Junior Composters take a hard look at food in Queens

 

August 2011 –

From Victoria Gershik, Junior Composter Instructor

Saturday, August 6th was the first day of the Junior Composter Course, though since meeting Stephanos through a field trip with TreesNY, some of the Junior Composters have been coming out to help him on Saturdays with transporting the organic materials collected from the farmer’s market public drop-offs. “It’s fun hanging out with Stephanos,” they told me. Fun is important when it comes to lighting up people about composting. 

On our first day of the course we visited the Sunnyside Community Garden, located at Barnett Avenue and 50th Street. There we opened up bags left outside of the gate to be added to the two bin compost system sitting close to the front of the garden. Opening up the plastic bags filled with a surprise array of wets filled with summer melon rinds, uneaten corn, corn cobs and husks, whole squashes that were never eaten, and lovely thawing juices trapped in bottom of plastic bags, was fun. Sophia, one of the Junior Composters, commented on how she enjoyed seeing what people brought to be composted because she could get an inside to the lives of people, see what they were eating or not eating and even learn about new foods she could eat she had not known about before. We found a metal spoon in one of the bags and made sure it stayed out of the compost pile because a metal spoon would take a long, long time to compost. Here's a photo of us with the spoon. We also took turns using the compost aerator. It was their first time using the tool and they saw how fun and easy it was to use versus using a pitchfork or shovel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day began 8:30 am at Tornsey playground/Lou Lodati Park in Sunnyside on Skillman Ave and 41st St. Our meeting place was at the farmer’s market community compost drop-off site coordinated by WQCI. We waited for everyone to arrive and everyone included six Junior Composters, Eli, Sophia, Tremayne, Felix, Bryan, and Senley.  They were each given a canvas bag and materials inside included a class schedule, a Walt Whitman poem “This Compost”, pages from the book Let It Rot, and New York City Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse, and Recycling (NYC BWPRR) pamphlets and info sheets on composting. Next week they would each receive the books Let It Rot and Worms Eat My Garbage to keep.

Once everyone arrived we sat in a circle on the ground and shared our backgrounds and why we were here for the course. Five of the Junior Composters had summer jobs at TreesNY and thought it would complement their knowledge of what they were learning working for TreesNY. Senley, one of the five, after meeting Stephanos through the TreesNY field trip to Brooklyn Grange, a roof-top one-acre farm in Queens, decided to come out and help Stephanos for many weekends before he even knew about the course. He only recently emigrated from Haiti where him and his family owned, worked, and lived on a farm. He wanted to be around a farm and then touted the class to his fellow TreesNY co-workers. Some of his co-workers decided to sign up for the course also because they knew they would be receiving a stipend for their participation which would come in handy for next year's school supply costs, college applications fees and among other living costs. Some of the Junior Composters were starting the course with more passion about waste prevention than the others; letting something as precious as the life energy of food scraps, plant cuttings, leaves, etc. going into landfills was a waste and a shame. It made more sense to them for compost to me made and further replenish food gardens or trees instead of adding to the mass of a landfill. I enjoyed the circle to hear them share about themselves and why they were here. I got to introduce myself and tell them how much composting is part of my life. 

We headed to Brooklyn Grange where we learned from Eli, one of the Junior Composters, the system they were using was called windrow composting. Windrow composting is simply when organic materials are piled into long rows for ease of turning, aeration, adding organic material, and creating insulation and thus a habitat for the diverse microorganisms that help break down the organic matter. There were two rows: one pile was extremely warm on the inside and looked to be almost done composting and the other was a pile with freshly added compost materials. Felix pulled out a thick log out of the first pile and we all felt it. It was very warm to the touch. We talked about the warmth meaning the bacteria were busy eating and as a by-product of their digestion giving off heat, like we do. We discussed the difference between the two piles. I’d ask a question and see if they could figure out what was going on. Then, we all grabbed a handful of the almost finished compost, felt it, smelt it and discussed what finished compost was. Then we discussed what is composting and smelt the second pile. I lifted a watermelon piece in the process of decomposition and they smelt it. It smelt rancid. We talked about the difference in smells and why sometimes a compost pile smells. We talked about what was doing most of the breakdown and discussed their need for moisture, air, food (browns/dry/carbon-rich and greens/wets/nitrogen-rich), and space. And that their needs were similar to our own. Then we tried to think of all the reasons the roof-top farm was composting and why we as a city might want to compost. 

We ended our visit at Brooklyn Grange with turning the piles and a walk through the farm. We felt a sense of accomplishment from turning the compost pile and helping the farm along with their compost system. After the class was over the Junior Composters went over to the compost drop-off site at the Sunnyside farmer’s market and helped Stephanos bring up all the organic matter he had collected and helped him mix the organic matter into the compost pile at Brooklyn Grange. They were a committed bunch and I was happy to see that, meet them, and spend a morning thinking, feeling, breathing compost. Thank you supporters of the Junior Composters Course! You are making a difference!