Composting
Local residents can recycle their kitchen scraps and organic waste at our composting site during our open hours. Gardeners combine sawdust, leaves and newspapers with the kitchen scraps to produce a high nutrient soil.
Below, you’ll find info about how to compost at the East Fourth Street Community Garden.
Some Storage Ideas
Depending on your family size and eating habits, a shoe box size plastic container in your fridge keeps smell to a minimum. A bucket or large coffee can under the sink with newspaper, paper towels or finished compost in the bottom will cut down on smells by absorbing liquids. Composting a lemon a couple times a week will help keep the bucket smelling fresher. If you accumulate your compostables in the freezer, please bring it to the garden already thawed and dispose of the container.
The concept of composting is to return to the earth what we have harvested from her. If you think of it that way you’ll always know what to and what not to compost. Composting is the wonderful process that occurs naturally when the nitrogen in greens and the carbon in browns are mixed together and are transformed into rich, nourishing, soil-like substance.
How to Compost
- Chop up your Kitchen & Yard scraps (“greens”) before adding to the bins (small pieces compost faster).
- Cover your “greens” with “browns”— wood shavings, leaves, shredded newspaper (brown materials) available in the garbage bin next to the compost bins.
- Mix together
- Top with a layer of browns
Please do not add water to the bins.
What to Compost
Kitchen scraps, chopped up fruit & vegetables corn cobs, potato peels, fruit rinds and cores etc. (please no large hard, seeds like mango, avocado or coconut); Coffee grounds, paper filters, and tea bags without staples; Cut flowers (before they seed) Garden weeds (except invasive weeds like mugwort, woody rose and the deadly yellow clinging vine a.k.a. strangle weed); Grass clippings; Fresh leaves; Seaweed; Horse manure; bread & grains; Food soiled paper towels, napkins and paper plates, Cotton balls, Q-tips, Shredded newspaper (except no shiny paper, no color print supplements); Wood ash from untreated wood (no charcoal ash); Dried leaves, Packing peanuts (the ones that dissolve in water not Styrofoam); animal fur, human hair, nail clippings, Dryer lint, hay and straw, eggshells, old potting soil, small branches cut into 2″ or smaller pieces.
What NOT to Compost
No mugwort or wood; NO animal products; (chicken, bones, or fish, dairy, eggs, fats, oils or grease), NO plastic, plastic, bags, twist ties, rubber bands etc.; NO cat or dog waste; NO large fruit seeds like avocado, mango; NO thick wooden branches; thick stalks like sunflower, hollyhock; or prickly branches like roses. NO diseased plants; NO pesticide treated plants or grass. NO treated wood, sawdust or plywood, shavings.
Composting Resources
- The NYC Compost Project – Excellent composting how to guide
- Cornell Composting – Everything you wanted to know about composting, but were afraid to ask
If you would like more information about composting or E4th street community garden’s composting program, please email us { garden.composting@gmail.com ] .
