DYI Compost in the City

I've found the homeowner equivalent of Jim Carey's "most annoying sound in the world:" the horrendous metallic squeal made as my pitifully-underpowered cordless drill worked its way through a metal garbage can. It was also an incredibly loud most annoying sound. So loud, in fact that a contractor working next door walked up and asked me what I was doing. When I told him I was making a composter, he said, "so it's not just wanton destruction." Well, I replied, there is that element, too.

People with suburban yards (at least w/o deer or raccoon problems) of course don't need to poke holes in perfectly good trash cans to compost - they can just throw everything on a big pile out back. Or they can build a neater wooden box, like the kids at Harriet Tubman Elementary have for their great schoolyard garden in Columbia Heights. Those of us fighting the constant battle against vermin large and larger need the security of zinc. Everything I read, including this handy guide from the DC government (pdf) waved away from plastic since the bastards can chew through.

The metal (zinc?) wasn't impossible to get through, but it took sacrificing a drill bit and some serious wrist exertion on my part to get 'er done. I started out trying to poke a hole with a nail and then widen it out somehow. Don't do this. It took forEVER, made even more noise, and puts your thumb needlessly in peril. I felt bad about all the noise either way, but it was in the mid-afternoon on a weekday. One of the advantages of being unemployed is you don't have to piss off your neighbors every weekend with your inane shenanigans.

Here's how the bad boy turned out: Kind of a la climax of Bonnie and Clyde ...

I'll spare you the "what the compost looks like shot." Besides, the top was mostly leaves and paper anyway, which is how you keep the stinky composting stuff happy. Directions I've read suggest throwing in not only your plant cooking waste, but eggshells and "browns:" leaves, paper towel and toilet paper rolls, small sticks, cardboard egg cartons, etc. I've got some packing paper from Crate and Barrel that has a cool woven structure in there. Whatever you toss in, keep it small and airy.

Christine's uncle out in Portlandia has totally embraced our new-found eco-whatever and gave us a small under-the-sink odorless composter for Xmas. I was skeptical, but the thing works great and it remains odorless enough to keep under there and not notice unless you open the cabinet. Pairing up the indoor and outdoor composters is a good strategy because in cool weather it's hard to get the microbes going. The indoor composter gets warm as the food breaks down, which is kind of eerie I'll admit.

The DC government apparently will let you take leaf compost for free from the Ft. Totten trash station. I can't find the details about this, though, as my wife told me about it and she's not here right now. But she didn't make it up. It'll probably be tough to get usable compost out of our bin by spring, so we may have to figure out a delivery device there -- i.e., con her brother once again into letting us use his truck.