Monday, October 20, 2008

Air, water, carbon, nitrogen

I’m composting this year in the hope that I'll have a bin full of rich material come spring for the Sharecropper, who will be using my backyard for her mad science art experiment. I purchased this metal bin for $20 from the Lower East Side Ecology Center at the Union Square Farmers’ Market. (There’s a wonderfully blunt Nordic fraulein there most every market day.)
Strapped onto wheels, the bin followed me home downtown and over the less-well-traveled Manhattan Bridge. I’ve been waiting for a windfall of leaves to lay down the base of “brown” material. But, getting impatient to start, I threw in a shredded Village Voice and things gleaned from the backyard.
My plan was to liberate one of those big paper leaf bags once the neighbors start stuffing them, as I have no trees of my own. Sanitation doesn’t consider that theft, do they? Anyway, after a bunch of drinks on Friday night, I saw one about two blocks from home and hefted it over the shoulder. Oof! So in go the leaves. And some old coffee grounds, carrot tops, and a few still-green scraps from my pots... plus water, and air.

1 comment:

Traci said...

You tipsy thief, you!