Hi friends and comrades! What are you working on these days? I’m really interested in praxis and in new ideas of what to do in real life to advance towards a solarpunk future.
Hope you’re all well!
Hi friends and comrades! What are you working on these days? I’m really interested in praxis and in new ideas of what to do in real life to advance towards a solarpunk future.
Hope you’re all well!
To answer my own question, I’m working on restoring/modifying two mountain bikes I recently got for free from a coworker. I’m hoping to turn one into a sweet daily commuter for me!
I’m also a Buddhist and host weekly zazen at my house every Sunday morning. I feel like Zen/Buddhism and solarpunk go hand-in-hand - seeing the reality of interdepence, we can’t keep killing the earth!
Finally, I’m also trying to get started composting again. I did really well last winter then got out of the habit when it got warmer (I have a thing about smells). I am hoping to get back into it now that it’s cooler and maybe I can pay less attention to the smells for a bit.
This reminds me I need to call my city for a new bin! Last one got lost in a move, and then just forgot about it.
Love the biking and zazen!
Can you describe your setup? A properly maintained compost bin doesn’t smell at all.
How to make one: take some fencing (you can get it for free from Craigslist) and make a bin a little over 1 meter tall and roughly 1 or 2m around, outside, on top of soil. Put dead dry plants or leaves inside on the bottom at least half a meter deep. That’s your sponge material to keep certain things from leaking into the soil. Now it’s ready to start taking inputs like toilet material, kitchen and yard scraps, dead animals, etc. Form a hole in the center with a pitchfork or other tool and put all inputs into that hole. Then put cover material on top of the freshly added material. Good cover materials are hay, straw or leaves, and they prevent smells. This cover material should also be present on the sides of the bin. Finally, get a compost thermometer and stick it in the middle of the material. The goal should be to get the temperature above 120F/49C. This will take a good amount of material and consistently adding it through the winter.
@hamtron5000
This temperature target is really just to begin killing weed seeds - it takes a sustained temp above 140F/60C to begin killing pathogenic bacteria, with ~160F/71C being required to get to the most tenacious. If all that’s being composted is grass and garden waste and leaves and wood chips then by all means aim for 120F/49C but if the pile incorporates manures or carcasses then 160F/71C should be the target temperature.
I wish I had a photo of my setup but I apparently never did that, how odd! Anyway, it’s a series of pallets tied together with zip ties to make bins. I keep a seal-able five gallon bucket with lid in the kitchen, and we toss any organic scraps in there. We don’t have much yard yet so there are few grass clippings, but we have added some from neighbors before. Plus woodchips, leaves, etc. The smell issue came from unloading the buckets weekly in the pile - I would gag from the smell, though it was pretty mild all things considered. The pile itself didn’t reek really, but the bucket did. I just need to clean it more but with my brain sometimes a tiny challenge becomes a Mighty Challenge and it’s easier just to stop.