Hi Brother,
I am really sorry to hear that your Church decided to destroy it's own buildings....;-)

"The church destroyed our church buildings" ;-)

If I was in Charge, I would go purchase a roll of 3' tall Hardware cloth, cut it every 12' and make easily movable bins, you simply fill them with whatever you have on hand (no need to be super critical about dotting every "I" and crossing every "T"...) ( with volunteers that would be aggravating and very unfruitful), but if you will let everyone know that if they try to have 3 times more carbon than nitrogen, it will not smell, not be attractive to critters etc etc...

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Post clear, concise and easy to follow directions in or near the kitchen prep area, in 24pt font. Provide ample storage indoors or out, for piling of compost. Get the whole Church involved, encourage parishioners to drop off yard waste at or near the church.

Lastly I would try to acquire a used chipper/shredder(to be operated by an adult with some common sense)to speed along the process

Good Luck
Seth
A Simple Jew from Brooklyn

oh my, I don't think I've ever created a more grievous typo than this. lol

My first line should have read "The STORM destroyed our church buildings."

I'm thinking (clean) 5 gallon buckets in the food prep area for ease of collecting kitchen waste then assign someone to carry it to the compost site and of course if you have a water source outside they can rinse them out for reuse. Empty every day or every meal.

If you leave it unassigned everyone usually thinks someone else will get to it.

Val

I'm with Val, see if one or two of the members are willing to take on the composting chore and see if there is a local Master Composters course they can take. If I were there I'd be on this like ugly on an ape.

Lloyd

P.S. Cardboard composts well.

Don -
Make the bins out of concrete reinforcing mesh: you can get a long roll of it cheaply and use hog rings to hold it in a ring shape.

Definitely use 5-gallon buckets and have a supply of shredded paper and cardboard and other dry stuff near the bins ... for every bucket of food scraps, dump in one bucket of the dry stuff on top.

Have a couple of short rakes for raking the tops of the bins flat occasionally. Beware of too much greens, like grass clippings, in thick layers. They rot and stink. Mixed with dry leaves or shredded paper, they are OK. In thin layers they are OK.

If you have 3 acres of land, have you considered starting a community garden?

Here is a link that might be useful: Wire Mesh compost bin

Thank you for all the great ideas.

lazygardens,

I experimented with a small scale community garden this year, just to test the waters. I learned some lessons to make it more successful in the future. For one, I tucked it away sort of behind the church office. "Out of sight, out of mind" rang true. "The fields are ripe unto harvest, but the laborers are few." Right now the weeds stand taller than the pepper plants and the okra is going to seed for lack of picking.

Next year, I'd like to try the heavy sheet mulching method to deter our ferocious weeds. I also need to be more diligent in recruiting volunteers to tend it. One possibility would be to locate the garden right in front of our food pantry ministry and do sort of a "pick your own" for free type of thing.

As for composting, I just built a 5'X10' raised bed made out of two-high concrete blocks set on the sand. This week I filled it to overflowing with a mix of grass clippings and shredded paper. The Friday and Saturday rains already reduced it to half. This week, I'll turn it and fill it back up. This ought to make a fertile place for planting next spring.

I like the mesh idea, but I've been googling around and I also like the 3 bin wooden pallet set up. Since I have an ample supply of wooden pallets, I may try that.

Hi Elbourne,
If you have the room, I would do just as you are doing, lay own a few layers of soaking wet(completely saturated) cardboard, line your beds with concrete cinderblocks, and just keep piling that stuff in, by next Spring, the beds you start now will be ready for planting.

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