In my role as the exec editor of the Krrb blog, I’ve been busily posting away about all sorts of things while sadly leaving my own blog to duke it out on it’s own. Aka pretty much ignoring it. But no more! Because I figure the least I can do is to re post some of my favorite pieces here, for you guys to check out.

One post that I have found particularly inspiring in my own life came out of  this conversation I had with artist and composting expert Amanda Matles, who laid out in simple english, with awesome drawings to boot, how to do your own compost. Which I’m going to start doing, instead of hauling my food scraps into Union Square to donate them to the Lower East Side composting crew.

It’s long, but really interesting. And we figure if we can get even just a couple of people doing this, the world will be a better place, right? So here it is, reposted in all of it’s glory. Totally worth it.

Composting 101 – Amanda Matles gives us the skinny

Composting expert Amanda Matles spreading the gospel from a Brooklyn rooftop garden. Photo by Brooke Williams.

 

We’ve all heard about the “virtues” of composting, but if you’re anything like us, the idea of keeping a huge pile of rotting food in a bucket someplace in your kitchen (and if you live in NYC, your kitchen ain’t big!) isn’t all that appealing. And worms, too? No way!

But we do love the idea of a little home garden, and we’re also committed to reducing the pile of stuff we send to the landfill. So we paid a visit to our friend, artist and urban gardener Amanda Matles, who gives composting workshops around NYC at places like Trade School and The Commons. She has also taught investigative design projects about the global flows of food with the Center for Urban Pedagogy, in Brooklyn. Who better to give us the low-down on making this “black gold”?

Check out what she has to say. We were fascinated. And by the end of our conversation, we were sold.

click below for the 411:

The Interview

Amanda’s awesome composting diagram.

Ok Amanda, tell us the deal.

Paper + potatoes = soil!? Yes. It’s true. Most of your organic waste (non-plastic, non-oily or animal-based) can be mixed with paper or sawdust and left alone for a few months to become great compost. You can add it to your plants or to street trees. Compost adds nutrients that synthetic fertilizers just can’t even compete with, and keeps great soil making material from being lost to the landfills forever.

Sounds good, but what exactly is composting, anyway?

Composting is simply the controlled acceleration of natural decomposition. Everything made of natural material decomposes on its own. Yes, even your leather gloves. So what we’re doing when we compost is speeding up the decomposition process in various ways, and then choosing where we apply the finished material.

How did you first get into it?

When I moved to New York, the combination of a very dense population, small apartment, and the huge amount of trash I generated began to become a real source of trouble for me. I hated knowing that almost everything I threw away went on an expensive journey by barge or train to some landfill in another state. I began to do some community gardening at the same time, and composting was the grand link between the flourishing, amazing, beautiful, healthy food we were growing, and the daily “garbage” I created by living, working and eating. In the garden, nothing goes to waste.

I realized that all this stuff – my food and paper and cardboard- grew out of soil, from a raw state in the first place, so why wasn’t I returning the materials back in to the process when I was finished? It was all pretty magical to see that cycle and transformation right before my eyes, and I have been hooked on composting ever since. I reduced my garbage by about 75% and that was amazing. Plus, it turned out to be really satisfying to shred my junk mail for the compost to help the beautiful flowers on my fire escape to bloom.

Wow. That’s so cool. Is there a difference between compost and just dirt?

Yep. Dirt has all the minerals and structural elements of soil, like sand, silt, and clay that provide air spaces for beneficial soil organisms. Plus, if its healthy, dirt also contains varying levels of decayed biomass necessary to support all life on this planet. Humus, (pronounced hyoo-muhs) or compost, is the dark, organic, biomass part of soil that is a very important component of healthy soil. Humus itself is totally, totally dead. But the tiny decomposers that are present to synthesize materials into nutrient rich fertilizer are at varying levels of aliveness and constantly circulate their own biomass into compost in the process of their short lives.

A red wiggler worm is typically used for composting indoors. Photo by net efekt.

Do you really need worms?

There are two kinds of composting that you can do in the city. Indoor and outdoor. They have differences. Composting indoors does require a special species of ‘red wiggler’ worms, Latin name Eisenia fetida. They eat half their weight in food scraps every day! Usually you have one 1lb of worms per bin. They can process (aka eat, digest, and excrete) 3.5 lbs of food scraps a week! This means that they turn garbage in to compost really fast which is great for small indoor spaces!

You will need a bin to put everything in. The Lower East Side Ecology Center sells all of the things you would need on their website and they even have a composting hotline. They can give you very detailed instructions for setting up your bin, maintaining it and then harvesting the compost when its finished. The ‘red wigglers’ don’t survive in fluctuating temperatures below 50 and above 80, so they are best suited for indoor use only. You don’t really ever have to handle or see the worms if you don’t want to. The bin will always have a ton of paper bedding on top of the action. You really don’t notice them as they work their magic, but they are kind of delicate living things so you do need to make sure they like their environment. If you try to mimic the conditions of a forest floor, where it’s moist, but not soaking wet, it’s dark, there are piles of leaves (browns) on top of the soil everywhere, then you’ll be in good shape and the worms will be happy.

The outdoor version does not require special worms at all. Even on your fire escape you will be surprised to see that regular soil friends, like earthworms, fungi strands, and other friendly, harmless, decomposers will find their way into the compost to help break it down. They are the same little guys you find in your outdoor potted plants after they’ve been out there for a while.

But doesn’t it smell?

It only smells if you let it! Smells happen when the compost gets too wet and stagnant! It’s easy to fix or avoid all together. You want the compost to be the same wetness as a wrung out sponge. “Wrung out sponge-ness” also happens to be the optimum amount of wetness for really fast decomposition. The worms like that kind of environment too and will be very content.

My one big piece of advice here is: Cover food scraps with some ‘browns’ every time! Just sprinkle on top some torn up pieces of junk mail, newspaper, cardboard, sawdust – anything that is dry and carbon rich. Covering the food masks any odors, and it balances out moisture rich food scraps. Remember that even though it’s associated with excrement, finished compost is a very neutral substance. For the outdoor version of composting, turning it speeds up the process and circulates air, but it’s not even necessary.

How long does it take?

If you have a great mix of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’, your compost will be very fast (meaning, you’ll have some compost in about 3 weeks) You can also add things like pine cones, small sticks, and corn cobs to allow air to reach the middle of the compost. This speeds up the process. You can certainly just leave it alone, and not turn it at all. It will still turn into compost, just slower. You might start an outdoor bin in the fall and by the next fall you could have compost. A worm bin is usually ready to harvest after about 2-4 months, when it resembles dark crumbly soil. You can tell when compost is ready when it does not resemble any of the original things you put in it, and it smells like sweet earth.

What kind of things can you put in a composter?

People mostly think of composting their food waste. But in order for those green, nitrogen rich materials to break down properly, the addition of brown carbon rich materials, like paper, dried leaves, or cardboard are really important to add. A lot of people forget to do this but its really crucial and, with all the mail and deliveries we get these days, who doesn’t have a ton of paper products lying around! One thing to avoid is glossy paper and waxy things. This won’t decompose and can harm your worms if you are using them. You should try to have a mixture of about 2 times as much “browns” as “greens”. This helps it go quickly and keeps the moisture levels down.

Here’s a partial list of things you can compost:

“Browns”

Shredded newspaper and brown paper
Eggshells and nutshells
Breads, grains, beans and spices
Paper towels, napkins, plates and cups
Natural packing materials
Rags, lint dust and floor sweepings
Cotton balls and q-tips
Hand wipes and tissues
Wooden skewers, chopsticks, popsicle sticks, match sticks
Fall leaves
Spent plants, straw and hay, dried flowers
Pine needles
Small twigs and wood chips
Sawdust

“Greens”

Fruit and vegetable scraps
Coffee grounds and filters, tea and teabags
Spoiled juice
Fresh leaves (green leaves)
Green plants, weeds without seeds
Pruning and hedge trimmings
Grass clippings
Seaweed
Aquarium water and algae
Horse manure
Small pet manure, bedding (as long as they’re vegetarian pets)
Feathers
Animal and human hair and nail clippings
Brewery waste, hops and pomace

Things to avoid

Meat
Fish scraps
Fats, oils and grease
Invasive weeds (kudzu, jimsonweed, mugwort if they present seeds)
Diseased plants (most piles will not kill the disease pathogen and it spreads)
Dairy products (they spoil)
Dog and cat waste (because they are not vegetarians)
Colored or glossy paper (contains plastic)
Pressure treated lumber (toxic)
Pesticide treated plants
Large branches (won’t break down very fast)

The finished product! Photo by Annie Norman.

What do we do with the stuff once it’s composted?

Compost in soil is continually taken up by plants and so compost must be periodically added to the soil to make it fertile and healthy. Once you have compost you can add it to your house plants and garden plants by adding 1-2″ to a pot and scratching it into the top 1-2″ of existing soil. You can do this every few months. You can also use some unfinished compost to mulch around your plants, or around street trees to help them retain water in dry seasons. You can steep compost in water for a few hours, dilute it 10:1 and spray it on the leaves of trees and plants as a natural pest protection. You can help remediate bad soil in your neighborhood by adding compost to it wherever you see dirt with not much growing in it. This helps begin the process of neutralizing and fertilizing the dirt and making it easier to support life. Compost is such a great fertilizer because it is naturally very balanced and plants can easily take up whatever they need from it, rather than the high doses of nutrients in commercial fertilizers that burn and stress plants. You can also give it to friends – it’s a great gift!

Any good small scale models you can recommend for use indoors or on a fire escape?

Its important in the city to get a container that circulates air and is rodent proof.

The three best outdoor models I can recommend are: The Garden Gourmet Compost Bin is $61. This one is awesome if you don’t want to touch anything! This one sorts the compost automatically because it is a series of 5 trays stacked on top of each other. You put the scraps on top and the finished compost comes out the bottom! Assembled it is about 36″x 24″x 24″. I love this one.

The Garden Gourmet compost bin!

A stainless steel container and tight fitting lid that has a bunch of holes drilled in it. You can make this yourself if you are a handy type person, or you can buy this from the LES Ecology center for about $23. This one would require you to sift the compost from the bottom, or use the whole container at once. I’d recommend getting two, so you can sort it and get to the finished compost.

This one is easly to make yourself, though it might be hard to make the pretty patterns…

There are larger, round, tumbling ones that are really easy to use, better for a small backyard. Those are about $250 and you have to assemble them yourself, but they make the turning of compost easy. These are abundantly available online – I like the Back Porch Compost Tumbler.

The Back Porch Compost Tumbler.

 

For indoors, I really recommend buying a plastic “worm condo” bin from the Lower East Side Ecology Center. If you live in NYC, you can pick it up at the Union Square Green Market and its all ready to go. It has a tight fitting lid and screened ventilation.

A condo for worms? Sign us up!

The New York, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island botanical gardens have many excellent composting resources. Also check out nyccompost.org for more information.

This is awesome, Amanda. Thanks so much!

Want to hear more? Read this Trade School blog detailing one of Amanda’s classes. There’s a composting pdf there for downloading, too. You can also check out Amanda’s project (called “Chew on This”) on global food systems and New York City at the Center for Urban Pedagogy.

Last week, the United Nations named the newly built United States Mission after Ron Brown, the Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton who was killed (15 years ago this week) in an airplane crash in Croatia, while promoting world peace through international business relations.

He was also one of my father’s closest friends and as such, our families are about as close as you can get to being cousins without actually sharing DNA.

click below for more:

It is a beautiful building, with a stunning art collection, including a Sol Lewitt installation that forms a spiral leading to a skylight on the top of the structure. During the dedication ceremony, I found myself transfixed, looking up at the red lines and imagining that the words of Presidents Clinton and Obama, both of whom were there to pay homage, were being funeled straight up to Ron’s ears.

“Ron wasn’t a diplomat in the traditional sense,” Obama said. “He argued that when we advance the prosperity of others, we advance ourselves.”  This is an argument that we can all take to heart, and translate into actions in our own lives. We get so busy, and so caught up in our own personal dramas, that we often forget about the big picture. And we lose sight of the fact that the big picture can have a powerful effect on the mirad little moments and issues and problems and triumphs that make up our individual lives.

Ron Brown never forgot the big picture. And that dedication ceremony, in that profound and beautiful building, surrounded by the so many of the people who are steering the world’s events, was a reminder to me, and I hope to all of us, to remember it as well.

Sorry for the late notice, but I only just discovered that my new favorite jeans are about to not be available online anymore. WHAAAAAAT?? After I spent years decrying the demise of good jeans by Levis and wondering what to do? And then I finally buy these awesome jeans by Martin, which I have been hearing about for years, and realize that I have a new BFF in the denim dept.

Only to discover that Anne Johnston Albert, the brilliant designer of this line, is shutting down her website. ON MARCH 31!!!!

So seriously, check them out and get your hands on a pair if you can. They are not cheap, but totally worth it. I bought 2 pairs (something I am often sorry I didn’t do when it is too late) which will hopefully last me into the next decade.

Because they really are good…. and we know how hard it is to find a good thing these days.

Now the word is that Martin will still be available in select stores which are listed here. So hopefully, should any of us need replacements, or are not quick enough on the draw here, there is a future for Martin in our lives.

Sure, fashion week is over, and sure I meant to post this 10 days ago, but neither of those facts make the Tess Giberson Fall 2011 collection any less stupendous. Or me love it any less. I think this woman is a genius and count myself lucky to be among her biggest fans. Her clothes are intelligent, wearable and left-of-center without being overwraught or overworked. And because they are modern but not at all trendy, you can wear them season after season without looking at all dated. Which is important when you are laying down some cash for an article of clothing.

This season, Giberson showed with the grownups up at Lincoln Center, but her show– an artful layering of texture, shape and color–  was not the usual catwalk affair. She had her models standing, stock still, on various white and metallic platforms in the middle of the room. Great for those of us who want to spend time deciding which look is our favorite. Not so great for the models, several of whom gave out and had to sit down for a moment or two. But then again… maybe they should have eaten breakfast…

For my favorites, click below:

So first off, those pants. And then after I got over thinking about how they are going to become my uniform next fall (or part of it, at least) I shifted to appreciating the excellent subtlty of the various shapes of black, layered one over the other. Even if I will never wear anything this way. It still looks great.

Next up, more layers. This time with a bit of color. Or at least, less black. And the most brilliant cowl neck scarf thing that I also really wish was available right now. Because winter is far from over. Gonna have to wait. Sigh.

And then finally, color! Because come on,  who doesn’t love a red dress?

The entire collection is well worth checking out. I know she’s sold at Barneys and Intermix, plus she’s opening her own store on Crosby Street in SoHo very very soon (was supposed to be January, but you know how those things go…) Check back here for news of that, as I’m sure I’ll write something about how excited I am.

And it won’t be a lie…

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

–Martin Luther King, Jr (1929 – 1968)

Word.

If you want to read one of the most beautiful and inspirational speeches ever given, here’s the I have a dream speech– most likely one of the most quoted and known speeches made by any luminary in American history. If you don’t know it already, read it and understand why.

And then think about what this man had to say and how important it is to the future of the civilized world that we not let him down.

Because we still have a long way to go.

For the full text of the speech, click below:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Ok so it’s not valium, but this little pack of crayons has come close on several occasions when I had just about given up all hope for a controlled pleasant meal at a restaurant, an extended bus ride, or a peaceful resolution in any situation where my little one has to sit quietly for more than, oh, 5 seconds. It is at this point that I begin to wonder why I am so against those portable DVD players. And then suddenly I remember that my brilliant sister-in-law gave me this pocket sized, attractive (for real!)  bundle of activity for my kid. I then triumphantly pull it out of my bag, secure paper or a napkin or a scrap of newspaper, and peace is mine once again.

Seriously, no one who has to hang out with young children should be without one of these. If you fit that bill, you should get one here right now.

Enough said.

Happy New Year Everybody. Just wanted to say hello and apologize for the lack of noise coming from my direction. But I am experiencing technical difficulties (what else is new?) and as such cannot really post in any satisfying manner. (see the words “blog image” rather than a photo at the start of this post)

So I’m staying  under wraps till we get it all worked out.

Here’s to 2011 being less full of technical mishaps and more full of glorious serendipities.

Thanks for your patience…

So now it’s really down to the wire, but hey you can still go to soho (along with all of the knuckleheads in the NYC vicinity) but instead of hitting up Uniqlo, J Crew and H&M, head over to slightly less crowded Crosby St and check out Jill Platner’s beautiful store full of breathtaking jewelry. I have worn little else since I first put on one of her pendants many (many) years ago. If you wear one of her pieces, you can’t take your hands off it.

If you want to learn more about Jill and how she makes her work and the thought that goes into each piece, check out this video. It’s short and amazing and really does offer a glimpse into her magical world.

And if you want to make somebody in your life very very happy, buy them something from this store or website, depending on where you are.

click below for more:

She also has a home line, which is well worth checking out as there are some people who just aren’t into jewelry. And others, like me, that are so addicted that they want some Platner for their table as well.

When I asked my good friend, Jill Platner (brilliant jeweler– the next post is going to be about her) what she likes to do for the holidays, one of the things she talked about was giving. And as she is very into the ocean and all things aquatic, she likes to give to Oceana, an amazing organization devoted to preserving the 3/4 of the planet that lives under or near the water.

I checked out their site, and you can adopt an animal in someone’s name– say a polar bear or a killer whale. You receive a cookie cutter, a framed certificate as well as (most importantly) the knowledge that your money is going to preserve the way of life of these creatures who are in such peril these days thanks to global warming and oil spills.

click below for more:

Even if you don’t chose to donate, the website is worth checking out. There’s an interesting blog by Oceana’s own Will Race about how he is making one small change in his habits each week to help move himself towards a greener way of life. Tiny steps, but huge impact. Even if we all did just one of these things, like cutting out bottled water or washing your laundry with cold water, the world would be a significantly better place.