Week 3-5 (Oct 3rd-14th)

General Composting Tricks for the North Shore: I always knew that you needed a compost in order to create good composting but I never really knew that depending on where you put the compost, it will either work out better or it might not do the trick.Bacteria needs food, air and moisture and to do that you can put yard trimmings in your compost, or even fallen leaves so that it will better attract bacteria. I never knew as well that everything you put in the compost needs to be at an equal level or else too much of one substance will basically overtake it.
I would love to actually take a look at my compost in my backyard because I have never really checked it out and maybe talk to my family about what they put into into it and how it works exactly.
Other than a compost, is there any other form of composting that would work just the same?


Bokashi: I find it awesome to see how easy Bokashi actually is. When I first heard the name of it, it sounded like it might be a big process that takes a while but I was surprised to find out that all you really need is a bucket and the Bokashi mix. I never really knew that organic waste (key word:organic, that could be used for something else) actually fills a large majority of many landfills. Since they could be turned into fertilizer, I'm surprised more people don't do that and tend to throw it in the garbage. Even though the smell of a normal compost isn't too bad, it's nice to see that this one doesn't actually seem to smell a bit!
I would love to talk to someone who actually uses this method and see how well it works. And if it worked as well as they are saying here in this article, then I would love to try it myself and compare it to other methods.
My question is when it says under disadvantages that "finished" material isn't really finished, what does it mean by that and how long would it take after that to actually be completely done the process. 


How to make a Leaf Mould: Leaf mould takes longer to decay than garden compost which can take up to a year. I never thought that it would take that long of a process to finish but I guess it's because it's a very intricate process. Also you don't really need that much the get everything ready. Of course there are some specific tools but you can replace any tools with just the simple use of your hands or using tools you have around your house. When the leaves are damp, it actually speeds up the process, which i thought was very interesting.
Do we have any of these at our school? and if not, I feel that it would be an awesome thing to start up. Obviously it wouldn't be done by the time some of us had graduated but I think even to get it started would be a good idea and it would be awesome to see how the whole thing turns out.


Worm Composition: I have always known that worms are a very important part of composting, but to say the truth, I have never really known why! Its amazing how just by adding worms to your compost, it can change food waste into rich, nutritional, soil. We have our compost outside in my backyard so I never really considered the idea of having one inside your actual house but after reading this, I see that it is actually possible and can be done which means that your compost can stay dry and be effective during the winter months as well as the summer! An area of creating a healthy environment that I probably would of forgotten is making sure you create a soil bed in the compost for the worms to actually stay in. This is a very important part to the whole process. I would love to actually spend an UA class and just see the different types of worms. Obviously earth worms would be best for this project but to see specifically how they actually decompose everything and why worms work so well for this sort of thing. All my questions were actually answered in this article.


High School Garden Pride: I think what these students have going on is so amazing! I hope that one day our school could have that many people working together to create something really beautiful. To see that they have been working on the garden for over four years now and it is still going so strong is awesome. It was a very good idea for those students to get help from outside the school, like getting Cargo Bike Co op PEDAL to donate bike trailers and so on. They even have a website for everything they do. My only comment on this page would be that hopefully our UA class will be able to get somewhat close to what they have this year. It would be great to have everyone's support in the school for this sort of stuff because it really is important and it is something that many students have actually no idea about.