Compost Education

04/19/2026

04/17/2026

Earth Day next Week
https://www.optimistdaily.com/2026/04/earth-day-at-56-why-the-2026-theme-carries-more-weight-than-usual/
This is the 56th anniversary of Earth Day. I took my students out of class to pick up litter on the school's grounds in 1970. Just before he died, I met and visited with Senator Ga***rd Nelson at a National Earth Day organizers meeting in'92. My whole adult life has been spent in the race to save us from a species su***de.
Please do what you can.

04/15/2026

SAVE THE DATE!
5th Annual Compost Fest and Spring Plant Sale MAY 9TH
at KC Farm School at Gibbs Road

04/15/2026

This looks like a good system.
Katy White
Kansas City Community Gardens
KC Farm School at Gibbs Road

One pile in the corner of the yard isn’t composting — it’s just storage 🌿
A three-bin composting system keeps the process organized, ensuring you always have fresh, curing, and ready-to-use compost without waiting months.

The cycle runs itself once you get started:

Bin 1: Receives fresh material.
Bin 2: Cooks undisturbed.
Bin 3: Holds cured compost, ready for use.

The trick is turning: moving material from one bin to the next, not digging into the same pile over and over.

🌱 The Ratio That Works:
3 parts brown (carbon) to 1 part green (nitrogen)
• Browns: Dried leaves, cardboard, straw, shredded paper
• Greens: Kitchen scraps, grass clippings, coffee grounds

Too much green leads to a smelly, slow, soggy pile. Chop or shred materials smaller than your fist before adding to speed up the process. A properly balanced bin generates heat to break down material and kill w**d seeds.

How the system works:
• Bin 1 (fresh) → Fork into Bin 2 (hot) after 3–4 weeks.
• Bin 2 (cooking) → Fork into Bin 3 (curing) after another 3–4 weeks.
• Finished compost = dark, crumbly, smells like the forest floor.

The Full Cycle:
In warm months, the entire process takes 60–90 days.

🌱 Building the system:
• Materials: Cedar or untreated wood, 3’ x 3’ x 3’ bins, removable slats for easy access
• Rodent-proof: Hardware cloth on the bottom for drainage and pest control
• What’s in: Fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, eggshells, leaves, shredded paper
• What’s out: Meat, dairy, pet waste, or diseased plants

This system can produce one cubic yard of compost every two months, free of charge — a savings of $30–$50 per yard at the garden center 🌱

🌿

04/15/2026

As we swing into planting season, it's time to get the basics straight. I recommend a five minute video from the Soil Food Web. I met the founder, Dr Elaine Ingham in 1995. I've watched at her ideas were attacked by powerful conventional agriculture forces. Though she recently passed away, her movement is stronger than ever. At Missouri Organic Recycling, and in my lectures, we use her ideas to explain the process of turning leftovers into powerful nutrients. Here's a great beginning video to get started.

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04/14/2026

I was thrilled on Sunday to present a $100 dollar bill to Sami Yousafi for his amazing project at the Greater Kansas City Science Fair. It was the Stan Slaughter award for Excellence in Organic Research presented by my employer, Missouri Organic Recycling. Sami took pieces of banana peel and turned them into charcoal. In a slurry he applied the liquid to several types of fabric. After drying them, he tested their resistance to catching fire. He proved that charcoal could improve fire retarding performance. For a compost company his was the perfect project to recognize! HIs teacher will also get a $100 prize. Congratulations, Sami!

03/21/2026

Tasty, healthy, dependable crop

03/11/2026

Strawberries for my compost pile