and so I did. I have to laugh (and cry) when I hear of people spending a hundred bucks at Home Depot to buy a plastic compost bin… as if the world needs more plastic. I put together a bin in a couple hours and at no cost, other then my own labor. Its best attributes, as far as I can tell, are its size (quite large) and functionality (it’s got two compartments). I do fear that it might not allow enough airflow, but I’ll address that problem only if it actually becomes one.

As happy as I am to finally have a proper compost bin, I’m actually far more excited about the idea of sheet mulching, which involves adding a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard on top of your soil and then heaping a pile of mulch on top of that. Not only does this prevent weeds from popping up, it also helps build your soil. Basically, you’re composting in place. Ecological gardeners swear by it. If you want to read more about it, I recommend checking out Toby Hemenway’s book Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture or Ruth Stout’s classic The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book.