Good question, something I do have a lot to thoughts about. 😁 I have a thing about instructional signs in general. I feel that they are often a bandage or workaround for a badly designed system, or an attempt to exert control with something that is not really controllable. In the case of these compost signs, I have found that when they are made they tend to include all of the things that shouldn't be added, which is part of the problem that I want trying to avoid. So I set out to have a no-sign compost system. If I do put up a sign saying not to add plastic things, that might prevent some of it, but I would expect some would still end up in the compost, just as I often find spoons, and stoppers for sinks. It is simply a difficult thing to exclude even if everyone thinks they are playing attention. And I need to remember that people who come to dump the compost are not the only people in the houses adding to the bins, so that message might not get passed on. When that happens, do I put up a bigger sign, or more signs, or more assertive signs? I guess I wanted to avoid starting down that road, and wanted to design systems that could just deal with it. But I didn't do that very well. Having said that, I was thinking of setting up a big board beside the compost where I could hang all the stupid things that I found in the compost, almost like an art instillation. And label it 'Lost and Found' or 'Is this Yours?' or something like that, to make a joke about it, and so that people can see what does end up in there. I think that would be more interesting, effective and educational, than an instructional sign.
@@REDGardens I think it's certainly wise to set up any systems with as few rules/instructions as possible. I find that people don't tend to read signs and over time become even more blind to them. Effective group comms in this kind of siutation are very tricky. It is esp'ly hard to manage practical, analogue systems where you are not meeting the people in person all the time. I would be interested in a vid on how you have managed your expansion and how your systems have changed accordingly
@@REDGardens Well said! → "Instructional signs … are often a bandage or workaround for a badly designed system, or an attempt to exert control with something that is not really controllable." And I love the idea of a "lost and found" art installation 😄 So much better than a sign, at least for those of us with a sense of humor.
@@REDGardensI really like your lost and found/is this yours? Idea. Perhaps using the plastic trash to make a "community compost, organic material only" sign would make an effective reminder
I live with four other family members, and I manage our compost bins. The other members of my family aren't as careful as me when it comes to what goes in the compost bin but still, I keep a fairly close eye on things and I'm amazed at how much plastic ends up in there. It's like magic. We live in a plastic world
We've been careful for years but it gets in! I was confused by all these small square plastic bags and took ages to figure out they were tea bags!! The paper part had degraded away but they had plastic interior bags! It's even on the shiny/colourful print on cardboard boxes.
@@niamhfox9559 It's so silly that society at large is fully aware of the need to reduce the use of plastics, yet manufacturers find new ways to pointlessly make products out of plastic that absolutely don't need to be. Tea bags didn't used to contain plastic, but they commonly do nowadays, for no good reason. Madness!
Yes, I occasionally come across bits of plastic in the soil in our small garden despite being thoroughly careful not to drop any plastic and shun the use of plastic items in the garden. Some of it just gets blown in from time to time.
Two adults, zero plastic in compost, only paper stickers on fruits. Although i found steel fork in my own compost once😆 Organic waist bucket has own separate place on the kitchen, i think that it is the trick. And only adults are using it.
I see 200+ comments already so this'll likely get buried but I just wanted to leave it anyway. I stumbled on your channel last week looking for information on the Three Sisters, and thought "He looks really familiar" when you were in frame, it was only when I saw a cut to outside of the polytunnel I realised who you were! A few years ago, a friend and I were passing through and were stuck for somewhere to crash, you were nice enough to let us pitch our tents in the gardens for the night. You're an absolute gent Bruce and I'm hoping to start growing my own food in the coming year up here in Louth.
It's so frustrating that people could not be bothered to try and keep their green waste plastic free. That would drive me crazy. It's not that hard. 12 years is a good run though Bruce, fair play.
Thanks Bruce. It was a vast amount of work. I can quite understand why you stopped. I run a personal compost system just for me and I still find a lot of plastic - even though I feel I am very careful. I find the turning and moving such heavy work, esp as I get older. 12 years is a great period time to experiment with and run a project.
Composting is so much work! With a quarter acre in gardens, I have 4 compost piles in different locations for garden waste and one brush pile. Kitchen scraps are placed into the worm bin. At 73 years old, I run out of energy before I run out of daylight, so the piles grow and only get turned about twice each year. Still, the great soil that accumulates under the piles provides a lot of material for homemade potting mix and mulch. The neglect isn't great as I'm 'cold composting' but the piles still serve me well.
I would like to applaud you for your 12 years of dedication to this. I know it is a lot of work. I am in year 2 of getting my neighbors to bring their mulched leaves to the lot behind my house (with permission from the owner). I noticed a huge difference in putting the material on the dusty, weedy, dead ground when it came to where it touched my property. This year, still with permission from the owner, we have been able to spread the mulched leaves about 25 feet by 300 feet- along the back of my property. I had so much success in reducing the amount of weeds coming over to my property that I am sure next spring will be even better. It is also very nice not to have all those leaves going to a landfill. One neighbor previously rented the big bins, does all the mulching and trimming of trees, then pays to have it hauled off. This year he mulched and dumped everything behind my house and my husband and I spread it out. I wish more people understood the benefit to mulching and composting.
Plastic is the bane of my existence, and it angers me that almost no one cares enough to use and handle it properly. Not once in my entire life have I been able to dig a new bed without finding plastic wire ties, bottle caps, bag fragments, and sheet plastic. And every time I pull up my potatoes, I find more pieces I missed. People wonder about the microplastics-in-everything problem, they wag their finger at others polluting, but they won't make the small effort to change aspects of their life to eliminate the need for plastic. The only plastic I use is plastic I am forced to use or was not disclosed as a part of a product or its packaging. As a result, I generate only about 6-7 gallons of non-compostable trash a year.
@@REDGardens This video shows that you are much more conscious about the issue and your usage than the vast majority of people, which is a huge step. I recognize that I am a little more extreme in my lifestyle than I need to be, but it is more or less to prove a point to the people who know me. This kind of reduction is not only possible, it doesn't even have as much of a QOL impact as most people assume.
I think what you do is so important, even if it can be seen as more 'extreme' than most. I have always thought that it is the extreme edges of culture, people really pushing and testing the boundaries of what is possible, that allows the less extreme of us to better understand the diversity of possibilities. And eventually, far too slowly in most cases, a greater part of the society can be shifted towards something more appropriate.
I think it's outrageous that, for example, every banana or kiwi has a non-compostable plastic sticker on it. Why isn’t that simply banned? When my neighbors moved, they asked if they could dump the contents of their compost bin in my vegetable garden. At first, I was happy with the free compost, but later I had to fish out hundreds of pieces of plastic.
@@guyvanooteghem8531 Those stickers help a great deal in the grocery store to sell the fruit. A ban isn't needed. The answer is to take the stickers off before using the fruit (which I can't ever remember not doing) and dispose of them with the rest of the non-compost trash.
It's hard to be that one guy responsible for it all, and frankly I'm shocked you lasted as long as you did. Thankful to have learned from you, I remember watching some of your old videos back in the day
In the summer I got to bottom one of my big compost bins and found the wrapper from a 'National Trust' magazine as good as the day it went in 2 years previously. On it you could read 'just put me in the compost I'm bio degradable' . Just because it says it bio degradable doesn't mean it will in any meaningful time scale, after all granite will make quite good soil conditioner give a few million years.
I agree that "home compostable" can mean 1000 things. I find these types of plastics incredibly slow. I suspect it would be faster in hot systems, but it all very much despends what these bioplastics are made of and it's nigh on impossible to find out.
@@chrisgartenn Yes, only items marked "home compostable" should be tried at home, but evern then, with frequent bin turning and multiple goes around the bin systems, I don't find bioplastics degrade quickly.
Yeah its quite appaling what companies call bio degradable. Recently saw a grease that claimed to be but in the next sentence says it contains teflon:D
Thank you so much for putting this together. The detail and honesty is really appreciated. The best lessons come from things that didn't work out how we wanted, so thanks for sharing.
Seems you've made a sensible decision. Personally I never seive compost but just spread it onto my nodig beds and rake the woody bits onto the paths between the beds . As it's just my own garden I control what goes in but somehow bits of plastic still appear mysteriously along with the odd potato peeler. as I'm in my mid seventies I no longer turn compost piles but fill,leave for two years then use on the fourth year.
“This is why we can’t have nice things…” sorry you have inconsiderate community members that took advantage of you for years of your hard work. May you be blessed with better neighbors!
it takes one out of hundreds inhabitants to spoil community owned stuff. And it doesn't have to be ill intent or laziness. It as easily could be just different amount of attention this person can or do give to everything
I've been watching your channel for years. I don't have the space or ability to grow a garden nor compost my food, but I still enjoy your content. Your videos are always very transparent and are reminiscent of a written study. I am so very happy to see your garden and channel continue to grow, and I look forward to many more years of videos.
Yours was the very first video I found d to learn about making compost. I’m still on my gardening journey. Your teaching has not gone unnoticed. Thank you
We have a small community compost drop off and plastic is also a problem here. It feels a bit inconsiderate and is frustrating at times but fortunately we are at a small enough scale that I can do the work of cleaning it.
@rarefruit2320 It's scary when you look into it, every human on earth, except maybe people from uncontacted tribes, has a significant amount of plastic in their blood, brain, breast milk, reproductive organs. Some types of plastic are less harmful but many contribute to cancer, infertility, every kind of medical disorder really and it's not very well understood since we've only used plastic since WWII so like 1-2 generations. Mainly it's the big chemical companies like Dupont who have spilled insane amounts of the worst types of plastic chemical compounds into the environment and not necessarily the home gardener littering a few plastic pots and bags. Regardless once plastic contamination occurs there is no known solution for decontamination, no filtration or sifting process. Eventually it will become buried and captive within the ground as soil builds over top like when they dig down and find those old Roman roadways or structure foundations. Some can be destroyed if whatever plants, animals and other organisms or material that has absorbed the plastics is burned away by forrest fire but some of the really bad stuff from like from rainproof outdoors gear, non-stick cookware or industrial use plastic compounds require even higher temperatures than open flame to destroy and unfortunately are the most harmful.
@rarefruit2320 So I made this comment already, and it's disappeared, suspiciously. It's scary when you look into it. Every human on earth, except maybe people from uncontacted tribes, has a significant amount of plastic in their blood, brain, breast milk, and reproductive organs. Some types of plastic are less harmful but many contribute to cancer, infertility, every kind of medical disorder really and it's not very well understood since we've only used plastic since WWII, so like 2-3 generations. Mainly it's the big chemical companies like Dupont or 3M who have spilled insane amounts of the worst types of plastic chemical compounds into the environment and not necessarily the home gardener littering a few plastic pots and bags. Regardless, once plastic contamination occurs, there is no known solution for decontamination, no filtration or sifting process. Eventually, it will become buried and captive within the ground as soil builds over top, like when they dig down and find those old Roman roadways or structure foundations. Some can be destroyed if whatever plants, animals and other organisms or material that has absorbed the plastics is burned away by forrest fire but some of the really bad stuff from like from rainproof outdoors gear, non-stick cookware or industrial use plastic compounds require even higher temperatures than open flame to destroy and unfortunately are the most harmful.
Awesome work, great video, thank you for sharing ❤️ I’m in New Jersey, composting leaves and grass clippings, no outside sources. The numerous bits of plastic emerge, I guess we are all in the same predicament. I do enjoy turning the steaming piles and monitoring the temperature with a compost thermometer. Next step will be establishing a worm bed. Keep up the good work, your experiences are a treasure.
Thank you, Bruce, for all the time and effort you have put into this project, and for sharing your experience with the world. It has definitely helped me develop my own composting system for my small, single household garden. It's unfortunate that when participation numbers grow significantly, individual responsibility starts to slacken; it's the old Tragedy of the Commons principle. Nonetheless, know that your efforts have benefited many thousands of us all over the world, and we are sincerely grateful.
tbh, even if everyone was careful, it would still be a huge amount of work for one person to manage, with a great variation in the qualityand make up of the compost at the end. There would still be plastic, bones and wood in it, which would still need removing. I run a system just for myself. I am careful, and I am amazed at the rubbish I find in the end product. I have run large community projects and there is an interesting aspect in Bruce's work around scaling up. The village sounds like it has grown and incorporated more space and people. Bruce has exanded his growing area over 12 years. In these projects there is always the question of how to manage growth, expectations, comms, commitment to an original vision. It's never easy.
@@FireflyOnTheMoon Agreed, there will always be contaminants, and efficiently scaling up an operation often requires significant redesign. In my experience, though, there's a definite reduction in the quality of participation and individual responsibility when making the shift from first-name-basis relationships to "that guy who does the XYZ."
@@fxm5715 "the quality of participation and individual responsibility when making the shift from first-name-basis relationships to "that guy who does the XYZ."" --- Yes, I have found the same. When things are personal and close in, systems work very differently. Change over time (transient communities, visitors, people moving or dying etc) makes all this a challenge. I am interested how volunteer projects can manage this and sustain themselves, thriving and building, over the years.
Thats just too much work for 1 man, turning all that compost. Its such a shame that people would rather benefit than contribute.. please keep us updateed about your new composting adventures.
The end of an era! Your no rules compost and one-rule compost videos were very important to me as I've gotten into composting, and aspiring to do so at larger and communal scales. Sad to hear you're dealing with so much plastic too. When I was initializing my composting operation, I brought in a lot of yard waste that neighbors had set out for municipal collection. Over the next couple months, it became clear to me that such yard waste was going include lots of uncompostable material from careless neighbors. When I collect yard waste, I do so knowing i'll end up "weeding" plastic, so I only grab neighbors' yard waste when I feel like I need volume. I haven't done that in a while, since I've started sourcing compost inputs differently. For carbon, I prep and shred cardboard at my workplace. For the rest, I have the usual garden waste, but I also collect the organic waste from a coffee shop and neighborhood kitchen in buckets, and add them to a compost system myself. Collecting the buckets personally could seem like a chore, but I like the feeling of community I get from walking the neighborhood and collecting their waste (plus I get free coffee from the cafe). Additionally, if I notice any uncompostable material, I know exactly where that bucket came from, and can give them their lost-and-founds back, or have conversation about acceptable materials if needed. Thanks again, Bruce, for all of your content and honesty around community composting. I'm gonna keep giving it a go, and maybe others will find personal collection to be a solution to the challenges you detailed here.
Yeah, that yard waste often contains a lot of other stuff, most of it probably just blown in. I was wondering if it would be better to get people to deposit their material into other bins, the I could then load into the compost itself. It is extra work and I am not sure if there would be a real benefit, as it is easier to find and clear out most of the undesirable stuff from finished compost. If I had hens again to help with the composting, I would do that I think, just to manage the feeding more. I can see what you say about collecting the stuff yourself really helping identifying the problematic sources, and I suspect someone was going to check the bucket might encourage people to be more careful with what goes in. I think one of the issues I had was the compost is fairly out of the way, and people could dump lots of stuff in there without anyone noticing.
I appreciate how calmly and reasonably you put it here. Watching your video, it seems almost like working on well matured compost is kind of a zen practice which helps maturing as a person. Thank you for making this world better with your projects and your videos. My compost pile does not get turned at all. It is quite small, just for our household and the garden weeds. Full of earthworms, plus I throw there any snails I collect in the garden. The slugs, I collect them in a jar with salt to kill them. The material adds slowly, there is no smell. Just some flies or wasps, which I take as adding to local ecosystem. After like 2 years, I just take off the top layer, sieve the old bottom layer and start re-building it again, with the bigger and newer material now coming to the bottom. This is what I also saw my parents do, to minimize the work. Maybe this kind of extensive, minimum labor slow compost bins, could be a future solution for the local community. Many people just need a place where to put their compost bin. It could be left to them what they do with it or whom they share it with.
Thank you for all you do. I continue to learn much from your videos and the incredible data you collect and analyze. The interesting aspect of the community compost project is the social experiment you actually conducted and it’s reflection on today’s society .
Really glad you made this video. It’s important that we are able to learn from each other. Your reflections and insights are valued, and it wasn’t a waste! I envision a future where projects like this are community-led which requires ownership from everyone. And when the time comes, I’m sure experiences like this will be “studied”
When you get to writing a book, this would be an interesting chapter of garden politics. You definitely lead by example. And your examples are well tested and explained. Thanks again! E
Hi Bruce, greetings from Italy. I learnt how to make my own compost bin from one of your videos and I silently thank you every time I use it. You are a beautiful and kind person, keeping managing this social project for years deserves our gratitude. And yes, I understand the reason for stopping it: plastics are everywhere and compostable shoppers contain a non-compostable fraction that improves their mechanical properties. Thank you anyway, I'll keep following your activity if you decide to share it. Claudio
That was a very good summary of this 12 year experiment. I've learned a lot along the way, so thanks for making all these videos! I feel the same about plastics in compost, I get a lot of it in the municipal compost too. I worry about accumulation over time, but I try to reduce it by filling my back pockets with plastic bits I encounter as I work in the garden. It would be interesting to see a trial and hear your thoughts on static composting! I think the Johnson-Su method seems like the most interesting one to me, but I've heard mixed things. It seems like there's a lot of detail and nuance that needs to be understood for it to work well. As always :)
😁 I am really glad that the municipal compost I get is really clean, and doesn't contain plastic. I do want to explore the various options of static composting.
I want to establish a community composting facility at my community garden but It's the second time I'm told by someone who managed for a while that they were stopping for some of the reasons you pointed out and others being people are lazy and just want to harvest the fruit of your labor but don't want to contribute in the work.
My first guess when I read the title was the garbage and second was the work involved even though it's free organic material Years ago the greenhouse business in my small town set up a community compost but closed it because of the garbage (nonorganic) deposited ... especially plastic bags. Now the Town has an area to dump organic material and same thing ... people throw the bags and all into the heap. I really enjoy your videos -- Thank you!!!
I manage recycling bins at work and it is a constant headache. People put bottles with liquid still inside, chips with ketchup in styrofoam containers.
For a similar job, the half-full water bottles, the small half-empty plastic containers of yogurt and the baby diapers in the recyclable paper/cardboard bin were the worst I could find.
Thank you for the service you provided. To say it was useful, to day it was fascinating to watch, are both understatements but these are all I have to describe it. Bless you and your work.
My last note would have been a sign-up sheet for helping turn & screen the compost every 2 weeks. If the sheet isn't full by xx/xx date, the compost service will end. I need a plan for the piles of our own household compost that's building up. Mulching leaves this fall gave me enough to cover our few tiny garden beds and other spots that need mulch. Cheers to your years of hard work.
ultimatums will just discourage people from participating, they basically already did this by letting them know before hand when they announced that they stopped supporting and people switched over to a paid service. ive posted before that red could also switch to a paid subscription but i doubt its going to be enough for them to go through that work. no one does things for free.
Twelve years is a long time to manage relationships with an entire community. Good on you for sticking it out that long. I hope in your next community project others buy in with their time so that it doesn't fall only on you. Mentoring is a lot of work too, but can help avoid having to wind down community projects. I kept thinking that surely there would be one or two other people who would come forward and ask how they could help you keep it going (but I bet the most passionate are already doing their own thing at home.)
At home composter here. Mostly made from fall leaves and summer grass clippings. The plastic is bad enough just from what blows onto my property to get collected. I also had neighbors who contributed that weren't so considerate about separating plastic from compost. I don't turn and I build piles lasagna layer style and just let time and biology do it's thing. I use a small electric rototiller on finished piles before use. Any type of community compost setup needs mechanization or participant labor.
this reminds me of a social media friend who found a community garden once. Very immaculate, very well planted and well taken care of they said. Didn't do an ounce of work in the garden, just stopped by and took stuff when it was ripe. Never saw anybody there, but was sure to post about all the wonderful veggies she was getting for free. Fast forward the next year, no garden and the complaints started flowing.. when asked why don't you go down there and plant a garden, me.. I don't have time for that, it was a community Gardner, they should be doing that. Well there was your answer and that's what happened here. The others don't care about your hard work, just that they somehow benefit from it
That person was literally stealing. The amount of effort and money it takes to make food and she was stealing all of that work. What a terrible person.
Good timing Bruce, just about to start constructing my own shortly. One of the obstacles which has caused a fair bit of dithering on my part is where to build as not much flat land away from the cottage, one solution is to construct a Jora type insulated composter which i had at my last location, works really well speeding up the process x4 fold but best of all does't attract animals - the real Jora compsoters from Sweden are expensive but worth every penny for reasons mentioned, this time around I probably need something larger or multiple composters to handle increased volume, looking into making my own from marine ply and polyethylene insulation, cheers
It might help solve the problem of turning if you could make one large enough, the tough insulation on the inside is widely available in the building trade - I also had good success with Bokashi , that might be something to consider too as its a sealed process which keeps out pests, end product works great as a compost booster or buried directly into soil.
I worked as a horticulturist for the city of Montreal for 15 years and I was in charge of composting plants recovered from the floralies gardens on Notre-Dame and Sainte-Hélène islands. The process was simple, if I insisted, I could bring in a loader to turn the stacks once a month. Composting was effective because the piles were 8 to 10 feet high. In physics, pressure and temperature are directly proportional. So the weight of the stack helped with composting and the smoke escaping from there was visible in the fall in cold temperatures. The nylon ropes of the hay bales were a problem. One day, after around 12 years, I came back from vacation and the mounds had disappeared to make way for a parking lot.
Sounds like a good setup. I'd definitely get machinery if I was to do it again. And I'd love to see the impact of a much larger pile. Shame it shut down.
Thanks for all of your videos. I started watching them when I started my own composting 8 years ago. It's a decent amount of work even for just two people. I could not imagine doing this for 20 households.
Thank you for this follow up. I watched many of your composting videos in the past, and I was curious about how that would work out. I feared many people would add not just organics but plastic and other unwanted materials. I applaud your generosity with respect to all the work you did, and continue to do. It's a shame that a number of organic waste donors increased your work, probably by 15% or more, due to their ignorance or laziness or just because they didn't care.
Bravo for doing it as long as you have. Too much work for just one person. Be cautious with the municipal compost. I recently started working in the waste industry and I’m appalled by a lot of what goes on.
It’s a lot of work, I do my own and made a vibrating sieve and it honestly saves so much time. I’ve found spoons and all kinds of plastic and we’re super careful (our daughter even removes the labels from bananas before putting the skin into the compost bin!). You then need to pay to scrap the community waste which is an extra cost for you.. surprised no one offered to help you with it…
I do need to get a vibrating sieve going! I think it would have really helped. My problem was not having electricity supply close enough to the compost.
I have enjoyed this episode. Why do you use lids on your compost bins? I thought we want the compost to receive water from the rain so it can decompose fast? Thanks
We get too much rain in Ireland, and the climate is cool, so things can get too wet, so it depends on your climate. I do take the lids off in the summer to let rain in occasionally, but I find it better to add water when I think it needs it.
@@REDGardens Oh I see. Thank you for the explanation. I thought I was doing my compost wrong. Yes definately I had not factored in our different weather conditions.
Hi Bruce I've been watching your channel for a good few years, and yea I feel your frustration. I only compost my own materials and yet also get plastic and spoons. Regarding the turning you will still get good compost if you don't turn or just do it once only. I only seive if I want to use it for seeds. I would say most of your contributers to the compost pile were like minded individuals and maybe needed a little more guidence and if asked might have helped you out with the turning and seiving. So keep the faith and keep up the good work educating. It's hard going trying to open orther peoples minds to change the way they are doing things, but like you I've been at it for years and slowly slowly I can see the mind set changing.
Yeah, I think you are right. More guidance, and perhaps a more forceful 'discussions' with a few households, would have done a lot to reduce the amount of plastic. But I think I needed to have more space, to let things sit and slowly decompose for longer, without needing to move everything. Getting people to help with the sieving is a good idea. I should have done that, of 4th help and to educate people 😁
The best part of life is other people in their various forms. The worst part about life is people in their various forms. ...Sooo frustrating sometimes haha. Sir, you do an amazing job sharing all these experiences ; all things growing. Thank you !
Nothing is more frustrating than doing something for the others without asking anything and receiving this kind of attitude as a reward. It kills your joy in doing things, it kills your hope in humankind.
I’ve been trying to do the same for my local organic community garden, the green waste collected are mainly weeds and other plant material from the gardeners. Unfortunately, like you, I'm finding lots of small plastic bits, nylon stockings, those awful hay barrel plastic ties and plastic pots mixed in. Maybe people can't tell the difference between plastic and non plastic anymore, I just expected a little more especially this is a group who is into ORGANIC gardening.... I can't imagine taking on waste from the wider community. You have done well and I can see how it would wear you out!!
Bruce, I understand exactly this problem because I did the same with one community and even I advised to the kitchen and a signal in the trash basket, a lot of plastic came any way and I stopped after 2 years. You have a lot of patience. Regards from Turkey !!!
It is such a shame so many community compost projects stop for the same reason. What you describe is one of the reasons why I don't think it is worth putting up signs. They don't work well enough, and we get more anoyed that people aren't doing what the sign says.
@REDGardens yes. I agree. Any way, I am a big fun of your work. Keep sharing, please. I am applying some of your ideas, like keeping detailed information of everything so later you can improve your work. Thanks Bruce. Regards, Jaime
Another great video this one connected with me because over the last year I have created a community garden that is full access to the public for harvesting as they want and it has grown exponentially but some of my volunteer gardeners have asked for a public composting system so I built a compost corner for them which I will not be opening up for the general public as I can see it will end up being me sieving out all the plastic
Have you considered hotbin or tumbling composters? They have high upfront costs but I have found that they generate finished compost much faster than standard piles.
This is an extremely insightful video, thank you. Any sort of community composting is labour-intensive and has multiple 'issues' such as the ones you've highlighted.
I have turned many piles. I pick up vegetable waste from a local vegan restaurant and pick up leaves from the neighborhood. I do find the occasional spoon, fork or piece of plastic. It's very small scale. I appreciate what you have done! Amazing amount of work. I am actually thinking about getting a few rabbits because I could feed them some of the vegetable waste (most is very fresh and never any meat, egg or dairy) and then incorporate the rabbit droppings into my compost or directly on my plants.
We’ve been using our brown bin as a stage 1 bin for food waste, including cheese but no meat. (We don’t eat much meat). After 1 to 2 years we mix this into our compost digester (4 timber sides with air gaps) which have garden waste and kitchen vegetable waste. I don’t do any turning of the 4 compost digesters, instead when digging out a digester I throw any partly decomposed material into a different temporary pile before returning to an empty digester. Usually this takes 1 hour every year. I always find stray plastic and foils from the kitchen. I stopped adding the biodegradable crinkle plastic wrappings as I got fed up digging them out. They seemed to break down in the centre of the pile but not near the edges.
That is the reality of human nature, the law of least effort and not giving a s… since someone else deals with potential issues. Good for you for making all these efforts for the common good.
God is good, your videos come in at the perfect time. Gardening is a struggled sometimes. That’s a shame that people don’t respect your work and just dispose of their garbage. You inspired be years ago with your no rules compost and I’ve been doing it ever since with my own compost. Even I forget about some things and plastic will get in somehow, I’m sure it’s my wife😂 but not much. Just by mistake anyways. I hope you keep doing what you love and just know that you have made a difference in the world of gardening for so many! Thank you!
I thought about this i live in a block of flats/apartments but when you got residents that just dump ordinary items in our recycling bins it makes you think theres no intellgence around you. So why bother. I have a large compost/plastic bin with holes and lid that my family fills with a cut out bottom i dont turn it it rots naturally and i make tea from it. Thats all you need and an Arborist who will freely supply you with chippings. Job done!
You did the community a great service, free of charge, for a very long time. With a very manual, labour intensive system. I understand that you came to this conclusion. Perhaps a few neighbours would be willing to pay you for your service? I have issues with plastic too, even with just four persons who put in material. And all four is forced to participate in the yearly sifting / removal of plastic process. In our case it is by mistake. The plastic bin is close to the compost bin, and both are open. I really hope that ppl was not abusing your system. Good look in the future!
I do wonder if propel would be willing to pay. I know so many people with household systems that report the same issue as you. Great that you have everyone out dealing with it though!
You did an amazing job, all that turning and sifting is hard manual labour! I think you got something out of it when you started, but are wise to stop now and focus on your gardens. Unfortunately people are selfish or are simply blind to the effort you put in to manage the system. This is the reason I haven’t asked my neighbours for composting material.
At home, I had a system similar to yours. A square of one cubic metre at both ends and a central square of half a cubic metre. I transferred the box composted in the autumn to the one in the centre and started a new one because the other one had just been filled. This composter devoured anything. The most difficult to compost was birch and avocado bark (not the pit). These items and small pieces of wood were composted several times. There was a yellow sulphur fungus that appeared during the summer and it was busy devouring the 6x6 treated, recycled from the bin itself. I never had any problems with rats until the city started major work on the sewer system. My neighbor complained that a rat fought with a squirrel for the territory of the tank.
There was no lid on my bins. Rainwater was part of the composting process. When I finished filling a bin or on other occasions if I wanted to improve the yield or aesthetics, I would put some compost ready on the pile. I moved and haven't started composting again but I often miss it, especially when I pay full price at the garden centre.
I do like the process of sifting out the harder to decompose stuff and throwing it back into the fresh pile for another round of decomposition - after removing the plastic of course. I suspect some material has gone through several cycles like this!
As I understand it, people with large amounts of citrus, like trees worth, find that if too many peels are put in the compost it slows everything down. And it seems that has been extrapolated to the idea that citrus peels don't decompose and causes problems in the compost bin. With the amount and diversity of other material in my compost systems, citrus has never been a problem. It is one of many examples of an issue in one very particular context is copied into very different contexts, which is why I don't like the 'rules'!
@@REDGardens I used some grass clippings from a property I think that got "weed n feed" I never have enough organic material - opposite your problem ; - )
I have been composting my kitchen waste for 15 years using vermicomposting and throughout the years i evolved into a similar no rule method such as yours. I have a small ikea bin my kitchen counter. Scraps go in there, once a week (we are a household of 4) I have two big 20liter pots under a tree (where nothing grew anyways) half full of soil and worms. I bury the scraps in layers, digging a hole and putting scraps and soil as i go. The only rules I try to follow is not add more than 1.5-2kg a week and mix enough with soil so that fermentation doesn't cook the worms (compost). I only have to half empty the bins twice a year. Works well for a small house.
Nice! I just started my worm bin a while ago, sounds like a similar setup. Seems to be going well. Lots of worm activity! Hope to get the number of worms up to the point where they can handle most of our kitchen scraps. 😁
Plastic is the ONE thing I really hate in compost. As for the amount of compost one needs: I have 76m³ of beds & with the .450 litres of compost needed for my potato tubs, I need close to 3m³ of compost annually, which isn't all that simple to find the material for. I've followed your journey through this & admire your persistence. I also understand & support your decision to move on.
Yeah, that is a good yield for that kind of compost. Nice to see other people using data like that. I couldn't help myself thinking that you added about 30L of compost to get 7kg of produce. Interesting
I have a tiny garden and get my compost by taking little scoops of black gold from the woods. The leaf matter gets to 18 inches thick or more in paces, and if ya can get to the edge of the super thick leaf cover there be gold, black gold. Lol. I couldn't imagine running a community anything without losing my mind.
I think I subscribed off the back of an early composting video, and have definitely taken some cues from you - namely with the various sieves using the 20mm square weld mesh. On the subject of plastics within the compost, I was saddened to hear when one of my neighbours told me he'd used seaweed from the local beach for many years, but had recently stopped due to the amount of microplastics he'd discovered on closer inspection of it. Personally I don't think I'd have the right temperament to manage a community facility, and would get far too worked up over rubbish ending up in there. At least when I'm fishing it out of mine I've only myself to blame.
The plastic issue is something i've experienced in our own domestic compost over the last few years. First i thought it was due to me nievely assuming all the compostable plastics I was putting in were suitable for home composting. After a few years of being more diligent in checking (resulting in time for all non-home compostable items to pass throught the system) I was surprised by how much plastic and other supposedly biodegradable items remained: such as biodegradable string, home compostable plastics such as cups, lids, bags etc. As well as some biodegradable food grade cardboards which seemed to have a plastic element to them (lining). I've never had issues with composting and luckily continued to get rich well broke down compost (bar plastic and string). I would be v interested to see if these home compostable items are in fact suitable for smaller scale composting or if there's any tips to being able to incorporate these better into the home compost system. I hope your issue is due to people like me who are making bad assumptions and you have better luck with any community composting in the future - a really valuable thing (if you have the energy again!).
it does seem that a lot of the 'compostable' material is resistant to decomposing in many home compost systems. But I have found that it just needs a lot longer.
I just setup a rotating compost bin. Got it for 30 bux at thrift. Right at the get go it was hard to stuff material into into its smallish opening but that should be fine for adding a few things at a time.
Hi Bruce, I chuckled all the way through this as I felt your pain! When dealing with the public there are the ones who ‘do the right thing’ and diametrically opposite are the ones who don’t. No matter what sign you put up, they still wouldn’t. I have to keep reminding myself of this regularly….. perhaps best to do what best services your needs and your obvious community spirit. i do like the idea of hens though (for the manure) …….seems like a good addition to your system?
Year, there always a few who just don't go along with what needs to be done. My problem was that I didn't develop a system or approach that would be able to prevent too much of that, or a way to work around it for longer.
@@REDGardens Maybe…… BUT….. I sell plants at our Farmer’s Market and we put up a sign with explicit details (after many questions) about the plastic pots we can take back and re-use. Quite simple huh? But No! Not the ones that you didn’t get from us. Not the ones with someone else’s advertising. Not the ones with the slugs and snails inside. Not the ones that are broken or squashed. Whatever you say or do, someone always, always has a different (and better in their minds) version of what you should do 🤣🤣🤣.You can’t win, you just have to pick your battles 😜😜
Yeah, you can't win, only adapt to, or flow around the non compliance. What you describe is a good example of why I don't like using signs. They often don't work and we get even more frustrated because we put up the sign! I guess try to avoid that added frustration.
I stopped gardening vegetables after a batch of bought organic compost had glyphosate in them plus my back getting old to be digging around. All my peppers and tomatoes shriveled. Instead I let the garden patch thrived with wild flowers. Watched the whole year from my window hundreds of goldfinches, hummingbirds, bees and butterflies visiting. Sometimes you need to ask this question “what can I eat that which I do not have to kill” Still understand with what you were doing there.
@@REDGardens I have gained a lot of happiness from gaining mending skills and also I sent my heirloom quilt to a quilt restorer for 150USD (they only charged like 118, which i felt was low) and felt it was worth it.
A quilt restorer would be a good idea, though I don't know if there are any around here in Ireland! It is a big task for me, but I really want to learn and restore this thing.
Makes sense that it is a small word of mouth community. The issue over here is that no-one has a quilt, unless imported from USA or Canada. Apparently quilting has never been a thing.
You can completely cover your compost and make a long and high tube on it to let the smell run through it. Then use rainworms or maggots to turn them into gomus!
Hi Bruce, firstly, I am sorry to hear the news. But likewise, I am truly confident you will create something that is even better. Secondly, in hindsight, the expession 'community composting facility' is probably not right. The way it worked, the public only took but never gave something - if you know what I mean. It may, besides the things you mentioned, have helped if the locals were invited to help with the work. (Maybe even being 'remunerated' with some veggies and a cuppa.) And thirdly, a rotating sieve makes live so much easier, though the material's moisture, or rather dryness, is critical for the sieving. Either way, enjoy the time spent with the garden!
Yeah, good point about 'community'. We also have a 'community' farm, which many people, especially from North America, assume involves people in the community growing for themselves, but it is a type of Community Supported Agriculture project, where people pay and someone else grows for them, but they can get involved if they want. To be honest I sort of use the word 'community' to poke a bit of fun at that misconception. But if it was really a community facility, with more people involved, it probably would not have lasted as long. I am more stubborn than most.
It sure sounds like a LOT of work. I am wondering, is there any class at the local schools, that has kids who can come out and volunteer for taking over that project? Is it something the school itself could do?
I seriously doubt it. From a school administrative level it is a massive health and safety issue, with possible rats, sharp things, potential for problematic fungus and bacteria in the area, and occasional really smelly patches if it isn't managed well that cause your clothes to stink! It is not something I would want to send a load of kids in to manage, at least not at this scale.
@@REDGardens We do a local garden and compost bins for out high school. It's not a class, but an after school club. one of the science teachers runs the club. AND the produce makes it's way to the cafe for a part of meals
This concerns me a bit as I am just starting my market garden and was looking to start a Community Composting Facility for the village. so this serves as a real warning for me.
It is an issue, but something that can be worked around if you know about it in advance. Not sure if it would be useful for you, but one option that I have been wanting to explore is to dump each batch of compost with lots of plastic as a thick layer on the surface a raised bed or smaller section a polytunnel, and use it to grow a couple of intensive crops that can really benefit from the excessive fertility. Or even to grow some green manure that can be easily harvested for composting material - basically a biological filter. After a couple of years a lot of the fertility will have been used up, the organic matter decomposed or washed into the soil below, or taken down by worms, and you can regularly rake off or collect a lot of the plastic sitting on the surface. It will be ugly, and I'd want to protect it from the wind blowing everything away, but at least all of the plastic would be concentrated in a smaller spot rather than spread everywhere. If you did this over marginal ground, it might work even better. With a bit of planning, you could slowly filter out and collect most of the plastic, and improve ground for additional growing spaces. Sorry, a long response, but your concern got my brain thinking and wanted to get an idea out. 😁
@@REDGardens wonderful reply thank you. Using your experience I feel I can put in place a conversation prior to the material arriving. Using an area to use as Green Manure growth area to collect all the waste but still benefit from the harvest sounds a great idea thanks.
Hi, really appreciate all you do and look forward to your videos and as you are always trying different ideas have you thought about trying electro gardening, I find it fascinating and very productive.
Do you mind elaborating a little about your bias against signs that would remind people what not to throw into the composting bin?
Good question, something I do have a lot to thoughts about. 😁
I have a thing about instructional signs in general. I feel that they are often a bandage or workaround for a badly designed system, or an attempt to exert control with something that is not really controllable.
In the case of these compost signs, I have found that when they are made they tend to include all of the things that shouldn't be added, which is part of the problem that I want trying to avoid. So I set out to have a no-sign compost system.
If I do put up a sign saying not to add plastic things, that might prevent some of it, but I would expect some would still end up in the compost, just as I often find spoons, and stoppers for sinks. It is simply a difficult thing to exclude even if everyone thinks they are playing attention. And I need to remember that people who come to dump the compost are not the only people in the houses adding to the bins, so that message might not get passed on. When that happens, do I put up a bigger sign, or more signs, or more assertive signs?
I guess I wanted to avoid starting down that road, and wanted to design systems that could just deal with it. But I didn't do that very well.
Having said that, I was thinking of setting up a big board beside the compost where I could hang all the stupid things that I found in the compost, almost like an art instillation. And label it 'Lost and Found' or 'Is this Yours?' or something like that, to make a joke about it, and so that people can see what does end up in there. I think that would be more interesting, effective and educational, than an instructional sign.
@@REDGardens I think it's certainly wise to set up any systems with as few rules/instructions as possible. I find that people don't tend to read signs and over time become even more blind to them. Effective group comms in this kind of siutation are very tricky.
It is esp'ly hard to manage practical, analogue systems where you are not meeting the people in person all the time.
I would be interested in a vid on how you have managed your expansion and how your systems have changed accordingly
@@REDGardens Well said! → "Instructional signs … are often a bandage or workaround for a badly designed system, or an attempt to exert control with something that is not really controllable."
And I love the idea of a "lost and found" art installation 😄 So much better than a sign, at least for those of us with a sense of humor.
Use some signs man!
@@REDGardensI really like your lost and found/is this yours? Idea.
Perhaps using the plastic trash to make a "community compost, organic material only" sign would make an effective reminder
I live with four other family members, and I manage our compost bins. The other members of my family aren't as careful as me when it comes to what goes in the compost bin but still, I keep a fairly close eye on things and I'm amazed at how much plastic ends up in there. It's like magic. We live in a plastic world
We've been careful for years but it gets in! I was confused by all these small square plastic bags and took ages to figure out they were tea bags!! The paper part had degraded away but they had plastic interior bags! It's even on the shiny/colourful print on cardboard boxes.
We do live in a plastic world!
@@niamhfox9559 It's so silly that society at large is fully aware of the need to reduce the use of plastics, yet manufacturers find new ways to pointlessly make products out of plastic that absolutely don't need to be. Tea bags didn't used to contain plastic, but they commonly do nowadays, for no good reason. Madness!
Yes, I occasionally come across bits of plastic in the soil in our small garden despite being thoroughly careful not to drop any plastic and shun the use of plastic items in the garden. Some of it just gets blown in from time to time.
Two adults, zero plastic in compost, only paper stickers on fruits. Although i found steel fork in my own compost once😆
Organic waist bucket has own separate place on the kitchen, i think that it is the trick. And only adults are using it.
The worst are the stickers on fruit.. I find them in the garden years afterwards.
An labels on paper bags and paper envelops. It's hard to know how much plastic a label has in it
Yeah, they are tough ones!
I see 200+ comments already so this'll likely get buried but I just wanted to leave it anyway.
I stumbled on your channel last week looking for information on the Three Sisters, and thought "He looks really familiar" when you were in frame, it was only when I saw a cut to outside of the polytunnel I realised who you were!
A few years ago, a friend and I were passing through and were stuck for somewhere to crash, you were nice enough to let us pitch our tents in the gardens for the night. You're an absolute gent Bruce and I'm hoping to start growing my own food in the coming year up here in Louth.
Hey, so cool to get this comment! Glad you were able to use the space for the night! Good luck with the food growing next year!
It's so frustrating that people could not be bothered to try and keep their green waste plastic free. That would drive me crazy. It's not that hard. 12 years is a good run though Bruce, fair play.
People could definitely do a lot better, but I think we need to accept that it will rarely be "plastic free", something always gets in!
Most plastic that ended in my bin came from the automn leaves harvest.
The wind bring the plastic pieces at the same location than the leaves.
Yup.
plastic is good for you though
Thanks so much for offering this service to your community. I sure understand your fatigue and respect that you did this for 12 years.
😁
Thanks Bruce. It was a vast amount of work. I can quite understand why you stopped. I run a personal compost system just for me and I still find a lot of plastic - even though I feel I am very careful. I find the turning and moving such heavy work, esp as I get older. 12 years is a great period time to experiment with and run a project.
again im doubtful the plastic is a actual issue - annoying yes, unsightly yes, but it probably has no effect on growing
@@gsdggasgs1799 As a grower, nobody wants beds full of rubbish.
Thanks! It is amazing how much stuff ends up in the compost even when we are careful!
@@FireflyOnTheMoon nah its fine
Thank you Bruce. Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
Composting is so much work! With a quarter acre in gardens, I have 4 compost piles in different locations for garden waste and one brush pile. Kitchen scraps are placed into the worm bin. At 73 years old, I run out of energy before I run out of daylight, so the piles grow and only get turned about twice each year. Still, the great soil that accumulates under the piles provides a lot of material for homemade potting mix and mulch. The neglect isn't great as I'm 'cold composting' but the piles still serve me well.
Yeah, neglecting them isn't great, but if you leave it long enough the compost still makes itself!
My neglected pile is very hot and steaming 😂. I don't need to turn, wild boar come and turn it for me once in a while 😅
I would like to applaud you for your 12 years of dedication to this. I know it is a lot of work. I am in year 2 of getting my neighbors to bring their mulched leaves to the lot behind my house (with permission from the owner). I noticed a huge difference in putting the material on the dusty, weedy, dead ground when it came to where it touched my property. This year, still with permission from the owner, we have been able to spread the mulched leaves about 25 feet by 300 feet- along the back of my property. I had so much success in reducing the amount of weeds coming over to my property that I am sure next spring will be even better. It is also very nice not to have all those leaves going to a landfill. One neighbor previously rented the big bins, does all the mulching and trimming of trees, then pays to have it hauled off. This year he mulched and dumped everything behind my house and my husband and I spread it out. I wish more people understood the benefit to mulching and composting.
Nice! Leaves like that can produce awesome soil!
Plastic is the bane of my existence, and it angers me that almost no one cares enough to use and handle it properly. Not once in my entire life have I been able to dig a new bed without finding plastic wire ties, bottle caps, bag fragments, and sheet plastic. And every time I pull up my potatoes, I find more pieces I missed. People wonder about the microplastics-in-everything problem, they wag their finger at others polluting, but they won't make the small effort to change aspects of their life to eliminate the need for plastic.
The only plastic I use is plastic I am forced to use or was not disclosed as a part of a product or its packaging. As a result, I generate only about 6-7 gallons of non-compostable trash a year.
It is a serious issue, and I have to confess to not being as careful as I could be.
@@REDGardens This video shows that you are much more conscious about the issue and your usage than the vast majority of people, which is a huge step. I recognize that I am a little more extreme in my lifestyle than I need to be, but it is more or less to prove a point to the people who know me. This kind of reduction is not only possible, it doesn't even have as much of a QOL impact as most people assume.
I think what you do is so important, even if it can be seen as more 'extreme' than most. I have always thought that it is the extreme edges of culture, people really pushing and testing the boundaries of what is possible, that allows the less extreme of us to better understand the diversity of possibilities. And eventually, far too slowly in most cases, a greater part of the society can be shifted towards something more appropriate.
I think it's outrageous that, for example, every banana or kiwi has a non-compostable plastic sticker on it. Why isn’t that simply banned? When my neighbors moved, they asked if they could dump the contents of their compost bin in my vegetable garden. At first, I was happy with the free compost, but later I had to fish out hundreds of pieces of plastic.
@@guyvanooteghem8531 Those stickers help a great deal in the grocery store to sell the fruit. A ban isn't needed. The answer is to take the stickers off before using the fruit (which I can't ever remember not doing) and dispose of them with the rest of the non-compost trash.
It's hard to be that one guy responsible for it all, and frankly I'm shocked you lasted as long as you did. Thankful to have learned from you, I remember watching some of your old videos back in the day
You put in so much work that people don't realize what it takes to develop good compost.
Yeah, it can be a lot of work.
In the summer I got to bottom one of my big compost bins and found the wrapper from a 'National Trust' magazine as good as the day it went in 2 years previously. On it you could read 'just put me in the compost I'm bio degradable' . Just because it says it bio degradable doesn't mean it will in any meaningful time scale, after all granite will make quite good soil conditioner give a few million years.
I agree that "home compostable" can mean 1000 things. I find these types of plastics incredibly slow. I suspect it would be faster in hot systems, but it all very much despends what these bioplastics are made of and it's nigh on impossible to find out.
Yeah, I have come across stuff like that!
@@chrisgartenn Yes, only items marked "home compostable" should be tried at home, but evern then, with frequent bin turning and multiple goes around the bin systems, I don't find bioplastics degrade quickly.
Yeah its quite appaling what companies call bio degradable.
Recently saw a grease that claimed to be but in the next sentence says it contains teflon:D
In short: the last plastic straw broke the camel's back
Yeah, something like that.
Or ... I didn't change my method/approach to reflect the decreasing need/value I placed on it.
both are good descriptions
Thank you so much for putting this together. The detail and honesty is really appreciated. The best lessons come from things that didn't work out how we wanted, so thanks for sharing.
😁 I agree, some of the best lessons come from things that don't work out as expected.
Seems you've made a sensible decision.
Personally I never seive compost but just spread it onto my nodig beds and rake the woody bits onto the paths between the beds . As it's just my own garden I control what goes in but somehow bits of plastic still appear mysteriously along with the odd potato peeler. as I'm in my mid seventies I no longer turn compost piles but fill,leave for two years then use on the fourth year.
I think I would do the same if I was only working in my own garden!
Once again - overly polite and detailed explanation.
Can’t express how helpful your insights are.
Thanks
If only this kind of politeness wasn't considered unusual. Keep it up, Canadians, wherever you may reside!
overly polite?
😁
“This is why we can’t have nice things…” sorry you have inconsiderate community members that took advantage of you for years of your hard work. May you be blessed with better neighbors!
it takes one out of hundreds inhabitants to spoil community owned stuff. And it doesn't have to be ill intent or laziness. It as easily could be just different amount of attention this person can or do give to everything
Your compost instruction has been thorough and obviously well received, thank you for sharing without bias while maintaining a truthful experience.
So nice of you
I've been watching your channel for years. I don't have the space or ability to grow a garden nor compost my food, but I still enjoy your content. Your videos are always very transparent and are reminiscent of a written study. I am so very happy to see your garden and channel continue to grow, and I look forward to many more years of videos.
That is so cool, to know that people who don't garden or compost can still find value in watching my videos. Thanks! 😁
Yours was the very first video I found d to learn about making compost. I’m still on my gardening journey. Your teaching has not gone unnoticed. Thank you
😁
Lovely comment thank you for writing that down!
We have a small community compost drop off and plastic is also a problem here. It feels a bit inconsiderate and is frustrating at times but fortunately we are at a small enough scale that I can do the work of cleaning it.
why not just leave the plastic in? its unsightly and annoying but i don't think it actually affects the growth of plants
@ those two things and also as it doesn’t degrade it continuously accumulates. I also don’t know the effects of it breaking down into micro plastics
yeah, it is frustrating.
@rarefruit2320 It's scary when you look into it, every human on earth, except maybe people from uncontacted tribes, has a significant amount of plastic in their blood, brain, breast milk, reproductive organs. Some types of plastic are less harmful but many contribute to cancer, infertility, every kind of medical disorder really and it's not very well understood since we've only used plastic since WWII so like 1-2 generations. Mainly it's the big chemical companies like Dupont who have spilled insane amounts of the worst types of plastic chemical compounds into the environment and not necessarily the home gardener littering a few plastic pots and bags. Regardless once plastic contamination occurs there is no known solution for decontamination, no filtration or sifting process. Eventually it will become buried and captive within the ground as soil builds over top like when they dig down and find those old Roman roadways or structure foundations. Some can be destroyed if whatever plants, animals and other organisms or material that has absorbed the plastics is burned away by forrest fire but some of the really bad stuff from like from rainproof outdoors gear, non-stick cookware or industrial use plastic compounds require even higher temperatures than open flame to destroy and unfortunately are the most harmful.
@rarefruit2320 So I made this comment already, and it's disappeared, suspiciously. It's scary when you look into it. Every human on earth, except maybe people from uncontacted tribes, has a significant amount of plastic in their blood, brain, breast milk, and reproductive organs. Some types of plastic are less harmful but many contribute to cancer, infertility, every kind of medical disorder really and it's not very well understood since we've only used plastic since WWII, so like 2-3 generations. Mainly it's the big chemical companies like Dupont or 3M who have spilled insane amounts of the worst types of plastic chemical compounds into the environment and not necessarily the home gardener littering a few plastic pots and bags. Regardless, once plastic contamination occurs, there is no known solution for decontamination, no filtration or sifting process. Eventually, it will become buried and captive within the ground as soil builds over top, like when they dig down and find those old Roman roadways or structure foundations. Some can be destroyed if whatever plants, animals and other organisms or material that has absorbed the plastics is burned away by forrest fire but some of the really bad stuff from like from rainproof outdoors gear, non-stick cookware or industrial use plastic compounds require even higher temperatures than open flame to destroy and unfortunately are the most harmful.
Awesome work, great video, thank you for sharing ❤️ I’m in New Jersey, composting leaves and grass clippings, no outside sources. The numerous bits of plastic emerge, I guess we are all in the same predicament. I do enjoy turning the steaming piles and monitoring the temperature with a compost thermometer. Next step will be establishing a worm bed. Keep up the good work, your experiences are a treasure.
thanks! 😁
Thank you, Bruce, for all the time and effort you have put into this project, and for sharing your experience with the world. It has definitely helped me develop my own composting system for my small, single household garden. It's unfortunate that when participation numbers grow significantly, individual responsibility starts to slacken; it's the old Tragedy of the Commons principle. Nonetheless, know that your efforts have benefited many thousands of us all over the world, and we are sincerely grateful.
tbh, even if everyone was careful, it would still be a huge amount of work for one person to manage, with a great variation in the qualityand make up of the compost at the end. There would still be plastic, bones and wood in it, which would still need removing. I run a system just for myself. I am careful, and I am amazed at the rubbish I find in the end product.
I have run large community projects and there is an interesting aspect in Bruce's work around scaling up. The village sounds like it has grown and incorporated more space and people. Bruce has exanded his growing area over 12 years. In these projects there is always the question of how to manage growth, expectations, comms, commitment to an original vision. It's never easy.
@@FireflyOnTheMoon Agreed, there will always be contaminants, and efficiently scaling up an operation often requires significant redesign. In my experience, though, there's a definite reduction in the quality of participation and individual responsibility when making the shift from first-name-basis relationships to "that guy who does the XYZ."
Thanks. I do need to remember that one of the reasons for doing all this was to be able to share what I learned, so even a 'failure' is useful. 😁
@@fxm5715 "the quality of participation and individual responsibility when making the shift from first-name-basis relationships to "that guy who does the XYZ."" --- Yes, I have found the same. When things are personal and close in, systems work very differently. Change over time (transient communities, visitors, people moving or dying etc) makes all this a challenge.
I am interested how volunteer projects can manage this and sustain themselves, thriving and building, over the years.
Thats just too much work for 1 man, turning all that compost. Its such a shame that people would rather benefit than contribute.. please keep us updateed about your new composting adventures.
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The end of an era! Your no rules compost and one-rule compost videos were very important to me as I've gotten into composting, and aspiring to do so at larger and communal scales. Sad to hear you're dealing with so much plastic too.
When I was initializing my composting operation, I brought in a lot of yard waste that neighbors had set out for municipal collection. Over the next couple months, it became clear to me that such yard waste was going include lots of uncompostable material from careless neighbors. When I collect yard waste, I do so knowing i'll end up "weeding" plastic, so I only grab neighbors' yard waste when I feel like I need volume.
I haven't done that in a while, since I've started sourcing compost inputs differently. For carbon, I prep and shred cardboard at my workplace. For the rest, I have the usual garden waste, but I also collect the organic waste from a coffee shop and neighborhood kitchen in buckets, and add them to a compost system myself. Collecting the buckets personally could seem like a chore, but I like the feeling of community I get from walking the neighborhood and collecting their waste (plus I get free coffee from the cafe). Additionally, if I notice any uncompostable material, I know exactly where that bucket came from, and can give them their lost-and-founds back, or have conversation about acceptable materials if needed.
Thanks again, Bruce, for all of your content and honesty around community composting. I'm gonna keep giving it a go, and maybe others will find personal collection to be a solution to the challenges you detailed here.
Yeah, that yard waste often contains a lot of other stuff, most of it probably just blown in.
I was wondering if it would be better to get people to deposit their material into other bins, the I could then load into the compost itself. It is extra work and I am not sure if there would be a real benefit, as it is easier to find and clear out most of the undesirable stuff from finished compost. If I had hens again to help with the composting, I would do that I think, just to manage the feeding more.
I can see what you say about collecting the stuff yourself really helping identifying the problematic sources, and I suspect someone was going to check the bucket might encourage people to be more careful with what goes in. I think one of the issues I had was the compost is fairly out of the way, and people could dump lots of stuff in there without anyone noticing.
I appreciate how calmly and reasonably you put it here. Watching your video, it seems almost like working on well matured compost is kind of a zen practice which helps maturing as a person. Thank you for making this world better with your projects and your videos.
My compost pile does not get turned at all. It is quite small, just for our household and the garden weeds. Full of earthworms, plus I throw there any snails I collect in the garden. The slugs, I collect them in a jar with salt to kill them. The material adds slowly, there is no smell. Just some flies or wasps, which I take as adding to local ecosystem. After like 2 years, I just take off the top layer, sieve the old bottom layer and start re-building it again, with the bigger and newer material now coming to the bottom. This is what I also saw my parents do, to minimize the work.
Maybe this kind of extensive, minimum labor slow compost bins, could be a future solution for the local community. Many people just need a place where to put their compost bin. It could be left to them what they do with it or whom they share it with.
Sounds like a great system. And with a small amount of stuff an open pile like that can really work.
you're a hero to do this for the community for 12 years! well done
Thank you for all you do. I continue to learn much from your videos and the incredible data you collect and analyze. The interesting aspect of the community compost project is the social experiment you actually conducted and it’s reflection on today’s society .
Thanks 😊
It was an interesting social experiment, and an interesting way to learn more about myself 😁
12years.. your a trojan Bruce.. Enjoy the freed up time to do something that really brings you joy... Appreciate your content
Thanks!
Really glad you made this video. It’s important that we are able to learn from each other. Your reflections and insights are valued, and it wasn’t a waste!
I envision a future where projects like this are community-led which requires ownership from everyone. And when the time comes, I’m sure experiences like this will be “studied”
When you get to writing a book, this would be an interesting chapter of garden politics.
You definitely lead by example.
And your examples are well tested and explained.
Thanks again!
E
It would be cool to write a book, and 'Garden Politics' would be a good chapter! One day ... perhaps.
Hi Bruce, greetings from Italy. I learnt how to make my own compost bin from one of your videos and I silently thank you every time I use it. You are a beautiful and kind person, keeping managing this social project for years deserves our gratitude. And yes, I understand the reason for stopping it: plastics are everywhere and compostable shoppers contain a non-compostable fraction that improves their mechanical properties.
Thank you anyway, I'll keep following your activity if you decide to share it.
Claudio
Thanks you, such a great comment to get ❤️
That was a very good summary of this 12 year experiment. I've learned a lot along the way, so thanks for making all these videos!
I feel the same about plastics in compost, I get a lot of it in the municipal compost too. I worry about accumulation over time, but I try to reduce it by filling my back pockets with plastic bits I encounter as I work in the garden.
It would be interesting to see a trial and hear your thoughts on static composting! I think the Johnson-Su method seems like the most interesting one to me, but I've heard mixed things. It seems like there's a lot of detail and nuance that needs to be understood for it to work well. As always :)
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I am really glad that the municipal compost I get is really clean, and doesn't contain plastic.
I do want to explore the various options of static composting.
I want to establish a community composting facility at my community garden but It's the second time I'm told by someone who managed for a while that they were stopping for some of the reasons you pointed out and others being people are lazy and just want to harvest the fruit of your labor but don't want to contribute in the work.
I don't blame you for stopping.
My first guess when I read the title was the garbage and second was the work involved even though it's free organic material
Years ago the greenhouse business in my small town set up a community compost but closed it because of the garbage (nonorganic) deposited ... especially plastic bags. Now the Town has an area to dump organic material and same thing ... people throw the bags and all into the heap.
I really enjoy your videos -- Thank you!!!
😁 It seems to be the same issues everywhere! And people do not want to have to deal with the mess, so just put it in a plastic bag and chuck it in!
@@REDGardens Perhaps if they could experience the whole process including the food it produces they would appreciate it
I manage recycling bins at work and it is a constant headache. People put bottles with liquid still inside, chips with ketchup in styrofoam containers.
Such a common issue, unfortunately
For a similar job, the half-full water bottles, the small half-empty plastic containers of yogurt and the baby diapers in the recyclable paper/cardboard bin were the worst I could find.
Thank you for the service you provided. To say it was useful, to day it was fascinating to watch, are both understatements but these are all I have to describe it. Bless you and your work.
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What are the dimensions on the bins you made? And how did you construct it so that you could take the front piece off to turn the compost?
About 1.2m long and wide, about 1m high. I just made 4 wooden frames, covered with metal screen, and screwed them together.
a treasure to the community,. Bravo and great run! nothing good lasts forever sir
My last note would have been a sign-up sheet for helping turn & screen the compost every 2 weeks. If the sheet isn't full by xx/xx date, the compost service will end. I need a plan for the piles of our own household compost that's building up. Mulching leaves this fall gave me enough to cover our few tiny garden beds and other spots that need mulch. Cheers to your years of hard work.
It woful have been interesting to see how many people signed up!
ultimatums will just discourage people from participating, they basically already did this by letting them know before hand when they announced that they stopped supporting and people switched over to a paid service. ive posted before that red could also switch to a paid subscription but i doubt its going to be enough for them to go through that work. no one does things for free.
Twelve years is a long time to manage relationships with an entire community. Good on you for sticking it out that long. I hope in your next community project others buy in with their time so that it doesn't fall only on you. Mentoring is a lot of work too, but can help avoid having to wind down community projects. I kept thinking that surely there would be one or two other people who would come forward and ask how they could help you keep it going (but I bet the most passionate are already doing their own thing at home.)
You provided an even bigger service by explaining your experience with composting to us so we don't make the sames mistakes
I need to try that
At home composter here. Mostly made from fall leaves and summer grass clippings. The plastic is bad enough just from what blows onto my property to get collected. I also had neighbors who contributed that weren't so considerate about separating plastic from compost. I don't turn and I build piles lasagna layer style and just let time and biology do it's thing. I use a small electric rototiller on finished piles before use. Any type of community compost setup needs mechanization or participant labor.
Yes, the stuff that blows in can be a big source of plastic!
this reminds me of a social media friend who found a community garden once. Very immaculate, very well planted and well taken care of they said. Didn't do an ounce of work in the garden, just stopped by and took stuff when it was ripe. Never saw anybody there, but was sure to post about all the wonderful veggies she was getting for free. Fast forward the next year, no garden and the complaints started flowing.. when asked why don't you go down there and plant a garden, me.. I don't have time for that, it was a community Gardner, they should be doing that. Well there was your answer and that's what happened here. The others don't care about your hard work, just that they somehow benefit from it
That person was literally stealing. The amount of effort and money it takes to make food and she was stealing all of that work. What a terrible person.
Good timing Bruce, just about to start constructing my own shortly. One of the obstacles which has caused a fair bit of dithering on my part is where to build as not much flat land away from the cottage, one solution is to construct a Jora type insulated composter which i had at my last location, works really well speeding up the process x4 fold but best of all does't attract animals - the real Jora compsoters from Sweden are expensive but worth every penny for reasons mentioned, this time around I probably need something larger or multiple composters to handle increased volume, looking into making my own from marine ply and polyethylene insulation, cheers
Those tumbler composters seem really interesting. Have never tried one, but would like to, even to process the stuff for the first few weeks.
It might help solve the problem of turning if you could make one large enough, the tough insulation on the inside is widely available in the building trade - I also had good success with Bokashi , that might be something to consider too as its a sealed process which keeps out pests, end product works great as a compost booster or buried directly into soil.
I worked as a horticulturist for the city of Montreal for 15 years and I was in charge of composting plants recovered from the floralies gardens on Notre-Dame and Sainte-Hélène islands.
The process was simple, if I insisted, I could bring in a loader to turn the stacks once a month.
Composting was effective because the piles were 8 to 10 feet high. In physics, pressure and temperature are directly proportional. So the weight of the stack helped with composting and the smoke escaping from there was visible in the fall in cold temperatures. The nylon ropes of the hay bales were a problem.
One day, after around 12 years, I came back from vacation and the mounds had disappeared to make way for a parking lot.
Sounds like a good setup. I'd definitely get machinery if I was to do it again. And I'd love to see the impact of a much larger pile. Shame it shut down.
Thanks for all of your videos. I started watching them when I started my own composting 8 years ago. It's a decent amount of work even for just two people. I could not imagine doing this for 20 households.
Yeah it is a lot of work!
Thank you for this follow up. I watched many of your composting videos in the past, and I was curious about how that would work out. I feared many people would add not just organics but plastic and other unwanted materials. I applaud your generosity with respect to all the work you did, and continue to do. It's a shame that a number of organic waste donors increased your work, probably by 15% or more, due to their ignorance or laziness or just because they didn't care.
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Bravo for doing it as long as you have. Too much work for just one person. Be cautious with the municipal compost. I recently started working in the waste industry and I’m appalled by a lot of what goes on.
ugh, I hope the place I get my compost from doesn't change, as so far it is surprisingly clean!
Is that urine at 4:46?
yep!
It’s a lot of work, I do my own and made a vibrating sieve and it honestly saves so much time. I’ve found spoons and all kinds of plastic and we’re super careful (our daughter even removes the labels from bananas before putting the skin into the compost bin!). You then need to pay to scrap the community waste which is an extra cost for you.. surprised no one offered to help you with it…
I do need to get a vibrating sieve going! I think it would have really helped. My problem was not having electricity supply close enough to the compost.
I have enjoyed this episode. Why do you use lids on your compost bins? I thought we want the compost to receive water from the rain so it can decompose fast? Thanks
We get too much rain in Ireland, and the climate is cool, so things can get too wet, so it depends on your climate. I do take the lids off in the summer to let rain in occasionally, but I find it better to add water when I think it needs it.
@@REDGardens Oh I see. Thank you for the explanation. I thought I was doing my compost wrong. Yes definately I had not factored in our different weather conditions.
Hi Bruce I've been watching your channel for a good few years, and yea I feel your frustration. I only compost my own materials and yet also get plastic and spoons.
Regarding the turning you will still get good compost if you don't turn or just do it once only. I only seive if I want to use it for seeds. I would say most of your contributers to the compost pile were like minded individuals and maybe needed a little more guidence and if asked might have helped you out with the turning and seiving. So keep the faith and keep up the good work educating. It's hard going trying to open orther peoples minds to change the way they are doing things, but like you I've been at it for years and slowly slowly I can see the mind set changing.
Yeah, I think you are right. More guidance, and perhaps a more forceful 'discussions' with a few households, would have done a lot to reduce the amount of plastic. But I think I needed to have more space, to let things sit and slowly decompose for longer, without needing to move everything. Getting people to help with the sieving is a good idea. I should have done that, of 4th help and to educate people 😁
The best part of life is other people in their various forms.
The worst part about life is people in their various forms.
...Sooo frustrating sometimes haha.
Sir, you do an amazing job sharing all these experiences ; all things growing. Thank you !
Well said! 😁
Nothing is more frustrating than doing something for the others without asking anything and receiving this kind of attitude as a reward. It kills your joy in doing things, it kills your hope in humankind.
Yeah, it sucks that some people don't put in the effort.
I’ve been trying to do the same for my local organic community garden, the green waste collected are mainly weeds and other plant material from the gardeners. Unfortunately, like you, I'm finding lots of small plastic bits, nylon stockings, those awful hay barrel plastic ties and plastic pots mixed in. Maybe people can't tell the difference between plastic and non plastic anymore, I just expected a little more especially this is a group who is into ORGANIC gardening....
I can't imagine taking on waste from the wider community. You have done well and I can see how it would wear you out!!
Bruce, I understand exactly this problem because I did the same with one community and even I advised to the kitchen and a signal in the trash basket, a lot of plastic came any way and I stopped after 2 years. You have a lot of patience.
Regards from Turkey !!!
It is such a shame so many community compost projects stop for the same reason. What you describe is one of the reasons why I don't think it is worth putting up signs. They don't work well enough, and we get more anoyed that people aren't doing what the sign says.
@REDGardens yes. I agree.
Any way, I am a big fun of your work. Keep sharing, please.
I am applying some of your ideas, like keeping detailed information of everything so later you can improve your work.
Thanks Bruce.
Regards, Jaime
Another great video this one connected with me because over the last year I have created a community garden that is full access to the public for harvesting as they want and it has grown exponentially but some of my volunteer gardeners have asked for a public composting system so I built a compost corner for them which I will not be opening up for the general public as I can see it will end up being me sieving out all the plastic
It can be a problematic line to cross, letting the general public use a facility like that.
🧐Why is dryer lint ok when so many fabrics are synthetic. ?
I don't know. I would not add it.
Have you considered hotbin or tumbling composters?
They have high upfront costs but I have found that they generate finished compost much faster than standard piles.
I haven’t tried them, mainly because I have been operating this system, and I think the volume would be too much. But I’d like to try.
many thanks - a thoughtful and insightful clip.
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I am grateful for this video. Food for thought bc I have been contemplating the possibility of welcoming community compost
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This is an extremely insightful video, thank you. Any sort of community composting is labour-intensive and has multiple 'issues' such as the ones you've highlighted.
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I have turned many piles. I pick up vegetable waste from a local vegan restaurant and pick up leaves from the neighborhood. I do find the occasional spoon, fork or piece of plastic. It's very small scale. I appreciate what you have done! Amazing amount of work. I am actually thinking about getting a few rabbits because I could feed them some of the vegetable waste (most is very fresh and never any meat, egg or dairy) and then incorporate the rabbit droppings into my compost or directly on my plants.
We’ve been using our brown bin as a stage 1 bin for food waste, including cheese but no meat. (We don’t eat much meat). After 1 to 2 years we mix this into our compost digester (4 timber sides with air gaps) which have garden waste and kitchen vegetable waste. I don’t do any turning of the 4 compost digesters, instead when digging out a digester I throw any partly decomposed material into a different temporary pile before returning to an empty digester. Usually this takes 1 hour every year. I always find stray plastic and foils from the kitchen. I stopped adding the biodegradable crinkle plastic wrappings as I got fed up digging them out. They seemed to break down in the centre of the pile but not near the edges.
I like the idea of a stage one and stage two system for dealing with household stuff.
That is the reality of human nature, the law of least effort and not giving a s… since someone else deals with potential issues.
Good for you for making all these efforts for the common good.
It may be fun to make a community biodigester that creates methane for warming a greenhouse or for cooking.
Let me say ...thank you for your services friend. Would have loved this type of effort in my community
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Bless you, Bruce for all that you have done. Awesome!
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Chickens or pigs arr bettet use for organic material?
Rats suck, the do nots are much better added to animal feed
Your system seemed to work! I hope to incorporate some of your principles when I start my own pile.
God is good, your videos come in at the perfect time. Gardening is a struggled sometimes. That’s a shame that people don’t respect your work and just dispose of their garbage. You inspired be years ago with your no rules compost and I’ve been doing it ever since with my own compost. Even I forget about some things and plastic will get in somehow, I’m sure it’s my wife😂 but not much. Just by mistake anyways. I hope you keep doing what you love and just know that you have made a difference in the world of gardening for so many! Thank you!
I thought about this i live in a block of flats/apartments but when you got residents that just dump ordinary items in our recycling bins it makes you think theres no intellgence around you. So why bother. I have a large compost/plastic bin with holes and lid that my family fills with a cut out bottom i dont turn it it rots naturally and i make tea from it. Thats all you need and an Arborist who will freely supply you with chippings. Job done!
Thank you for your service.
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I did the same thing and ran into the exact same problems in the community. I am evolving it into a pay service.
You did the community a great service, free of charge, for a very long time. With a very manual, labour intensive system. I understand that you came to this conclusion. Perhaps a few neighbours would be willing to pay you for your service?
I have issues with plastic too, even with just four persons who put in material. And all four is forced to participate in the yearly sifting / removal of plastic process. In our case it is by mistake. The plastic bin is close to the compost bin, and both are open. I really hope that ppl was not abusing your system.
Good look in the future!
I do wonder if propel would be willing to pay.
I know so many people with household systems that report the same issue as you. Great that you have everyone out dealing with it though!
You did an amazing job, all that turning and sifting is hard manual labour!
I think you got something out of it when you started, but are wise to stop now and focus on your gardens.
Unfortunately people are selfish or are simply blind to the effort you put in to manage the system. This is the reason I haven’t asked my neighbours for composting material.
At home, I had a system similar to yours. A square of one cubic metre at both ends and a central square of half a cubic metre. I transferred the box composted in the autumn to the one in the centre and started a new one because the other one had just been filled. This composter devoured anything. The most difficult to compost was birch and avocado bark (not the pit). These items and small pieces of wood were composted several times.
There was a yellow sulphur fungus that appeared during the summer and it was busy devouring the 6x6 treated, recycled from the bin itself. I never had any problems with rats until the city started major work on the sewer system. My neighbor complained that a rat fought with a squirrel for the territory of the tank.
There was no lid on my bins. Rainwater was part of the composting process. When I finished filling a bin or on other occasions if I wanted to improve the yield or aesthetics, I would put some compost ready on the pile.
I moved and haven't started composting again but I often miss it, especially when I pay full price at the garden centre.
I do like the process of sifting out the harder to decompose stuff and throwing it back into the fresh pile for another round of decomposition - after removing the plastic of course. I suspect some material has gone through several cycles like this!
great video
what is problem with composting citrus ?!
As I understand it, people with large amounts of citrus, like trees worth, find that if too many peels are put in the compost it slows everything down. And it seems that has been extrapolated to the idea that citrus peels don't decompose and causes problems in the compost bin. With the amount and diversity of other material in my compost systems, citrus has never been a problem. It is one of many examples of an issue in one very particular context is copied into very different contexts, which is why I don't like the 'rules'!
@REDGardens thanks I have compost add citrus. I think I might have herbicide issue though
@@muskepticsometimes9133 It could be a herbicide thing too, but that kind of applies to many vegetables form the store.
@@REDGardens I used some grass clippings from a property I think that got "weed n feed"
I never have enough organic material - opposite your problem ; - )
I have been composting my kitchen waste for 15 years using vermicomposting and throughout the years i evolved into a similar no rule method such as yours. I have a small ikea bin my kitchen counter. Scraps go in there, once a week (we are a household of 4) I have two big 20liter pots under a tree (where nothing grew anyways) half full of soil and worms. I bury the scraps in layers, digging a hole and putting scraps and soil as i go. The only rules I try to follow is not add more than 1.5-2kg a week and mix enough with soil so that fermentation doesn't cook the worms (compost). I only have to half empty the bins twice a year. Works well for a small house.
Nice! I just started my worm bin a while ago, sounds like a similar setup. Seems to be going well. Lots of worm activity! Hope to get the number of worms up to the point where they can handle most of our kitchen scraps. 😁
Plastic is the ONE thing I really hate in compost.
As for the amount of compost one needs: I have 76m³ of beds & with the .450 litres of compost needed for my potato tubs, I need close to 3m³ of compost annually, which isn't all that simple to find the material for.
I've followed your journey through this & admire your persistence.
I also understand & support your decision to move on.
That is a lot of compost needed, and not a simple task! Thanks!
@@REDGardens That's just over a 3cm layer on the beds every year.
Mind you, I get two crops from most beds & average 7kg per m² in produce.
Yeah, that is a good yield for that kind of compost. Nice to see other people using data like that.
I couldn't help myself thinking that you added about 30L of compost to get 7kg of produce. Interesting
@@REDGardens I just posted a reply with a significant amount of detail & TH-cam's censorship algorithm appears to have autodeleted it.
ughhh, sorry to hear that.
I have a tiny garden and get my compost by taking little scoops of black gold from the woods. The leaf matter gets to 18 inches thick or more in paces, and if ya can get to the edge of the super thick leaf cover there be gold, black gold. Lol. I couldn't imagine running a community anything without losing my mind.
Good call. Honestly managing a useful scale composting operation without a tractor is just plain bad for your back. Keep up the good work.
Or the reason I have a very strong back 😁
I think I subscribed off the back of an early composting video, and have definitely taken some cues from you - namely with the various sieves using the 20mm square weld mesh. On the subject of plastics within the compost, I was saddened to hear when one of my neighbours told me he'd used seaweed from the local beach for many years, but had recently stopped due to the amount of microplastics he'd discovered on closer inspection of it.
Personally I don't think I'd have the right temperament to manage a community facility, and would get far too worked up over rubbish ending up in there. At least when I'm fishing it out of mine I've only myself to blame.
There is plastic in so many places. I have also heard of people avoiding seaweed because of the issue.
The plastic issue is something i've experienced in our own domestic compost over the last few years.
First i thought it was due to me nievely assuming all the compostable plastics I was putting in were suitable for home composting. After a few years of being more diligent in checking (resulting in time for all non-home compostable items to pass throught the system) I was surprised by how much plastic and other supposedly biodegradable items remained: such as biodegradable string, home compostable plastics such as cups, lids, bags etc. As well as some biodegradable food grade cardboards which seemed to have a plastic element to them (lining).
I've never had issues with composting and luckily continued to get rich well broke down compost (bar plastic and string). I would be v interested to see if these home compostable items are in fact suitable for smaller scale composting or if there's any tips to being able to incorporate these better into the home compost system.
I hope your issue is due to people like me who are making bad assumptions and you have better luck with any community composting in the future - a really valuable thing (if you have the energy again!).
it does seem that a lot of the 'compostable' material is resistant to decomposing in many home compost systems. But I have found that it just needs a lot longer.
The end of an era. Super fascinating system!
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I agree with you about people not respecting the "rules" of composting. it caused me a lot of stress last year so next year I am not partaking in it
I just setup a rotating compost bin. Got it for 30 bux at thrift. Right at the get go it was hard to stuff material into into its smallish opening but that should be fine for adding a few things at a time.
Hi Bruce, I chuckled all the way through this as I felt your pain! When dealing with the public there are the ones who ‘do the right thing’ and diametrically opposite are the ones who don’t. No matter what sign you put up, they still wouldn’t. I have to keep reminding myself of this regularly….. perhaps best to do what best services your needs and your obvious community spirit. i do like the idea of hens though (for the manure) …….seems like a good addition to your system?
Year, there always a few who just don't go along with what needs to be done. My problem was that I didn't develop a system or approach that would be able to prevent too much of that, or a way to work around it for longer.
@@REDGardens Maybe…… BUT….. I sell plants at our Farmer’s Market and we put up a sign with explicit details (after many questions) about the plastic pots we can take back and re-use. Quite simple huh? But No! Not the ones that you didn’t get from us. Not the ones with someone else’s advertising. Not the ones with the slugs and snails inside. Not the ones that are broken or squashed. Whatever you say or do, someone always, always has a different (and better in their minds) version of what you should do 🤣🤣🤣.You can’t win, you just have to pick your battles 😜😜
Yeah, you can't win, only adapt to, or flow around the non compliance. What you describe is a good example of why I don't like using signs. They often don't work and we get even more frustrated because we put up the sign! I guess try to avoid that added frustration.
You're a very calm and reasonable man. If I was finding plastic in my compost I would act, with disproportionate passion 😅
Perhaps. But I also know that I am also responsible for some of the plastic 😁
I stopped gardening vegetables after a batch of bought organic compost had glyphosate in them plus my back getting old to be digging around. All my peppers and tomatoes shriveled. Instead I let the garden patch thrived with wild flowers. Watched the whole year from my window hundreds of goldfinches, hummingbirds, bees and butterflies visiting. Sometimes you need to ask this question “what can I eat that which I do not have to kill”
Still understand with what you were doing there.
My home compost still manages to have plastic in it and I don't know how it gets in there dammit!
It is sneaky stuff!
I know this is not the point of the video but that quilt is GORGEOUS
I know, right! 😁 My Great grandmother made that! Trying to find the time to skill up and properly do the repairs it needs to be useful again.
@@REDGardens I have gained a lot of happiness from gaining mending skills and also I sent my heirloom quilt to a quilt restorer for 150USD (they only charged like 118, which i felt was low) and felt it was worth it.
A quilt restorer would be a good idea, though I don't know if there are any around here in Ireland! It is a big task for me, but I really want to learn and restore this thing.
@@REDGardens I called a bunch of quilt supply shops and asked if they knew someone who did it. Wasn't able to find anyone by google.
Makes sense that it is a small word of mouth community. The issue over here is that no-one has a quilt, unless imported from USA or Canada. Apparently quilting has never been a thing.
You can completely cover your compost and make a long and high tube on it to let the smell run through it. Then use rainworms or maggots to turn them into gomus!
Hi Bruce, firstly, I am sorry to hear the news. But likewise, I am truly confident you will create something that is even better.
Secondly, in hindsight, the expession 'community composting facility' is probably not right. The way it worked, the public only took but never gave something - if you know what I mean. It may, besides the things you mentioned, have helped if the locals were invited to help with the work. (Maybe even being 'remunerated' with some veggies and a cuppa.)
And thirdly, a rotating sieve makes live so much easier, though the material's moisture, or rather dryness, is critical for the sieving.
Either way, enjoy the time spent with the garden!
Yeah, good point about 'community'. We also have a 'community' farm, which many people, especially from North America, assume involves people in the community growing for themselves, but it is a type of Community Supported Agriculture project, where people pay and someone else grows for them, but they can get involved if they want.
To be honest I sort of use the word 'community' to poke a bit of fun at that misconception. But if it was really a community facility, with more people involved, it probably would not have lasted as long. I am more stubborn than most.
It sure sounds like a LOT of work. I am wondering, is there any class at the local schools, that has kids who can come out and volunteer for taking over that project? Is it something the school itself could do?
of course, it would still need an adult supervisor... hopefully, form the school, not you!
I seriously doubt it. From a school administrative level it is a massive health and safety issue, with possible rats, sharp things, potential for problematic fungus and bacteria in the area, and occasional really smelly patches if it isn't managed well that cause your clothes to stink! It is not something I would want to send a load of kids in to manage, at least not at this scale.
@@REDGardens We do a local garden and compost bins for out high school. It's not a class, but an after school club. one of the science teachers runs the club. AND the produce makes it's way to the cafe for a part of meals
This concerns me a bit as I am just starting my market garden and was looking to start a Community Composting Facility for the village. so this serves as a real warning for me.
It is an issue, but something that can be worked around if you know about it in advance.
Not sure if it would be useful for you, but one option that I have been wanting to explore is to dump each batch of compost with lots of plastic as a thick layer on the surface a raised bed or smaller section a polytunnel, and use it to grow a couple of intensive crops that can really benefit from the excessive fertility. Or even to grow some green manure that can be easily harvested for composting material - basically a biological filter. After a couple of years a lot of the fertility will have been used up, the organic matter decomposed or washed into the soil below, or taken down by worms, and you can regularly rake off or collect a lot of the plastic sitting on the surface. It will be ugly, and I'd want to protect it from the wind blowing everything away, but at least all of the plastic would be concentrated in a smaller spot rather than spread everywhere.
If you did this over marginal ground, it might work even better. With a bit of planning, you could slowly filter out and collect most of the plastic, and improve ground for additional growing spaces.
Sorry, a long response, but your concern got my brain thinking and wanted to get an idea out. 😁
@@REDGardens wonderful reply thank you. Using your experience I feel I can put in place a conversation prior to the material arriving. Using an area to use as Green Manure growth area to collect all the waste but still benefit from the harvest sounds a great idea thanks.
Hi, really appreciate all you do and look forward to your videos and as you are always trying different ideas have you thought about trying electro gardening, I find it fascinating and very productive.
I have looked into it a bit, but it hasn't really interested me enough, yet.