Adding to the Borland Green compost pile

Can't compost at home? Bring us your kitchen scraps! Just follow these guidelines:

Only add material to the left(ish) bin. There’s a sign saying add material here. The farthest left bin is a leaf pile. Don’t add to that. 

Add stuff under this sign!

Our compost is fast, but not fast enough for compostable plastics, including bags like the compostable produce bags at the coop. Please don’t add those. 

These get really gross in our compost

Our compost pile is more or less vegan. We can handle the stray chicken bone,
​clam shell, etc, but let’s keep it low on meats, cheeses, and assorted dairy

If you’ve got egg shells it helps if you rinse them and crush them well first. They really don’t break down well if they’re left whole. Better yet, save them, crush them and use them as a soil amendment!

CRUSH THEM!!!

Try to help keep the pile reasonably tidy by adding evenly so it builds up square and not with a peak. Scraps will tumble down compost mountain otherwise.

If, despite your best efforts, your scraps fall down, please scoop them back up to the top - there are shovels around the compost area, usually in the leaf bin.

The treacherous slopes of compost mountain

Once you’ve added kitchen scraps, add a handful of dry leaves (to the left or there’s a larger bin far to the left)

There's a bigger leaf bin to the left if this is empty

Using Compost

Compost adds nutrients and organic material to the soil. We have a contraption that makes sifting the compost a breeze. Check out this video for some tips on sifting compost