Blogkashi: Bokashi Blog

Big News

2010-02-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, now I can finally reveal why I have been too busy to update the blog as frequently as I used to...

I had been working on applying to PhD programs, and yesterday I was accepted into the Animal Behavior graduate group at UC Davis!

If I go there, I will be studying dairy cattle behavior and welfare.

I am still interviewing for two other programs, but I am very very excited about being admitted to UC Davis.

Sustainable / conscientious agriculture, along with animals (I have two cats and a horse) are my main passions, and I really look forward to studying issues related to these areas full-time!

Kombucha on Tap!

2010-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

Nearly a year ago, I wrote about my addiction to GT's Kombucha, a fermented beverage that I stopped consuming because the company seemed to glorify the amount of glass container waste it generated. Customers can return used bottles to Whole Foods instead of their local recycling centers, as Whole Foods returns all glass bottles to their local vendors. Glass milk bottles from local dairies have labels indicating that they sterilize and refill their containers, as all dairies did back in the days of milkmen. Los Angeles-based GT's, however, was shipping their containers back to recycling centers.

Last night I went to the Glendale Whole Foods for a quick chair massage, and decided to treat myself to a bottle of GT's Kombucha afterward. As I was checking out, a Whole Foods employee informed me that as of about two weeks ago, they now have select flavors of GT's Kombucha on tap! At the Kombucha bar, 16 ounces is $3.49 compared to $3.69 for the 16-oz sealed bottle. They also have 12-oz and 24-oz options at the bar, and once you purchase a freshly filled bottle from the bar, you can bring it back for refills. Yesterday, they had the Gingerade, Grape, and Superfruits flavors on tap.

Kombucha is definitely still a splurge, but now that I know that I won't be purchasing a new glass bottle with each drink, I plan to treat myself more often than once every few months. Thank you, GT's and Whole Foods, for creating this option!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-27T22:05:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! :)

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday - a time for family and friends to come together and feast!

The photo above is the beginning of a cranberry-pomegranate sauce - a delicious recipe I found in Sunset magazine (scroll down to see the finished product).

This year, I have a big project going on, so I was unable to return home to the Midwest this weekend. However, my mother came to visit me in Burbank last week, and we celebrated early-Thanksgiving with a few friends.

The five of us had a real feast, complete with a 3.7 lb bone-in turkey breast, pancetta-sourdough-apple stuffing, cranberry-pomegranate sauce, roasted sweet potatoes with apples, green beans with lemon breadcrumbs, roquefort-spinach-leek casserole, mixed rice with cream of mushroom, apple pie, and three types of ice cream...!

The spread:

Some of the leftovers and extra ingredients became these cute little pot pies the next day:

I spent Thanksgiving day with my gardener friend in Altadena, who hosted a party of 13. Many of the dishes utilized homegrown ingredients, including eggs, lemons, and squash from her garden.

I brought a fresh batch of cranberry-pomegranate sauce:

And apple pie from my mother's recipe:

Here are a few tidbits of what I've been up to during my silence the last couple months:

I moved next door to a one-bedroom apartment (owned by the same landlord). A whole glorious 450 sq ft to myself - a 50% upgrade over my previous 290 sq ft studio :)

The backyard garden at the apartment complex is now all mine, as the neighbor I was working on it with was the one who vacated my now-apartment. Last week I sowed the raised beds with lettuce, spinach, and mixed greens. They are supposed to take 7-10 days to germinate, so I've been eagerly watering and waiting for the seeds to sprout.
My new apartment has a private balcony, where the Bokashi bin now lives, as well as...
My new worm bin! I am now the proud owner of a full-sized three-tier "Wriggly Wranch", courtesy of the director of Glendale's recycle center. We met at a party for the Altadena Heritage Society over the summer.
I'm still helping in the CSA garden in Altadena. The tomatoes, particularly the Yellow Pear variety, did very well in the late summer, especially one week in October when it rained unusually early for SoCal.

We've been planting the winter garden now at the CSA with onions, garlic, greens, potatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and more.

More detailed updates and pictures to come... It's going to be a busy next few weeks, so hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

Easy Pizza Recipe

2009-09-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

For my friend's most recent CSA delivery last weekend, we harvested tomatoes of several varieties, summer and winter squash, basil, bell peppers, and tomatillos.

I took a few baskets of tomatoes and sprigs of basil home, and was inspired to use them as pizza toppings.

If you've ever had Domino's crispy thin-crust pizza, you're aware that it's infinitely tastier than their original recipe. I replicated the crispy crust at home using a shortcut, with delicious results!

Toast whole-wheat flour tortillas in a toaster oven or oven until they are firm and dry, like big crackers.

Spread pizza sauce on each tortilla (I love Trader Joe's pizza sauce in the glass jars - tastier than the version sold in tubs in the refrigerated section)

Generously heap on shredded cheese - I recommend something more flavorful and pungent than mozzarella, for instance fontina or parmesan

Sprinkle with herbs, such as oregano, dried red pepper flakes, garlic powder, etc.

Top with fresh garden vegetables, such as sliced tomatoes and basil leaves

Pop back into the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese

I often like to host pizza-making parties, using either dough made from scratch, or Trader Joe's refrigerated pizza dough. From now on, however, I'm going to switch to using tortillas. The advantages:

No hassle rolling out dough, which can be somewhat time-consuming and messy

Guaranteed crispy crust! No more soggy or chewy crusts, even with generous amounts of sauce and cheese.

The tortillas are 100% whole wheat

This recipe so speedy, it makes for a suitable easy weeknight dinner.

A pizza I made, topped with fresh garden tomatoes

A white pizza my mom made, with no sauce, but abundant tomatoes, bell peppers, and hot peppers from her garden in Illinois :)

Vegetable Juice

2009-07-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to break my long silence with a quick follow-up to a post from April about juicing vegetables.

As I mentioned in that post, although I am thoroughly enjoying the process of growing vegetables, my palate has been slower to catch up. I just lack a natural "talent" for gnawing on large piles of veggies and finding them delicious. In order to get a sufficient volume vegetables into my diet, I decided to try juicing.

My first experiment with a borrowed Krups juicer produced 40 ounces of juice using:

Baby spinach, roughly 1 lb. (< $1.00)
1 cucumber ($0.50)
4 carrots ($0.20)
2 oranges (free)
1 grapefruit (free)

The free citrus came from my gardener friend, and the vegetables were procured cheaply from Golden Farms (an Armenian grocery store in Glendale).

A 64-oz bottle of vegetable juice from Trader Joe's costs $3.79 - the ingredients for my juice would be about $2.70 for the same amount. Granted, it did take time and effort for me to make the juice and clean the juicer. However, the benefits of making it at home include freshness, and the knowledge of exactly what went into it. The first ingredient in Trader Joe's juice is water, used to reconstitute some powdered ingredients. Although vegetables also contain a lot of water, I know that my juice was not further diluted, and everything was fresh.

Adding fruit to my mix was definitely key for flavor. The result was a muddy green beverage that tasted of mild, grassy grapefruit juice. I included a few strawberries in my second batch of juice, which brought it up to the level of downright deliciousness!

I liked using spinach for its nutritional density, but it was the least convenient item to juice, as I had to turn the juicer off while I wadded together small bunches of leaves using both hands (or else little leaves would go flying as I tried to stuff them into the small opening of the machine). Cucumbers and carrots were especially convenient to put through the juicing machine - though these are vegetables that I actually already enjoy nibbling on raw.

I poured the finished juice into empty 16 oz. glass bottles to bring to work. I only made 2.5 days' worth at a time, as there are no preservatives in the juice.

* * *

I'm still helping out in my friend's CSA garden on the weekends. The main job recently has been to wrangle the overgrown tomato plants and lift them off the ground with twine strung between tall stakes.

We have also been busy harvesting for her CSA deliveries! The swiss chard is unfortunately infested with aphids, but we've still got kale and some kohlrabi going, as well as leeks, zucchini, and more peaches!

I have pictures of the garden from June and July, which I will post later.

Sunday PM: Harvesting and Delivering for the CSA

2009-05-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a big day of gardening for me! After my neighbor and I built raised beds for the garden we're starting behind our apartment buildings, I went to my friend's house in Altadena to help in her garden.

My first task, as usual, was to clean the chicken coop. It went very smoothly, as we were able to tempt all ten hens to leave the coop for their adjacent enclosure - using stale tortillas. My friend actually has eleven hens, but only ten live in the coop. The little black hen, "Suzie Q," is a different breed, and much smaller than the others. They tend to pick on her, so Suzie Q gets to live outside the coop, truly free-range! I rarely see her, but she was out and about in the garden on Sunday. Here she is below, laughing at her confined would-be-tormentors!

The garden has been growing fast, and we were able to harvest many things on Sunday. Look how far the chard has come since April:

We left the chard to grow a bit longer, but I began pulling up beets. Below, you can see the beet greens, with curly kale leaves in the background. The kale is ready to go, too, but the CSA members don't care for it, so I'll harvest it for personal use next weekend.

Many of the beets were much larger this season than my friend had previously produced. It's hard to tell how big they will be until you pull them out, but some of the tops were already bulging above ground, which gave me a clue! I swished the beets in a bucket of water and pulled off any small, brown, scraggly leaves in order to make them presentable for the CSA customers :)

I actually found the green plastic laundry bin on the curb a few houses down as I was driving to my friend's house that day. One side is slightly cracked, but overall it's in good shape. We hosed it off and scrubbed it a little, and now it's a perfect vegetable-harvesting crate!

I also pulled up a bunch of medium-sized carrots, swished them in a bucket, and cut off the tops. While they look gorgeous with the lush leaves, the CSA members never actually eat them - so I saved them (along with any particularly gnarly-looking carrots) as a treat for my grateful horse!

There are plenty more carrots ready for harvesting, but the afternoon was wearing on, and we already had a lot of other fruits and vegetables ready to deliver. We picked every last orange lingering on the tree, as well as a few lemons.

The biggest part of the afternoon was spent harvesting peaches! The little tree out front was heavy with small fruit. Although they were not ripe by normal standards, they needed to be picked before they were too soft, or else they would rupture while being transported.

We harvested the peaches in "upcycled" wire baskets that my boyfriend had donated to the garden from a broken shelving system:

In all, we delivered almost 30 kilograms (more than 60 pounds) of peaches to the CSA members! That's not counting the basket of "rejects" that we kept for ourselves.

Here's a shot of the beets, oranges, lemons, and some fava beans, ready for the CSA members to come pick up. There were also a few heads of lettuce, artichokes and kohlrabi, not shown.

The CSA consists of 8 families that all live in the same neighborhood of Pasadena. My friend leaves a list so that they each know how much of each type of item to grab when they come to pick up their produce. There is a scale for bulk items like the fava beans, while larger fruits and vegetables like the lettuce are indicated by number of units.

This was only her second CSA delivery of the season - but there will be many more to come. Hopefully I'll be there to document and take photos :)

Sunday AM: Raised Beds

2009-05-18T17:15:00.001-07:00

On Sunday morning, my neighbor and I got to work on the vegetable garden we're starting in the yard of the vacant guest house behind our buildings' shared parking lot.

Two weekends ago, we had intended to start covering the empty plot with aged horse manure and wood shavings to begin enriching the hard soil. It turns out that the reason the ground was so hard was because our landlord had filled it with decomposed granite (the same material used in horse riding arenas in our area). We decided that we would make life easier by building small raised beds. Since we have free access to aged compost, we'll continue to add it to the garden to use as mulch and ground covering, but building raised beds would allow us to get started planting right away.

We used Mel Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening book as a reference, and built two 4' x 4' raised beds out of wood. The beds will be only 6" deep, which Mel claims will be sufficient for all but long carrots. The potting mixture is equal parts peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. We used our free compost, but purchased the peat moss and vermiculite. Vermiculite, like Perlite, is a mineral used to improve soil drainage. It's more expensive, but not as lightweight, so it won't float away as easily as Perlite (which for a long time I thought was actually styrofoam!).

Here are some photos of our new raised beds, at around 1pm. They do get some sun in the hours surrounding noon, and we plan to prune back the tree branches soon to allow our future garden more sunlight.

Over Memorial Day weekend, we plan to add grids so that we can easily visualize each square foot. Mel recommends using thin strips of wood or even old venetian blind slats for durability, but we plan to scavenge plastic twine from our horses' hay bales.

We are also going to make a simple compost enclosure using chicken wire. Now I'll have three types of composting operations at home - Bokashi, vermicomposting, and traditional yard waste composting!

For our first planting, we plan to purchase seedlings. Meanwhile, we'll start the cooler season's plants from seed indoors.

I use Smartpak supplements for my horse*, and recently saw a neat idea for reusing the empty plastic wells to start seedlings. I wish I could find the photo!

*Since I have only one horse, it's actually not more economical to buy bulk containers of supplements, since they lose effectiveness after being exposed to air over time, and I can't use them up fast enough. Also, the Smartpaks are made of recycled plastic. I would prefer to reduce and reuse rather than simply recycling my empty containers, and now I have a good use for them!

Worm Bin: Take 2

2009-05-12T23:03:00.000-07:00

I now have not one, but two mini-vermicomposting bins ready to house worms!

After my initial failed attempt to construct a small worm bin from some clear Sterilite containers, I took a trip to my local OSH and found the small Rubbermaid Roughneck tubs I was looking for. They were relatively pricey ($5.99 each for the 3-gallon size, while the huge 18-gallon size was only $8.99), but they were the perfect dimensions (16"L x 10.75"W x 7"H), and opaque as well.

I picked up three tubs and lids - the worm bin only needs one lid, but I got spares in case I messed up while drilling again! The Rubbermaid material is soft and easy to drill. I successfully made 1/4" holes in the bottom of two tubs (the third has no holes, as it goes on the bottom to collect liquids), and 1/8" holes on the sides and lid.

My new worm bin fits perfectly under the kitchen sink. I filled the top layer with shredded newspaper - and now I'm ready to bring in some worms!

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I actually have two homemade worm bins now. My mother read my recent blog post about how the Sterilite containers I initially bought to construct the bins cracked while I was drilling them. I hadn't thrown them out yet, and she encouraged me to just patch them up with duct tape.

Moms do know best! I bandaged the more broken tub, and carefully finished drilling holes. The sides and lid were actually pretty easy to drill - it's the bottoms of the tubs that were the most brittle.

I would still recommend going for opaque Rubbermaid Roughneck containers instead of clear Sterilite tubs if you have the choice. The Roughnecks are a lot easier to drill, plus the opaque material will protect the worms from light, so if you wish, you can store your worm bin somewhere out in the open rather than under the sink.

I know I'll be able to make use of both bins. Maybe I'll put some worms in each and see if I notice any difference between how they perform!

More on How Bokashi Works

2009-05-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

I just did some more quick digging online to follow up on my post from a few months ago on how Bokashi composting works.

It's still an issue of constant confusion for my friends when I try to describe why I bother to buy Bokashi bran to help dispose of my kitchen waste. Why not just bury it directly? Why do I have to buy a product to help me pickle it first?

As I mentioned in my older post, my understanding is that two-stage composting using this method of fermenting, then burying waste, is a lot faster than traditional outdoor aerobic composting. Additionally, this system allows you to compost all kitchen scraps, and not just vegetable matter.

Below are a couple of explanations that I find helpful. The first, from the Seattle Post-Intellgiencer, basically reiterates what I said above - but with one important addition, which I've underlined:

"EM bokashi is a lot faster than traditional composting and works in an entirely different way. Instead of rotting, bokashi ferments food waste, then breaks it down into enzymes and amino acids directly usable by plant roots. The fermentation stage takes about two weeks, and the composting phase takes between two to four weeks."

I also found a comment thread from a blog post by author Amy Stewart, where a representative of EM America (a Bokashi bran and bucket producer) said the following:

"Materials actually break down faster when they are pre-treated with bokashi. The fermentation breaks down the lignin in the vegetables. Added benefits are that during the fermentation vitamins, minerals, and amino acids are produced and secreted in forms that plants will readily suck up. You can see growth spurts when plant roots hit the bokashi buried in the soil!"

To me, these quotes clarify that Bokashi composting is advantageous to simply burying food scraps in that the decomposition is much faster, and the presence of beneficial nutrients for plants is increased by the fermentation stage of two-stage Bokashi composting.

DIY Worm Bin: Failure to Launch!

2009-05-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

Today, tragedy struck my attempt at making my own mini vermicomposting bin.

I had excitedly shredded newspaper into strips to use as bedding material, and had cleaned out an area under my kitchen sink where the worm bin could stay away from sunlight, and have a bit of airflow around it.

Then, I borrowed a drill from my neighbor so that I could create 1/4" drainage holes in the bottom of the top two nested tubs, and 1/8" air holes on the sides and lid as well (as suggested by this DIY tutorial).

I had a very hard time with the first three drainage holes, and had to apply a lot more pressure than I expected. Upon trying to make a fourth hole, the bottom of the tub cracked, and a little piece of plastic even came out entirely! The difficulty turned out to be because I had the drill set to "reverse" :-P

I decided not to worry too much about it, since I only needed two tubs to start with anyway - one for the worms, and one under it to collect the drained worm juice. The third tub only comes into play when all the bedding and scraps have been converted to castings in the original worm layer. I figured I would just go to Target later and get another tub.

I corrected the direction of rotation on the drill, and began drilling drainage holes in another tub. I quickly learned that I didn't need as much pressure now that the drill was working in the proper direction, but I guess I weakened the plastic with the force I used in making the first hole, and this tub cracked as well!

I decided to just save the third tub and its intact lid for some other purpose around the house.

Back in the fall when I made my own Bokashi bucket, the plastic buckets I used held up just fine to drilling.

If you're trying to make your own worm bin, I would NOT recommend the Sterilite "RE-organize ShowOffs" for this purpose! I had high hopes for these Target tubs due to their modest shoebox-like size, but the plastic seems too brittle to withstand drilling.

Now I am back to square one, and in search of small containers I can use to build my worm bin. I know that people have had success with Rubbermaid brand tubs, which are made of a different plastic than the Sterilite containers - with the added benefit of being opaque.

I found this 3-gallon Rubbermaid tub online that would probably be small enough, and is marketed as "shatter-resistant." Does anyone know where these are available for purchase? I haven't seen this size at either Target or Home Depot around here. (Oddly, one of the top Google hits for the 3-gallon roughneck tub is for Blain's Farm & Fleet, which we have in my hometown in Illinois. Unfortunately, I'm now 2000 miles from there).

Burbank Farmer's Market

2009-05-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

This morning I went to the Burbank Farmer's Market around 10am, and had trouble finding parking. I was shocked at how much more congested the area was than last weekend. The streets surrounding the market were blocked off, and it turned out there was a big street fair that combined the annual Burbank Fire Department's "Fire Service Day" with other events.

My gardener friend is out of town this weekend, and I missed the South Pasadena Farmer's Market, so I picked up a dozen eggs this morning at the Burbank market ($2.50). The previous sentence reflects my order of preference for where I obtain my eggs.

The eggs at the Burbank market are from Mike & Son's Eggs in nearby Ontario. They are simply marketed as being "chemical and hormone free" - suggesting they come from caged hens. In searching for more information on Mike & Son's Eggs, I found that this fellow local LA blogger shares my preference for free range eggs instead - both in terms of ethics and egg quality.

I also picked up two cucumbers for $0.75 each, a bunch of carrots with tops for $1.00 (for the horse), three small avocados for $1.00, and five large carrots (for me) and three small tomatoes for $2.60 total. My total spending this morning was $8.60.

This week, I noticed several vendors offering sweet corn for the first time this year. Many vendors are still carrying asparagus, and broccoli, which are done for the season in my friend's garden. I also saw a lot of cauliflower, parsley, beets, leeks, artichokes, brussels sprouts, zucchini, potatoes, sweet potatoes, celery, and of course lots of strawberries and citrus.

I did not do a good job with my menu planning this week. I had intended to browse around the farmer's market and remind myself of what was in season or coming into season, buy a couple kinds of vegetables, and work out a dish from there - while not buying so much that it would go to waste.

I went over to a friend's house last week. She was going out of town the next day, so she loaded me up with things from her fridge that would expire in her absence. Some of it was already going bad. I managed to sort the items into things I could still eat, things I would feed to my horse*, things I would freeze and save for my worm bin, and lastly, items that would go in the Bokashi bucket. When I buy fresh produce, I obviously want to eat as much of it as I can, and let the animals (and microbes) do disposal duty - and not buy so much that it goes directly to compost.

While I did get fresh veggies for snacking on at work (the carrots and cucumbers), I somehow left the farmer's market this morning without any asparagus, zucchini, or other vegetables I could use in cooking a main dish! I got too carried away with taking notes, and lost sight of my goal of finding ingredients to cover my week's meals.

I was trying to avoid picking a dish from my cookbooks and going on a scavenger hunt for ingredients that were out of season, imported, or expensive. But today's (lack of) strategy did not work for me. Before next week's markets, I need to browse my cookbooks and mark recipes that use ingredients that I know are in season, and make a shopping list.

While I was browsing the market today, I also took a closer look at the information on the Burbank market's cheese vendor. Spring Hill Cheese is located in Petaluma, near San Francisco, and about 400 miles from Los Angeles. I was pleased to be able to find additional information about Spring Hill's farming practices online, at the "Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture" (CUESA)site. The cheese is produced in-house from the milk of Jersey cows who freely graze on pasture from January - July. The feed they consume during the dry months is also grown on-site. I will definitely be buying more cheese from this vendor.

For reviews of farmer's markets in other regions, check out the Farmer's Market Report, too!

* In case anyone needed clarification - my horse gets plenty of his own hay and grains daily. The things I save for him (like pieces of watermelon rind and apple cores) are just treats! They are never frozen, or kept in the fridge longer than a couple days - unlike the scraps I save for the Bokashi or worm bins.

Bucket Emptying: 3rd cycle

2009-05-06T16:35:00.001-07:00

Last night I finally got my Bokashi cycle moving again, after a temporary backlog. My freezer was about to explode!

My landlord recently gave me permission to start a vegetable garden on the premises. Last Saturday evening, my gardener friend came over and gave me some suggestions for the plot. The ground is very hard and barren (surprisingly, there aren't any weeds), so we watered it before trying to dig in. The water initially pooled up and started flowing downhill, so we turned off the water and let the puddle soak for more than an hour.

When we returned, the water had been absorbed, and we stuck a spading fork in to see whether we could actually break ground. Thankfully, we were relieved to find that it was indeed soil at least a foot deep, and not concrete!

My gardener friend advised that we cover the plot with as much compost as possible, both as a mulch to retain moisture, as well as to attract beneficial worms to come loosen and enrich the soil. She also suggested that we prune back some of the branches from the trees surrounding the plot, to allow the vegetables some sun. Shade-tolerant plants that we're considering growing include greens, cucumbers, and potatoes, but we'd like to give them at least some sunlight.

This Sunday, a neighbor and I plan to collect some aged horse manure and stall bedding to mulch the plot. We both board horses in the neighborhood, so we have a convenient, local source for free compost. After we let the plot rest for a while (keeping it moist with periodic watering), we will prune back the trees. I want to keep the shade cover for now, to reduce evaporation - especially since the weather is starting to warm up a lot!

In any event, last night I decided to empty Bokashi Bucket #3 which has been sitting, full, in my kitchen since March 31. This time, instead of transferring it to my terra cotta planter, I decided to bury the waste straight into the ground, as various Bokashi resources have suggested.

I didn't have the liberty to do this before, as I had no access to an empty plot of dirt. Now I do have an empty plot of dirt - and one that desperately needs enrichment from compost!

Breaking ground to bury my compost was very difficult, even though I watered first. I ended up using the same spot where we had tested the ground with the spading fork last weekend. My hole was not quite a foot deep, but we managed to fit the contents of the Bokashi bucket (interspersed with thin layers of dirt), cover it completely, and tamp it down firmly. Hopefully it won't get unearthed by curious neighborhood animals right away!

I'm hoping to continue burying my waste directly in the ground from now on. The plot is large, and I'm sure we can dedicate a section for composting purposes. This will allow me to keep my Bokashi cycle going more continuously, rather than waiting for the material in the planter to finish decomposing before I can empty the next bucket.

Now I can put my planter to good use growing basil. Not only do I use fresh basil frequently for Italian dishes, but my my mother also recently recounted a nice anecdote about my late grandmother's fondness for the herb. The Sweet Basil variety isn't readily available in Taiwan, where she lived, so my mother brought her seeds to grow her own potted plants. So now when I plant basil, I will think of her :) Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Worm Bin Reconsidered

2009-05-02T21:38:00.001-07:00

I recently became re-inspired to explore vermicomposting, partially due to reading the Bokashi Slope blog. I had previously ruled out keeping a worm bin in my studio apartment due to space constraints, but I am now planning to build my own worm bin in smaller dimensions than the prefabricated tubs tend to come in.

I am certainly happy with the results of my Bokashi composting so far, but the backlog of food scraps in the freezer (which are waiting to be added to my Bokashi tub, which is waiting to be emptied into my outdoor planter, which is waiting to be taken to the garden)...(phew!)...has been one factor leading me to reexamine other apartment composting options. Another factor is that I just have a natural curiosity about other types of composting, and would like to see how well I could keep a worm bin going.

Today I bought three small nesting tubs (for $4 each) and a matching lid from Target. The tubs are each about 8"W x 12"L x 6"H, with the bottom of each layer resting 1-1/2" above the one below it. The side handles flip up and down, so the lid unlatches easily, which will make it more convenient for adding fresh food scraps frequently. My homemade Bokashi bucket's lid is very difficult to open, which is actually good because that means it has a tight seal, but it also makes it inconvenient to open it frequently to add scraps - which is why I store scraps in the freezer and only add them to the bucket about once a week.

I read through this tutorial on putting together a homemade worm bin for some guidance. It specifies that you should use an opaque container, but all the opaque bins I've seen at both Target and Home Depot are way too large for my apartment. So I'm planning to keep it somewhere dark, like under the kitchen sink.

My next step is to borrow a drill in order to create ventilation holes, shred some bedding, and get some worms!

LA Farmer's Markets: South Pasadena & Burbank

2009-05-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

Thursday evening after work, I made my now-routine stop by the South Pasadena Farmer's Market. This week my mission was very specific, and I did not stop to browse as I had on previous visits, because I planned to check out the Burbank Farmer's Market on Saturday.

The South Pasadena market is laid out in a T-shape, with the cooked-food vendors lining both sides of the base of the "T", and the fresh produce vendors branching out to form the top of the "T". At the intersection is the largest produce tent - the vendor from whom I bought Swiss chard and heirloom tomatoes previously. Their tent has appeal due to both the wide variety of vegetables they offer, and also the way they merchandise their products. Every type of vegetable has its own laminated description card with the price clearly shown - very helpful!

This week I was in search of zucchini to use in making zucchini bread. They had a bin of baby zucchini labeled at $2 per pound, with some much larger zucchini on the side. I asked the vendor to weigh one of the larger zucchinis for me, and to my shock he said that the big ones were only $3 each - even though they were clearly over 1.5 pounds each. I happily bought a humongous one (see photo below - it was the size and weight of an infant), along with two one-dollar bags of basil, and a small red onion, which he threw in for free!

I also made a quick stop by the J&J Grass-Fed Beef tent to pick up a couple one-pound packs of ground beef ($5 per pound). One of the packs was for my gardener friend, who plans to make a goulash. I had also told a co-worker about the beef last week, which he bought to add to a soup. He gave it a big thumbs up for taste and texture! This stand has become one of my favorites, along with Bill's Bees, as both offer a unique and superior product.

When I returned home, I noticed that this week, the little bags of basil had labels on them that showed the vendor's website, along with a claim that they were "Beyond Organic - 100% Sustainable!" That's certainly quite an assertion! I went to the Jaime Farms website, and while there were some nice blurbs about the qualities of each type of vegetable they grow, there was unfortunately no information on their farming practices, and what makes those methods sustainable...

Saturday morning I went to the Burbank Farmer's Market for the first time! It's held in a parking lot at the intersection of Orange Grove and Third Street, from 8:00am - 12:30pm. Almost all of the tents were produce or flower vendors, in contrast to the cooked-food/street fair focus of the South Pasadena market.

J&J Grass-Fed Beef was there, although the stand was attended by a different man than the one who is always in South Pasadena on Thursdays. There was a larger number of produce tents offering more than one type of crop - a much better selection than South Pasadena. There was also a cheese vendor and an egg seller.

There was a very long line for the eggs, which were $2.10 - $2.50 a dozen, or $3.50 for 20 eggs. This price was better than the $3.00 / dozen for Jaime Farms' eggs at the South Pasadena market. However, there was nothing indicating that the Burbank vendor's eggs were free-range - they were local, but simply labeled as being from chickens fed "natural feed." We bought 40 eggs anyway, since we were preparing for a party, but for my regular needs I will probably be sticking to my gardening friend's truly free-range eggs, or Jaime Farms' eggs, which also claim to be free-range.

I also picked up three types of cheese - white cheddar, goat cheese with sage, and smoked gouda - for $16 total. This vendor's tent had a laminated card indicating the mileage between their farm and Los Angeles, and some information about their practices. Next time I return to the market, I'll be sure to take better notes so I can report back in more detail!

In addition, we picked up a half-flat (6 baskets) of strawberries for only $9, a bunch of carrots for $1.25, potatoes for $1.25 / pound, tomatoes for $2.25 / pound, and a $2 bunch of asparagus. Our haul cost us $39.25 - very reasonable considering half that amount was gourmet cheese!

I definitely plan to return to the Burbank farmer's market. I liked that there was a wide selection of produce, as well as locally produced cheese. However, none of the vendors seemed to offer heirloom tomatoes, and I really like the ones from Jaime Farms. I also like Bill's Bees, which is always at the South Pasadena market, and wasn't in Burbank today. I might not visit both markets every week, but intend to visit each on a regular basis from now on.

For reviews of farmer's markets in other areas, check out the Farmer's Market Report, too!

Chicken Mayhem!

2009-04-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

(Or, may-hen...?)

I often find chicken behavior to be quite amusing and endearing. I can't wait to someday have some space of my own to keep hens!

My horse lives in what is called a pipe stall or pipe corral - his stable has a roof, but each horse's individual space is separated by widely-spaced horizontal metal bars, and not wooden walls. This allows for ventilation as well as social interaction between the horses. A few scrappy hens and roosters live in the barn as well, and at night they roost on the highest bars of the horse stalls.

Last night when I went to visit my horse, I noticed one of the roosters acting funny - examining something on the ground and skirting nervously around it. I took a closer look and saw that it was a little snake! It was about 7" long and as thin as a pencil (maybe one of these?), and writhing in the dirt of the barn aisle. As I was debating whether or not to catch the snake under a bucket, a hen ran up and boldly snatched the snake in her beak!

She then began running around and weaving between the horses' stalls, dropping the snake a few times and picking it up again. Finally, she pecked the snake at the tail end, and slurped the whole thing down like a piece of spaghetti!

I've seen snakes in nature videos and in science class swallowing a whole mouse - but I had never seen a snake swallowed whole before! Very interesting and unexpected. That's probably the most "exotic" wildlife experience I've had so close to home!

On Tuesday evening I actually had another fun hen experience when I was helping my friend in her garden. I was cleaning the chicken coop (my specialty), and had managed to get 8 of the 10 hens out of the coop and into their adjoining wire-enclosed run.

I asked my friend if I should catch the two stragglers and put them in the run as well, but my friend said not to bother. The sun was setting, and chickens are supposed to have a strong instinct to take cover at night. If either of them escaped while I had the roof of the coop open, they should soon return home by themselves anyway.

Supposedly.

One immediately flew out and began having a ball on the big compost heap next to the coop. My friend gets aged horse manure and wood shavings trucked in to use as mulch and compost, and the hen was having the time of her life scratching at the heap and throwing compost everywhere. Occasionally, she would lose her foot-hold and come sliding down the mulch mountain, with an avalanche of compost following her :)

When I was done cleaning the coop, I lifted the door that divides the coop from the run. The eight hens came streaming back into the coop. Instead of joining her sisters back inside the coop, the free hen enticed another four of them to join her party outside!

Soon, we had four hens digging in the compost heap ecstatically, and another running amok in the yard (probably the original ringleader). She took a peck of chard here, a nip of spinach there, and ran over the freshly planted pepper seedlings. The chickens didn't show any sign of wanting to return home, despite the fact that it was getting quite dark. Eventually, we rounded the loose hens up one by one and shut them in the coop for the night.

They will have their chance to spend time in the chicken tractor to uproot weeds and dig up grubs soon, but hopefully we'll be more careful not to let them range quite as freely as they did Tuesday night!

Kitchen Upgrade

2009-04-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Back in the fall of 2008 when I made a commitment to cook from scratch more regularly, I began upgrading my cookware.

At the time, I owned only 2 teflon-coated frying pans (one with a lid), and 2 teflon-coated pots (a large one for cooking pasta, and a smaller one for sauce). Everything was at least 4 years old, and the larger pot was beginning to peel on the inside. I was also using a dull chef's knife, and a flimsy, plastic-handled paring knife. Cooking was not fun.

I decided to replace my cookware and knives for two main reasons: safety, and pleasure.

I was concerned about safety after noticing the teflon coating flaking off from the inside of my larger pot. I had previously thrown out another cheap set of cookware that had the same problem a few years prior. I was also worried about using dull, cheap knives to cut produce. Not only was I afraid of slipping and cutting my hand, but my paring knife blade was so thin, I was afraid it might actually snap!

I try to be cautious about accumulating too much stuff, particularly after downgrading to a very small apartment. However, if I were truly going to cook more often, I needed better equipment. The second reason for my upgrade - pleasure - factors in here.

I had noticed that at a friend's house, cooking was fun. This was mostly because she is an experienced cook, and whips up a lot of delicious, exciting dishes. But I also noticed that her matching, high-end cookware and knives seemed to make the process easier. I'm sure this was mostly psychological, but nevertheless, I thought that investing in better tools might make cooking more pleasurable for me.

I would not advocate that anyone go out and spend a lot of money on gadgets that are just going to sit around an accumulate dust. I upgraded my kitchen piece by piece, after doing a lot of research.

In particular, I found a few articles from National Geographic's Green Guide to be helpful. Apparently, teflon coatings degrade over time, and flaking is not uncommon. Even if they don't peel visibly, they can give off toxic fumes. I decided that to play it safe - and to avoid having to constantly replace my pans - I would go for a different material that would hopefully last a lifetime.

I decided on Calphalon's tri-ply stainless line, and Lodge cast iron pans, and accumulated pieces one by one.

Calphalon tri-ply is made of aluminum (for heat conductivity) sandwiched between two layers of stainless steel (for lack of reactivity with food), not only on the base, but all the way up the sides as well. It is considered by many to be a more reasonably-priced, but high-quality alternative to the pricey All-Clad brand. In addition, Calphalon's lids are glass instead of the metal lids that come with All-Clad, which is nice so you can see what's going on without lifting the lid.
The set shown below is very affordable compared to buying the pieces separately, but I decided not to get the set. I didn't need all the pieces included, and don't have the space to store the items I wouldn't use very often.

In fact, I didn't end up buying anything that comes in the set. I used 20%-off coupons at Bed Bath & Beyond to buy the 8-quart stock pot (the set comes with a 6-quart pot) and the 3-quart chef's pan. At a Linens 'n Things store closing, I also bought the 5-quart sautee pan. I don't use the sautee pan very often, as it's quite huge, but it comes in very handy for stir fries. The stock pot and chef's pan are used several times a week, and I couldn't be happier.

Except...

Then I bought some Lodge cast iron cookware, which have become my every day pans. I first acquired the "combo cooker" from the Sport Chalet camping department. It includes a deep 10" pan and a shallow pan that also serves as its lid. They were great, but a bit too large for 1-2 eggs, which looked very lonely cooking on just one half of the pan. So I bought the tiny 6-1/2" diameter skillet from amazon.com, also available at Sur la Table. The mini-pan is AMAZING. It gets used almost every single day for eggs - it's perfectly sized to fry one to two.

If anyone doubts that cast iron can really substitute for the ease of teflon-coated pans when cooking eggs, trust me - it really works! I've had my mini-pan for only a couple months, and it's already well-seasoned enough to not only make fried eggs that slide right out of the pan when cooked with only a tiny smear of butter, but can also create omelets that will flip easily without leaving any residue.

I did make a few early mistakes in my experimentation with cast iron cooking. Acidic foods should generally be avoided, as they strip the "seasoning" that forms on the pan that prevents foods from sticking. I cook pasta sauce in my Calphalon stainless steel chef's pan instead. At once point, I did have to re-season the deeper Lodge pan (I found an article in Mother Earth News), but that's the beauty of cast iron - if you mess it up, you can renew it. No more tossing out cheap, busted teflon pans!

Below is a turnip dish I whipped up in the shallow 10" Lodge pan, as I described in another recent post.

I also upgraded my knives after finding a killer deal on a set of Wusthof "Culinar" knives. Unlike pots and pans, knives don't take up much space, so even though I don't use every single knife in the set very often, it made sense to buy the set. I think amazon made some kind of pricing error, because I bought it for only $250 in December. After shopping around a bit, I realized that this price was way too cheap to be believed, so I bought it immediately! Good thing - now it's at a more realistic (though beyond my price range) $500.

The two main brands in this price range are Wusthof and J. A. Henckels. After reading reviews, I haven't determined that there is much of a difference in quality - it's mainly personal preference for the feel. A female friend of mine told me that when she tried out some Henckels while building her wedding registry, the handles felt too large for her hands, so she went for Wusthof. Based on that assessment, Wusthof seemed like it might be a better fit for me, too.

I am very pleased with my new knives, and my boyfriend agreed that I had made a sound purchase. Everything is easier to cut now, including onions. And the set even has a bread knife, which many knife block sets do not include.

I have no complaints about any of the cookware I've acquired in the last few months. Everything works well, and seems to be of solid quality. I think investing in better equipment was well worth the cost. I didn't spend an insane amount - about $540 total - which would have been $890 if I hadn't searched for the cheapeast retailers and used coupons. Hopefully these pieces will last me a lifetime. Plus, I did end up cooking much more frequently after upgrading my tools, so the per-use cost will soon be next to nothing!

What about Bokashi??

2009-04-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

You may be wondering, "what's up with all of these non-Bokashi posts lately?"

I hope you have found my posts on topics such as gardening and cooking interesting, and at least somewhat related to composting.

My Bokashi cycle is currently in limbo, and will hopefully be back in action by this weekend.

Two weekends ago, I went to attend to Bokashi batch #2 that has been decomposing in my planter. I noticed then that the Rubbermaid tub that I use to transport completed compost to my gardener friend's house had gone missing, along with the trowel I keep inside! I had been storing my equipment outdoors, hidden (I thought) behind the bushes, because my apartment is so tiny. I'm hoping it was a simple misunderstanding with the apartment building's gardener, because I don't like the idea of a thief poking around under my window...

In any case, I just bought a new trowel and tub (which will have to take residence in my car or in my horse's tack locker to avoid another theft), and intend to empty the batch that's in the planter very soon. In fact, now that I have a yard, I will likely use the completed compost on-site! My gardener friend is coming over on Saturday to help me evaluate the plot.

Then I can finally empty the full kitchen bucket (my third batch, which has been resting since 3/31) mix it with soil in the planter, and start adding scraps to the bucket again. My freezer is getting full!

Path to Freedom film screening: Food Matters

2009-04-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

On Sunday evening, I attended a local film screening and potluck hosted by Path to Freedom. They host these events in Pasadena monthly, and the previous one I attended was in December.

Now that it's spring, the potluck portion of the evening was held outdoors. Participants were asked to bring a vegetarian dish that is as "local" as possible.

I made deviled eggs using free-range brown and white eggs from the South Pasadena farmer's market, nested on a bed of fresh lettuce from my friend's organic backyard garden. The lettuce helped improve the presentation, and also kept the eggs from sliding around the serving dish while I transported them :)

The hosts provide compostable plates and utensils, but encourage participants to bring their own reusable dinnerware. One handy idea that I learned by observing veteran attendees at the last event was to bring a container with a lid, so that after you're done eating, food scraps won't soil the inside of your bag. I brought my 7-cup pyrex storage container, which worked perfectly!

This month's documentary was called Food Matters. In a nutshell, the film's point was to illustrate that proper nutrition is key to preventing health problems, and even for curing many degenerative diseases. Many of the experts interviewed for the film believe that while modern medicine is extremely adept at treating acute injuries, it is less competent when it comes to chronic illnesses. A diet heavy in raw foods and vitamins was promoted by the film, and drug treatments (as well as cancer therapies such as radiation) were criticized.

I found the film very interesting, but as with my reading of Nina Planck's book, Real Food, I tried to take a step back instead of immediately buying into everything it was suggesting. I always have to ask myself, "are they rightfully exposing a truth that has been obscured from popular knowledge, or might this also be propaganda?"

One of the recurring themes in the documentary was that cooking foods destroys a lot of the beneficial enzymes, and that a diet should be predominantly raw - at least 51% of every meal. I wasn't sure if this was by volume or weight - definitely not the same thing. Picture a big fluffy ball of sprouts vs. a cantaloupe...

I am already consuming raw milk, raw honey, and fresh fruits. However, I know that I personally couldn't be happy as a 100% raw-foods vegan. I haven't tried it before, but cheese and milk are huge staples of my diet, along with whole wheat pasta. These food items add an enormous amount of happiness to my daily life, and I can't give them up entirely.

Nevertheless, I have long suspected that I need to add more fresh produce to my diet anyway. I am recovering from a lifelong aversion to most vegetables - as a child, fresh carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes were about all I would eat, along with the occasional cooked broccoli, cauliflower, peas, or corn on the cob.

A couple years ago, I actually made a new year's resolution to eat at least ONE legitimately green thing every day. Otherwise, days would go by without any vegetables being consumed at all - let alone the 3-5 servings typically recommended. I was in fact able to stick to my resolution that year, and vegetables have become part of my daily diet - in limited quantities. My taste for veggies is finally expanding, perhaps due to a maturing palate. However, I am still nowhere near eating the quantity I should be. I eat very little meat, so my meals are heavy in whole grains and dairy or eggs. Unless I'm eating a salad, vegetables are merely a small side dish.

Upon viewing Food Matters, I renewed my commitment to consuming a higher proportion of fresh veggies. One expert that was interviewed for the film - Andrew Saul - particularly caught my attention. He was very likable, and his sense of humor really showed in his interviews, and on his website as well. His recommendation of juicing vegetables particularly appealed to me.

Since I still find masticating a large quantity of vegetables each day to be fairly daunting, juicing seems like it might be a good solution for me. There will be a lot of pulp leftover, but I'm not worried about losing fiber in my diet, as these are vegetables I wouldn't be consuming otherwise. I plan to save the pulp in the fridge to give to my friend's hens. I have a juicing machine on loan, and will report back on my progress!

I almost forgot to mention - each Path to Freedom film screening is followed by a brief quiz. I remembered this from last time, and took notes throughout the film, because there is a prize for answering all 10 questions correctly! Winners receive either free admission to the next event, or $10-off at the Peddler's Wagon store.

At December's event, I used my $10 prize toward a set of glass food storage canisters. On Sunday, as I approached the Peddler's Wagon table, something immediately caught my eye, and I knew exactly what to get...

Bokashi bran!

I am almost done with the last of the Bokashi mix I had purchased from Gaiam back in October to get my composting process started. Fortuitously, Peddler's Wagon had a tub right there at the event for... $10! I paid only tax, and walked home with a fresh batch of Bokashi bran to continue my kitchen composting. Excellent!

Book Review: Real Food

2009-04-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months, I've read two popular books about the way modern Americans eat: Real Food, by Nina Planck, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm now in the middle of a third well-known book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

I have enjoyed all three books, and found that reading them in the order listed above was a good strategy, as each book goes into successively greater detail and analysis.

Below are my thoughts on the first book I read, Real Food: What to Eat and Why, by Nina Planck, 2007:

I rate this book 3.5 stars out of 5. It's a good starting point to spark your thinking about what we as a culture tend to eat, what we used to eat, and what we should eat.

Planck's reasoning is framed mainly from a nutritional perspective. She references medical and anthropological research to support her claim that "real" foods - i.e. produced and prepared using primitive or traditional methods - are the most healthful, whereas modern, processed foods are more dangerous to our health.

She argues that humans have evolved to eat certain types of foods, including meat, but that modern food technology has created foods that are bodies are not built to use in the right manner. According to Planck, modern foods are the root of modern health problems such as heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.

Planck seeks to debunk what she sees as a myth, pervasive in American culture, that low-cholesterol and low-fat foods are the healthiest. She believes that animal products - and the fat and cholesterol contained within them - are not inherently bad for us. Instead, it's conventional factory-farming practices, as well as refined foods such as processed sugar, that threaten our health.

According to Planck's food philosophy, we should eat eggs from pastured chickens, grass-fed beef, and plenty of wild-caught fish, but should avoid refined foods - including isolated soy protein - which she considers a health-food impostor.

Planck is a one-time vegan who has come to firmly believe that eating animal products, including meat, is natural and healthful. However, she is adamant that the consumer should make every effort to obtain animal products raised using the most stringent, ethical methods possible. Interestingly, she argues this primarily for reasons of nutrition, with environmental and animal-rights concerns being secondary.

Conventionally-grown vegetables and fruits may contain harmful residues of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. However, Planck argues, compared to eating a small amount of meat from an animal who consumes non-organically grown plants, you would have to consume a massive quantity of chemically-sprayed plant products directly to accumulate the same amount of toxins in your body.

I liken it to thinking about how mainstream it has become to worry about consuming mercury when eating fish. Fish who eat other fish develop higher concentrations of mercury in their flesh, so those highest up on the food chain should be consumed very sparingly. The Monterey Bay Aquarium publishes a seafood guide that outlines the recommended frequency for consuming different types of fish. The guide is based on the risk of different types of fish to our health, as well as on the different fishing or farming practices used to acquire each type of fish.

Planck advocates consuming organic, free-range, grass-fed, wild-caught, etc. as much as possible when eating animal products, but feels that it is less necessary to buy organic when consuming plants.

The book was certainly eye-opening for me, as I was only beginning to consider factors apart from convenience and price when determining what to eat.

However, I was a bit disappointed by the book's lack of structure. The author seemed to bounce around and circle back a lot instead of thoroughly exploring each topic she introduced. For me, this diluted the message of her book. Others may not find the somewhat disorganized format to be as distracting, but for me the lack of cohesion made it harder to distill the take-away points.

Also, although Planck provides citations for many studies to form the basis of her theories, I felt that I should take her assertions with a grain of salt. The anthropological observations she described were interesting, but not as persuasive to me as the empirical medical studies she referenced.

Still, if you have the time, Planck's book is certainly worth a read. After finishing Real Food, I re-evaluated my own diet as follows:

As I described in another recent post, I've adopted Planck's strategy of spending more on animal products to ensure that they were raised in a fashion that imparts the greatest nutritional benefits - along with doing less damage to the environment and the animals' welfare.

I also try to obtain local or organic produce as often as possible, but am not willing to pay quite as much of a premium as I do with animal products. I generally avoid cheap milk, eggs, and meat.

I no longer feel guilty about eating whole eggs, rather than just the whites. Even as a child, I liked the yolks the best! I have tried buying cartons of liquid eggs whites before, and found them to be an unsatisfactory substitution for eggs. Many people consider egg whites to be a health food, but Planck believes whole eggs to be much more beneficial.

I verified with a friend who is completing a joint MD-MPH program, with a focus in nutrition, that eating egg yolks will not directly lead to high cholesterol and heart disease. She said I should feel free to eat whole eggs, as long as I don't consume an insane quantity every day. :)

I began drinking whole-fat, un-homogenized milk (Trader Joe's sells cream-top organic milk by the half-gallon). As a child, I always drank whole or 2% milk - skim tasted like glorified grey water to me. I switched to skim from 2004-2008 because that seemed like the "adult" thing to do. Now I'm back to enjoying a daily glass of sweet, rich, creamy real milk - and the switch has not caused me to gain weight.

I recently took it one step further and tried raw milk (which is un-pasteurized as well as un-homogenized), as Planck recommended. I've had absolutely no digestive issues with the change. Whole Foods carries raw milk options.

When cooking, I use olive oil and real butter, never margarine. Vegetable oils are made solid through hydrogenation. Therefore, margarine = trans fats!

Soy: I still love tofu, but instead of using vanilla soy milk in my coffee, I now use organic half-and-half or whole milk. I never use non-dairy "creamer" - which is actually made with both high-fructose corn syrup and partially-hydrogenated oils!

I still consume some refined and processed foods. Old habits die hard, and there are certain processed foods that still make me salivate! I want to live life and enjoy different kinds of flavors - but I am more selective and try to practice moderation.

Although I switched to brown rice and whole wheat bread and pasta several years ago for everyday consumption, I still bake with some white all-purpose flour and white sugar.

I also still indulge in store-bought cereal along with occasional snacks and desserts, but always examine the ingredients.

I'm still trying to establish and maintain a healthy diet that works for me. I want to feel healthy and like I am making ethical food choices. However, I am still recovering from being a lifelong picky eater, and taste is very important to me. I've made a lot of improvements in eating nutritiously over the last couple years, particularly in the last few months since I started cooking from scratch and getting involved in gardening.

However, a typical meal for me is heavy in pasta (whole wheat, at least!) and dairy, with some vegetables and fruit on the side. I think the balance on my plate needs to be reversed - so that is my next goal.

A Garden of My Own! (?)

2009-04-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

I found my current apartment in Burbank because my landlord is also my horseback riding instructor. She owns a few adjacent rental properties near the stables, including my building, and a guest cottage behind my apartment building's parking lot.

Today we were chatting at the stables, and I mentioned that on Sunday night I'm going to another one of the film screening and potlucks hosted by Path to Freedom. When she heard that I was interested in vegetable gardening, she encouraged me to convert the yard of the guesthouse into a garden! Apparently anything that is currently dirt and not grass is fair game - how exciting!

I went to scope out the current state of the yard, and the available area for vegetable gardening is quite sizable:

There is also a small area abutting the cottage where I would like to set up a composter and maybe some planters with herbs:

I have a few concerns - namely my own lack of experience - but also the abundance of shade. The entire garden area is lined with beautiful, mature trees, shown below. While I personally prefer shade to sunlight, I'm not sure that most vegetables would feel the same way. Also, while there aren't very many weeds on the ground right now, I suspect it's because the soil is thin and hard. Putting in raised beds might be a good solution, but I will have to do some research on where to get low-cost building materials and soil. I have seen ads for free dirt on craigslist before. Now my Bokashi will be put to use right at my own home!

Unfortunately, even though I have immediate access to an abundant supply of horse manure and bedding - a highly compostable mix - I don't intend to use it for garden compost at this time. Stabled horses take medications, supplements, and anti-parasitic boosters that would linger in the manure, and possibly also in the the vegetables that grow in the compost.

Grocery Stores

2009-04-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

I try to get the bulk of my fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as free-range beef and raw honey from the local farmer's markets and my friend's garden. However, that doesn't cover all the food groups. Where do I get the rest of my food?

The answer is that for me, there is no one-stop solution in Los Angeles. In any given week, I visit a combination of Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and "ethnic" grocery stores. Below are my recommendations of what to find at each, and the reasoning behind my preferences.

Trader Joe's: I used to live one block from the original Trader Joe's on Mission St. in South Pasadena. I never stocked up on groceries for the week, and instead relished my daily walk to the neighborhood market to pick up frozen dinners. I still visit TJ's on a weekly basis, but now skirt the packaged meals in favor of ingredients for dishes that I make from scratch (or nearly from scratch).

Produce is more reasonably priced than at "conventional" grocers such as Ralph's or Vons, but Trader Joe's is a packaging nightmare. There is very little produce that isn't presented in plastic bags or boxes, and the prices are not lower than at the farmer's market.

However, Trader Joe's does have very good prices on the following:

Whole wheat pasta: about $1.29 for a 1 lb. bag
Whole wheat bread: the cheapest bagged, pre-sliced loaf is $1.99
Recycled toilet paper and paper towels
Pine nuts and Flax seeds: surprisingly cheaper than from the bulk bins at other stores
Water crackers: the price just dropped to $0.99 per box, down from $1.29!
Bananas: $0.19 each for regular, $0.29 each for organic; yes, they are imported tropical fruits, but if you're going to eat them, this is the place to get them.
Free-range eggs: roughly the same price ($3/dozen) as the farmer's market, though more likely to be "factory organic" than farmer's market eggs
Fair-trade coffee
Gourmet cheese: priced by weight, and labels indicate whether the milk was hormone free, and whether they were made with animal rennet or microbial rennet (my preference).
Baking needs (chocolate chips, flour, organic sugar)

Whole Foods: Shopping at Whole Foods is kind of like reading a fashion or design magazine - inspiring, drool-worthy, but I can barely afford many of their offerings. They have decent prices for a few items if you look carefully, but most items are quite expensive. I only buy things there that I can't find easily elsewhere within a few-mile radius, such as:

Raw, whole milk: the Glendale location offers 2 brands of unpasteurized milk; one is about $6 for a quart in a glass bottle, and the other is $10 for a half-gallon plastic jug. I bought the plastic one because the label gave a lot of information about the farm, and I liked what I read.
Gourmet cheese: fancier than the Trader Joe's selection, offering some of the same speciality varieties as cheese boutiques such as the Cheese Store and Say Cheese, such as the popular California goat cheese brand Cypress Grove Chevre.
"Natural" beauty products: my favorite brands such as Earth Science, Desert Essence Organics, and Kiss My Face have wide selections at Whole Foods. These types of companies tend to use non-irritating ingredients, recycled packaging, and don't test their products on animals.

"Ethnic" grocery stores: These range from small, family-owned neighborhood shops to big-box stores, but what they have in common is exceptionally low prices on some types of items, and less-flashy real-estate and merchandising. Examples include:

Super King in the Pasadena/Altadena area
Golden Farms in the Glendale/Burbank area
India Sweets & Spices in the Glendale/Los Feliz area
99 Ranch Market (the closest one is in Monterrey Park)

I shop at these stores purely for low prices, because that's the advantage these stores offer. "Food ethics," particularly with relation to animal products, is not what concerns their main customer base the most - low prices and ingredients specific to cultural cuisines is what they provide. I recommend visiting these stores for the following:

Bulk spices, dried herbs, and nuts (with the exception of flax seeds and pine nuts, which are cheaper at Trader Joe's): They generally come in crinkly plastic bags, but there are some bulk bins as well. You will never buy a little bottle of dried thyme from a regular grocery store ever again after seeing the pries at one of these stores.
Cheap produce: I try to get my produce from my friend's garden or the farmer's market, but in a pinch, I stop by an ethnic grocery. There is no reason to spend an exorbitant amount at a Ralph's, or accumulate lots of plastic packaging at Trader Joe's.
Bulk Mediterranean goods: Imported olive oil, canned chickpeas, and tahini (sesame paste) are by far cheaper at these stores than anywhere else. TJ's has reasonable prices on California olive oils, but for Italian or other European oils, you can get 2L for $14 or so at an ethnic grocery store.
Meat, eggs, and milk are all very cheap at these stores - but I do NOT buy these products. I prefer to spend more money in order to get better nutritional quality and flavor, and also to know that the animal was not raised in a factory environment (both for animal ethics and environmental concerns). I am a little more flexible on whether my fruits and vegetables were raised on pesticides and chemical fertilizers, but I do not like to compromise with animal products.

What I cooked with my farmer's market spoils

2009-04-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

I typically plan my week's menu ahead of time. When I am eating alone, I can usually cook one or two dishes and bring them as leftovers for lunch at work all week. For dinner I have a simple cheese plate with crackers and fruit (and a dab of fig jam). Breakfast is either a fried egg with toast, a homemade fruit and yogurt smoothie, or cereal if I am running quite late.

I must confess an addiction to Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds - an industrial-food vice I haven't been able to give up (along with an occasional indulgence in Flamin' Hot Cheetos with Lime). However, my boyfriend made granola from this recipe last week, and it seemed like a promising tool to wean me of my daily HBoOwA habit!

I bought a jar of raw honey from Bill's Bees at the South Pasadena farmer's market last week to use in yogurt, and in the homemade granola recipe. Bill gives customers samples of the various types of honey he offers - I tasted orange-blossom, sage, and almond tree honey. Orange-blossom is a bit floral (think jasmine), whereas almond is complex and almost alcoholic (Bill commented that some people think it's "bitter," but that he doesn't see how honey can be bitter). Sage seemed just right to me, so I bought a 16 oz. glass jar for $6.

I also tried J & J's range-fed beef for the first time last week, and it was so good that this week I decided to get another pound to keep in the freezer. My diet is generally ovo-lacto-vegetarian, so I need a break from meat this week (since it takes me a week of eating some every day in order to polish off a pound!).

Last week after I let the beef thaw in the fridge for a day, I made about 1/4 pound into a burger patty, which I seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. I grilled it lightly on both sides in my small cast iron pan, and sandwiched it with crumbled blue cheese, sliced tomato, red onion, and toasted Trader Joe's whole wheat bread (the kind that's $1.99 per loaf). I didn't want to use too many condiments or dressings, since I wanted to be able to really taste the beef. WOW. It was delicious. The difference in cost between J & J's and grocery store beef is worth it to me not just for ethical and environmental reasons, but also for the taste.

The next day, I cooked the remaining 3/4 pound of beef into a pasta sauce. I sauteed the meat with chopped red onions, and seasoned it with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, dried thyme, and dried oregano. After draining the fat, I added some red wine, let it evaporate a bit, then added a jar of store-bought marinara sauce (I haven't yet worked up the courage to make my own sauce from scratch yet) and some chopped tomatoes I had sauteed on the side.

I served the meat sauce with Trader Joe's whole wheat rotelli (cooked for 4-5 minutes after adding to boiling water - NOT the 9-11 minutes specified on the package!) and topped it with some chopped fresh basil and freshly grated parmesan. The pasta dish was delicious, and provided me with lunch for the rest of the week.

The prior week, I used the heirloom tomatoes in another pasta dish. The original recipe calls for pancetta, but I adapted it with turkey bacon (I hope this isn't sacrilege for Italian food purists!). The turkey was chopped and fried, then a bit of crushed fresh fresh garlic was added to the pan. Next, the chopped tomatoes are added and sauteed for a few minutes with the meat. I then tossed the tomatoes and turkey with cooked pasta and added arugula, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. I bought a 1/4 lb. bag of baby arugula from the South Pas farmer's market, which was absolutely delectable, warmed and very slighted wilted in the pasta.

You can also substitute spinach or baby spinach for the arugula. Spinach tends to wilt a bit more, making for a different textured dish. I actually have never been fond of arugula in general, finding it a bit strong and bitter - but the baby arugula from the farmer's market was a big winner!

South Pasadena Farmer's Market

2009-04-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

Today is Thursday, which is when the weekly South Pasadena Farmer's Market is held. Before I moved to Burbank last fall, I lived only a couple blocks from the Mission and Meridian metro station where the farmers market is set up from 4-8pm.

Recently, I have made an effort to start going again. It's not that far out of my way when I'm returning home from work. But now I go specifically for produce. In the past, I went to socialize with friends and get dinner from the food stands (think pupusas, tamales, Peruvian fried rice, bratwurst...), and I largely ignored the produce vendors besides occasionally picking up a basket of strawberries. There are only about a dozen small tents in the back of the market, and the cooked food vendors up front seem to be the main attraction.

However, upon closer examination (or due to my somewhat recently expanded palate for vegetables), the produce vendors actually have a lot to offer. This was my third week in a row of visiting the farmer's market, so I'm starting to get a sense of what is in season. I came with shopping list in hand and visited three vendors. At the first tent, I bought a colorful bunch of Swiss Chard, two varieties of tomatoes, two small bags of basil, and an onion, for a total of $9. Another vendor had pears and fuji apples for $1.75 per pound - I spent $5 there. Finally, I purchased a $5 pound of California range-fed ground beef (not pictured).

The same vendor that sells the chard and tomatoes also sells eggs from free-range chickens for $3 a dozen (the carton contains both white and brown eggs), which is quite a good price! I am especially a fan of their heirloom tomatoes. Below is a close-up shot of the heirloom variety next to a more typical tomato for color comparison. They are so deep red as to be almost brown, and are intensely flavorful! I've become quite a fan, and have bought a few of this type on my last three visits. If anyone recognizes the breed, please let me know :)

Right now there are a lot of baby squash, particularly zucchini, and strawberries are also abundant. I also saw some asparagus and broccoli still, which in my friend's garden are both done for the season. Citrus fruits are plentiful, but there were also several vendors selling fuji apples. Some stands were dedicated to a single product, for instance potatoes, baby greens, sprouts, and of course the honey and beef that I mentioned previously.

FYI, I would advise bringing not only your own sturdy shopping bags, but also some smaller plastic or mesh bags as well. They are helpful to keep different types of items separate in your larger tote, and if you are buying something that's priced by the pound and not by the bunch, the vendor needs to be able to weigh your items in a plastic bag. The sellers all provide plastic bags for this purpose, but they are generally of the handled shopping-bag variety, not the thin produce bags you see at grocery stores. Sorry if this is just obvious to everyone else, but even though I brought my own large shopping totes the first time, I still found that I needed to use the vendors' plastic bags as well.

Now, I must confess, there is actually a farmer's market in Burbank only 2 miles from my apartment. Sadly, I still have not gone in the 8 months I've been a Burbank resident. The farmer's market is held on Saturdays from 8:00am - 12:30pm. I have commitments every Saturday afternoon, so mornings are often packed with other errands. However, I have vowed to check it out - SOON!

April in the garden

2009-04-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple snapshots of what the garden looked like last weekend. For the last few weeks, California poppies have been in full, traffic-cone orange bloom all over the area. My friend has a native plants garden in her front yard that currently looks like the poppy field from the Wizard of Oz. A few poppies decided to sprout up in the backyard vegetable garden as well.

I'm not a great photographer - some of the poppies are in the background of the photo below. In the foreground you can see colorful chard:

Citrus trees have been bearing fruit for the last couple months. In my friend's garden there are large pomelos, grapefruits, lemons, tangerines, and two types of oranges. At the South Pasadena farmer's market last week I saw many stands selling citrus fruits. Additionally, Bill's Bees, a local honey vendor at the market, particularly recommended orange-blossom honey, as so many citrus trees in the area were flowering recently.

This weekend we planted bell pepper seedlings as well as the squash that had been started from my Bokashi compost soil. We also pulled up the broccoli that was now past its season and threw it to the chickens, who had a party among the uprooted broccoli forest that we threw to into their enclosure.

In a raised bed in the back of the garden, some of the strawberries were beginning to ripen. These have also been plentiful at the farmer's market recently, with most vendors selling a 3-basket pack for $5-7. Next to the strawberries, carrots and lettuce also grow in the raised bed.

I planted the carrots from seed a couple months ago. Since the seeds are so tiny, it's impractical to start them inside. It's much easier to sprinkle a handful of seeds, cover them with a thin layer of soil and mulch directly in the raised bed, and thin them once they've grown a bit. Below are some of the baby carrots we thinned out to allow the remaining carrots room to grow properly. My horse really enjoyed the treat! He usually gets only carrot roots, but loves the greens as well when they are available.

We also harvested the last of the turnips, which are best eaten when they are 1"-2" in diameter for maximum tenderness (according to their seed packet's label). Pulling the little bulbs with the single, thin, pointy root gently out of the ground is such a satisfying feeling for some reason.

Below are the turnips, washed and separated from their leaves and roots. I must take a moment to rave about my OXO salad spinner. Back in my lazy-chef days of buying bagged salad greens, I couldn't fathom why anyone would own a salad spinner. It seemed like such a gimicky gadget, and a waste of money. Then I started cooking with whole ingredients, and shaking out spinach with a colander and towel began to get tedious. At a friend's house, I used the OXO once and was hooked. It's much larger and sturdier than other salad spinners I've seen, and I highly recommend it! It's pricey (about $30 even on amazon.com), but would be a good use of those $10-off or 20%-off coupons from Bed Bath & Beyond!

I cut the turnips into thick slices and also halved the leaves lengthwise. I added the turnips and greens to boiling water and simmered for several minutes while I sauteed chopped turkey bacon in my cast iron skillet (I will rave more about cast iron in a later post!). When the bacon was ready, I drained the turnip water and added the turnips and greens to the pan. According to some recipes I referenced online, draining the water helps to remove any bitterness the greens might have had. I sauteed everything for a couple minutes and seasoned with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and onion and garlic power (my universal seasoning for vegetables lately). I must say it was delicious! And this is from a former vegetable skeptic (if not outright veggie-phobe).

Bokashi Update: First batch complete!

2009-04-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

The first batch of Bokashi compost that I completed has made it all the way to nourishing plants at last - but not without a few glitches along the way!

The online tutorial that I referenced had advised that after one month, the compost would be finished. After four weeks, I uncovered my planter and stuck a trowel into the soil/compost mix and discovered that the planter was still dominated by substantial chunks of food. Now, the website I had referenced indicated that the planter should be covered for 2 weeks, whereas I left the plastic on the whole time. I'm not sure how much of a difference this made, but I will experiment with future batches.

This photo is actually from the second batch of Bokashi compost, which has been outside for a few weeks and has now settled to about 2/3 of the original volume. Many of the food scraps still retained much of their original structure before they met with my trowel.

In any case, I chopped up the chunks with my trowel and mixed everything thoroughly once more. The soil/food mixture had indeed settled quite a bit, to about half of its initial volume. After another couple weeks, it appeared noticeably different once more, with a much more even, crumbly consistency.

I scooped it all into a lidded plastic Rubbermaid container and took it over to my gardener friend's house to have her take a look. I was nervous that I had messed it up, since it had been about twice as long as I thought it should take, but my friend said the compost looked beautiful! We sifted it through a slotted plastic tray to separate out the largest chunks. Well over 90% of the material seemed to have broken down quite well. We threw the bigger chunks (corn cobs stand out in my memory as having been particularly stubborn) into the Tumbleweed composter.

In order to make the sifted compost into potting soil, we mixed in perlite, which according to the ever-handy Wikipedia, is used to "prevent water loss and soil compaction." Perlite is a volcanic glass that to me looks just like small styrofoam beads.

My friend then used our fresh potting mix start seeds indoors. Gardeners often plant seeds indoors, especially in climates less mild than ours here in Southern California. That way they are protected from temperature and weather extremes, as well as from pests, and gardeners can get a head start on the growing season even before the last frost. The seedlings are transplanted to the garden after they have established a few leaves and roots. Seedlings that already have a few inches on them won't have to struggle as hard to push up through the soil and mulch (which we lay over the ground to discourage weeds from growing).

My friend also started some seeds in regular commercial potting soil, and labeled the seed trays with the source of the soil - regular or mine. Unfortunately, I lost the race! After a couple weeks, all of the seeds planted in the regular soil had begun to sprout, while only a couple of the Bokashi-soil seedlings had struggled to life. We began to fear that the Bokashi compost was too raw, and might have killed the seeds!

Fortunately, I got so behind on updating this blog that I can happily report that Bokashi is not poison after all! My seedlings were off to a slow start, but nonetheless eventually sprouted, and as of last weekend were transplanted to the garden as 3" tall little butternut squash and watermelon plants!

Stay tuned for photos of the Bokashi-nourished plants as they grow this summer!

White Rabbit CSA: Even MORE fun with chicken tractors!

2009-04-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

At the start of the new year (yes, this post is long overdue!), while visiting loved ones, I had the good fortune to visit a CSA farm in Vero Beach, Florida.

A family friend recently started volunteering with the CSA. The CSA is relatively new, but the scale is quite impressive. It is set on about 5 acres within a larger, certified-organic family farm of about 30 acres. The CSA already has about 60 members, who each commit $15 and one hour of labor per week in exchange for fresh produce from the CSA farm.

Due to the agreeable Florida climate, even in January they had a beautiful crop of lettuce ready for harvest. Drip irrigation lines supply the lettuce with water through flat hoses.

White plastic was used to mulch the young strawberry plants seen below:

In exchange for their labor and membership fees, the CSA participants earn "bunny bucks" - points toward their choice of produce.

We went home with some mixed greens and peas, courtesy of our generous friend's labors on the farm, and enjoyed a delicious salad for lunch. The organically-grown greens were truly more flavorful than the store-bought, bagged variety!

My most favorite part of the CSA farm was the mobile chicken coop and pig tractor!

The chicken coop is built upon a trailer bed. The bottom of the coop is completely open to the ground, to allow the chickens' droppings to fall through to the ground beneath.

The chickens lay their eggs inside the coop, but otherwise are 100% free-range. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the chickens at White Rabbit CSA are enormous! They apparently have no difficulty foraging for food. The roosters and hens have complete freedom to wander over the property, though they mostly stay clustered within a few yards of the coop, as there is plenty to eat.

The mobile coop is moved every so often, along with an enclosed pig pen which then goes onto the spot vacated by the chicken coop. The pigs root the chicken droppings into the soil, helping with the next step of the composting process.

In case you are concerned about the pigs looking crowded in the photo, they did have enough room to turn and move around. I don't know much about the care of pigs, and whether they need exercise. I do know that in conventional concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO), or "factory farms," pigs do not have as much space to move around, and also have to endure concrete flooring, which impedes their natural digging and rooting instinct. The mobile pig pen definitely seemed to allow them to carry out their natural pig behaviors, although I'm truly not informed enough to comment on the amount of space they were allowed.

The chickens certainly did enjoy limitless mobility, though!

The family who owns the farm has another business converting vehicles to run on biodiesel fuel (which they also produce on site). Below is one of the converted cars they have for sale:

They also operate a store on the premises, for residents who appreciate the locally-grown, organic produce, but wish to purchase food outright, rather than volunteering with the CSA. You can read more about the CSA through either of their websites - I just wanted to share some photos from our wonderful visit!

More fun with chicken tractors

2009-04-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've been continuing to help my friend in her garden almost weekly, and it's been fun - and delicious!

In addition to fresh eggs and last fall's zucchini that I wrote about previously, I've also enjoyed broccoli, turnips, winter squash, endless sugar snap peas, oranges, grapefruits, and even pomelos!

Cleaning the chicken coop has become one of my regular tasks. My friend never enjoyed it, but I actually get a kick out of it! Two hens usually get put into the chicken tractor, while the other eight are shooed, tricked, or carried out of the main coop (where they lay eggs and roost for the night) into the chicken wire enclosure that's attached to the coop.

Here is the chicken tractor in action:

The sides and roof are made of chicken wire to keep out predators (and to keep the chickens from demolishing areas of the garden where they aren't wanted), while the bottom is open so the chickens can scratch away happily. The roof is also covered with a tarp for shade.

The hens that are not spending their day in the chicken tractor can move freely between the coop and the attached enclosed run. We toss them lots of weeds and grubs that we dig up while tending the garden!

Bokashi update: Burying the fermented waste

2009-04-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

By now I've actually filled up my container three times. Here are some photos of the first time I emptied it. I used this helpful tutorial to learn what do.

After filling up the bucket and letting it sit sealed for two weeks (while still regularly draining the "tea"), it was time to empty the fermented contents and mix everything with dirt.

What you need:

A place to bury your food waste. If you have a yard, you can bury it straight in the ground.
If you live in an apartment, like me, you can use a planter box or any large container (e.g. a Rubbermaid tub). Just make sure there are drainage holes on the bottom! If you are doing this on a patio or balcony, it would be a good idea to put a tray underneath to catch whatever drains out of those holes...
Also, if you have no yard, you will need some dirt. I bought a bag of topsoil from Home Depot, and used about half. In the future, my gardening friend said I could take some dirt for free, and bring it back enriched :)
A garden trowel and gloves.

Step 1 - Spread a layer of dirt in the bottom of your planter:

Step 2 - Add a layer of fermented food waste from your Bokashi bucket - YUM!!!

Step 3 - Continue to alternate layers of dirt and scraps. Make sure everything is mixed well. Chop up any big pieces of food, if you hadn't already cut the scraps into small pieces before adding them to the bucket. You should not be surprised if the food hasn't changed much in appearance yet:

Step 4 - Once all the food waste has been added and well-mixed in, finish with a final layer of soil:

Step 5 (Not Shown): Cover the planter with something to keep out rain. I used a large plastic trash bag and tucked the ends under the planter so it wouldn't blow away (or get yanked off by the neighborhood cats). Now let it sit for at least 4 weeks to finish decomposing. The food scraps will break down and the mixture will take on that familiar compost look.

Hint: I uncovered the planter and did some additional chopping and mixing with a trowel to help break up the stubborn bits. My compost took a total of about 6 weeks the first time before it looked done.

Kombucha: Final Chapter

2009-04-07T21:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long silence! It's certainly not been for lack of topics - only lack of free time! I have much catching up to do. First order of business - a brief commentary on the reply I received from GT's Kombucha about what happens to their used glass beverage bottles after consumers return them to Whole Foods.

I had been hoping that they wash and re-use their bottles, but it turns out they truck them to a recycling center - which customers could have done in the first place.

Now, I don't want to give off the impression that I've been all worked up for months over the practices of a relatively small and local company that is only a drop in the bucket that is the modern consumption and waste cycle.

The company stated that they "are not able to reuse the bottles because of the amount of processing that is involved to sterilize the bottles again." It's not clear to me what makes the "amount of processing" prohibitive. It could be because they lack the equipment or facilities to do it themselves. Perhaps they use a third party bottling facility who isn't willing to sterilize used bottles for only one of their customers. Perhaps they are concerned about wasting water and energy, and somehow making and sterilizing new bottles isn't as resource-intensive as washing used ones (this logic is a stretch). Who knows...

In any case, I don't mean to single out GT's Kombucha as the epitome of evil, wasteful practices by any means. I just think the situation is just symptomatic of a larger problem in our culture. Think of all the everyday things that come in glass jars or bottles - wine, beer, iced tea, mayonnaise, pickles, apple sauce, salad dressings... etc. Glass containers are so commonplace, most people are probably oblivious to the type of packaging an item comes in. We're quite used to a way of life where glass containers are emptied, then recycled or thrown away.

In the 20th century, and in the modern day in many places outside of the US, glass is re-used, not just recycled (or trashed). Think about the drinking glasses you use at home. Can you imagine recycling or throwing away your drinking glasses after just a handful of uses? They are the same material and shape as glass food and beverage containers - just marketed differently.

A big part of the problem is that we don't have much of an incentive to re-use food and beverage containers. At best, we get a few cents back for taking them to a recycling center. We no longer see the value of the glass material itself, because we don't pay much for it upfront. Until consumers are presented with more of a financial incentive (or penalty), it will be difficult to get people's attention and encourage an attitude shift toward the life-cycle of glass containers.

In the meantime, there are changes we can make in our individual habits that aren't too difficult. As I've mentioned before, recycling is only one of the "three Rs", and it's the last resort after reducing and reusing. Focusing on reducing not only lessens packaging waste, but also helps save money, and possibly your waistline as well! I try to buy bottled drinks such as Kombucha or ice tea only sparingly. I also cook from scratch as much as possible and make things such as pesto at home instead of buying it from the store.

I haven't been able to avoid buying food in glass jars altogether, but when I do, I wash and save the containers. Glass is so versatile and durable. It is dishwasher-safe, and unlike with plastic, there is no concern about BPA or other chemicals leaching into food or drinks. And unlike metal containers, you can easily see what's inside without opening them!

Along with a few "fancy" glass food canisters that I've purchased, my pantry contains a collection of re-used glass containers that house bulk herbs and spices that originally came in thin plastic bags. My spice jars may not look uniform, but they do the job quite well!

Bokashi Slope

2009-01-06T18:08:00.001-08:00

So, before I started this blog in October, I did a Google search on Bokashi to see what I could learn. There is a lot of great information out there, but none of the resources I found were very well-organized (in my opinion). I created this blog to compile the best information for Bokashi beginners such as myself, and to document my escapades with learning to compost. Well, I didn't search blogger (duh), but my sweetheart recently did - and discovered this blog that began in August:

http://bokashislope.blogspot.com/

Wow! I haven't had time to browse it thoroughly yet, but it looks like I have a kindred mind in Austin, TX! This blogger is a self-described "apartment-dwelling gardener" - I am more of an "apartment-dwelling aspiring-farmer/beginning-gardener", so they are ahead of me in that respect as well.

I look forward to checking out this blog more thoroughly - there appears to be a lot of great content, as well as insightful comments from people who seem to be in-the-know.

[Incidentally, my childhood best friend and her husband live in Austin, as do my beau's brother and his girlfriend. And Whole Foods is based in Austin. Fun.]

Response from GT's Kombucha

2009-01-06T12:48:00.001-08:00

Below is the response I received to the e-mail I sent to GT's Kombucha on December 31st:

Hi, thanks for the email. :)

Bottles that are returned to the stores are simply taken to nearby recycling centers.

Just so you know, we are not able to reuse the bottles because of the amount of processing that is involved to sterilize the bottles again.

I hope that helps,

GT :)

So, not the response I was hoping for (that they wash and reuse the bottles they take back from Whole Foods customers), but not all that surprising. At least they responded! My commentary will follow in a later post.

A planter for the herb garden

2008-12-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

Look at what I picked up last night!

This beautiful used terracotta planter was up for sale for $20 on craigslist. I spotted it yesterday afternoon, and by the evening, it was mine! It's a substantial weight and has drainage holes.

Pickled food waste that comes out of the Bokashi bucket must be mixed with soil in order to complete the composting process, and I don't think this planter will be big enough for the entire contents of my bucket plus soil. I'm still going to get some Rubbermaid tubs to hold the rest, but this will be a good size to start a nice little herb garden. I'm sure my gardener friend would be happy to use whatever excess black gold I end up with in her raised garden beds.

Letter to GT's Kombucha

2008-12-31T10:04:00.001-08:00

Well, I've tried calling GT's Kombucha a few times this morning, but have been unable to reach anyone, so I sent the following e-mail:

Hi, I buy your Kombucha regularly from Whole Foods in Glendale and Pasadena.

I've been concerned about the growing number of bottles accumulating at home. I haven't wanted to recycle them, because I have heard that energy-wise it is better to reuse than recycle.

When I was buying some of your "Trilogy" drink from Whole Foods this morning, I was pleased to learn that all bottles returned to the store by customers are taken back by their vendors.

My question is - when you take back your empty GT's Kombucha bottles from Whole Foods, what happens then? Are they washed and refilled, or are they carted away to a recycle center? I would really appreciate hearing back from you, as my concern about creating unnecessary waste is actually what has been holding me back from enjoying as much Kombucha as I'd like.

This note under the "Community" section on your website was actually quite concerning to me: http://gtskombucha.com/com_bell.html, because if you in fact are willing to take back your bottles for reuse, then these avid Kombucha drinkers should not be sending their bottles to the recycle bin!

I noticed the header on that section of your site read "A community focused on health and vitality" - for me, the health and vitality of the planet are important to my own well-being, as well as potentially that of future generations.

I hope you will take the time to answer my question about whether your company refills used Kombucha bottles.

Thanks very much, and happy new year!

Kombucha Update

2008-12-31T09:35:00.000-08:00

** 12/31/08 Update: I've been craving Kombucha all week, and this morning I stopped by my local Whole Foods for a fix. I passed through their dairy aisle because I was curious about their selection of unpasteurized milk, and noticed that the glass milk bottles (all from California farms) do specify that the bottles should be returned so they can be washed and refilled. I spoke to a Whole Foods employee to ask if they actually do take back bottles at the store, and not only do they take back their milk bottles, apparently all of their vendors take back their respective bottles whenever they make deliveries!

I was unable to reach anyone at GT's Kombucha by phone so far this morning, but this gives me hope that when they take back their bottles from Whole Foods, they are washed and reused. If this is indeed the case, I would strongly advocate returning your Kombucha bottles to Whole Foods instead of taking them to a recycling center or tossing them in the recycle bin for curbside pickup. In fact, if you buy any beverage from Whole Foods, please return the empty container there. Not only will you get your 5-cent deposit back, but you will give the bottles a chance to be reused instead of recycled.

I also called my local Ralph's and Pavilions/Vons grocery stores to inquire about their CRV policies. Pavilions does not take back any containers - they must be taken to a recycling center to retrieve your deposit. Ralph's takes back only select glass milk bottles. If you are concerned about maximizing the life cycle of beverage containers, Whole Foods seems like the place to shop.

My most frequent grocery stop has long been Trader Joe's - it's affordable, small and neighborly, and for delicious, convenient prepared foods they can't be beat. However, despite their in-your-face encouragement to bring your own shopping bags, it's a packaging nightmare there.

There is a limited amount of produce that isn't wrapped, bagged, or boxed in plastic, and they offer no bulk dry goods. I used to live one block from the original Trader Joe's store in South Pasadena, and would walk there almost daily. I still hold a soft spot in my heart for good ol' TJ's, but as I think harder about the environmental impacts of my lifestyle, I have been leaning more toward shopping at Whole Foods.

I've read criticisms of Whole Foods that accuse the retailer of misrepresenting, through signs in the store, the proportion of their produce that is grown locally. In my opinion, however, Whole Foods has advantages over more conventional grocers. Yes, many things are quite pricey at Whole Foods, but they carry a wide selection of bulk dry goods, and also offer things that are difficult to find elsewhere (like raw milk, Kombucha, and natural personal care and beauty products). After learning today that beverage bottles all go back to their sources, I have yet another reason to favor shopping at Whole Foods!

Other types of composting - and chicken tractors!

2008-12-30T18:13:00.001-08:00

On Sunday evening, I attended a"food and film night" organized by Path to Freedom, aka the Dervaes family of Pasadena, who call themselves "urban homesteaders."

The Dervaes family have a mini-farm in their backyard, on about one tenth of an acre - the same size as the garden in which I've been helping out on weekends. In this limited space, they grow vegetables and raise chickens, ducks, and pygmy goats to provide eggs and milk to feed the family. Furthermore, they run a number of businesses from their home, including selling their produce to local restaurants, and the online Peddler's Wagon shop retailing products for "green living."

When I registered for the food and film night, I browsed around on the Dervaes' "Little Homestead in the City" blog, and noticed that they practice Bokashi composting at home. I was looking forward to chatting with these experienced urban farmers/eco-pioneers about their tips on using Bokashi, but they really had their hands full with what seemed like a successful event!

I attended with the gardener who I have been helping, and brought my (now signature) zucchini bread made from one of her organically-grown zucchinis picked last week. I have heard some people lament that organic practices produce lower yields than conventional farming. This zucchini must have been the exception to the rule - it was at least 16" long, and about 5" in diameter - you would never find something like that at the grocery store! It produced 5 loaves of zucchini bread, which I shared at work, a Christmas party, the film and food night, and with other friends.

My gardener friend also practices composting at home. The main compost heap runs between her home and a fence, and is piled with branches, trimmings, and other traditional yard waste. This heap is basically left to itself to slowly decompose over a period of many months.

She also has a "Tumbleweed" compost bin such as the one pictured below, which is designed for speedier composting. By tumbling the compost rather than leaving it to sit passively, air is worked into the decaying matter, and the different materials are also mixed more evenly. Last weekend, we deposited newspapers (carbon) covered with fresh chicken droppings (rich in nitrogen) from the chicken coop into the Tumbleweed bin and gave it a spin.

At the gardener's house, there is no need for a worm bin or Bokashi bucket because most food scraps are fed to her grateful hens. We also toss the hens piles of fresh, green yard waste like weeds, overgrown herbs, and grape leaves. The chickens have a large wooden coop in which to lay eggs and roost at night, and also a wire-enclosed run where the green scraps are tossed.

In addition, each day two hens are selected for a few hours in the "chicken tractor." The chicken tractor is essentially a small, mobile, bottom-less chicken coop. Inside, the hens happily scratch, dig, and forage for grubs, bugs, grass, and weeds. In an urban environment, the last thing we need is for the little flock to get demolished by dogs, hawks, or cars - or for the little garden to get demolished by free-roaming hens! The chicken tractor is a nice compromise that allows the hens to forage, while protecting the chickens from predators and preventing them from eating areas of the garden that you do not want uprooted.

(A whimsical clip-art representation I pieced together)

Chicken eggs are supposedly more nutritious (higher in Omega-3 fatty acids) when chickens are allowed to feed on a mixed diet - and not just fed commercial chicken feed. If you are trying to shop for humane, more nutritious eggs, look for those labeled "pastured." Labeling is confusing, as "cage free" doesn't necessarily mean the chickens were truly free-range - just not kept in cramped factory cages. Also, "vegetarian" means the hens were fed a commercial chicken feed that doesn't contain animal parts - a good thing, but not ideal, since hens are omnivores and are happiest when they have access to live grubs and bugs.

I do believe the fresh eggs from my gardener friend's hens are truly more nutritious. The beautiful light-brown shells are strong and harder to break, and the yolks are firm, very deep yellow, and are not runny. The eggs taste noticeably different too - no strong "eggy" flavor, but meaty with a satisfying texture. I am very happy to have a local source for such delicious eggs!

Week 11 Update

2008-12-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

According to the various sites I had read before starting to use Bokashi, a household of 2-3 people can keep on average about 2 weeks' worth of food scraps in the Bokashi tub before needing to empty it.

I've had my Bokashi system set up since the fourth week of October - so for over 2 months - and only now is it just about full. The food doesn't reach all the way to the lid yet, but it's getting harder to add scraps. I do it in weekly batches after storing it in the freezer, and the food comes out of my salvaged cottage cheese tubs in large, frozen blocks.

It's possible I was able to go longer because I made my own bins out of 6-gallon buckets, versus the ready-made Bokashi kits that have about a 5-gallon capacity - but that is only 20% bigger, and I've gone 400% longer.

I am usually feeding 1-2 people, not 3, and we don't leave any scraps on our plates. Perhaps the "average" households that the Bokashi bucket manufacturers refer to don't finish their dinners? Or cook with meat and as a result have a lot of bones? As I've been learning to cook with more fresh ingredients, I have had more scraps such as zucchini and pomegranate innards, but I still can't imagine filling a 5-gallon bucket in 2 weeks.

In any case, the time is near for emptying my Bokashi bucket for the first time. Last night, the juice I drained from the bucket smelled "cheesier" than usual. Perhaps this is because the matter at the bottom of the bucket has been there for so long - I think it's really ready to go!

I joined the Burbank-Glendale freecycle group and put out a plea for used planters or storage bins, and also contacted someone offering a very nice, used planter for sale through Los Angeles craigslist.

Here is a link that provides an easy step-by-step explanation of how to complete the last stage of Bokashi composting using a planter box or tub:

"How to use planters and EM compost to enjoy beautiful blooming"

This method is ideal for people who live in apartments, and don't have a yard in which to bury the fermented waste. Buried between layers of soil, the pickled scraps finally transform into "black gold" - and in a shorter time than with normal composting.

Kombucha

2008-12-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

Kombucha is another exotic word like Bokashi that is always on the tip of my tongue nowadays. It's not another composting method - but it does involve fermentation. It's a naturally fizzy "miracle tea" made with active cultures.

It is supposed to have a variety of health benefits, and I do like to drink a bottle when I'm feeling under the weather. It leaves me with a vague sense of well-being (i.e. a mild buzz), and is strangely addictive. At the very least, it's tasty (tangy and acidic), low-calorie, and all-natural, with no sugar added.

I have tried several varieties from the GT's brand produced here in Los Angeles, and my favorite is the "Trilogy" flavor (raspberry, lemon, and ginger) with the rainbow-colored label.

The reason I bring up Kombucha here is not to promote the product, but rather to use it as a focal point to discuss the dilemma of packaging.

GT's Kombucha comes in an attractive 16-oz glass bottle, and usually retails at Whole Foods for $3.79 per bottle. For those who regularly stop at Starbucks on the way to work, that may sound reasonable, but I am very frugal, and gladly drink the "horrible" (but free) coffee at my office. Nonetheless, what has actually stopped me from drinking as much Kombucha as I'd like is the idea of accumulating endless pretty glass bottles.

I was very disappointed to see a piece customer feedback featured on the GT's website that gushed about how they loved GT's Kombucha so much that their recycling bins were overflowing with GT's bottles! What a terrible image of waste - and by posting it, the company seems almost proud of something that I don't think they should be. At least another addicted customer found a creative way to reuse her many bottles around the home.

In California we pay a 5-cent deposit (CRV) on glass beverage containers with the idea that the deposit can be redeemed when we bring the empty bottles to a recycling center [*see 12/31/08 update*]. In actuality, the grocery store recycling kiosks are often closed or full, with prohibitively long lines. Instead of spending hours waiting to get our deposits back, many residents leave our recyclables for curbside pick-up (which we also pay for). Recycling certainly serves an important purpose - the energy used to recycle many materials is far less than that used to make virgin products - but it's not a fix-all solution. Reusing, and particularly reducing, are much more efficient and environmentally sound because those principles limit the amount of materials that potentially become waste.

With the intent of reducing the number of bottles I purchased, I located another brand of (unflavored) Kombucha tea that is sold in much larger glass jugs. However, due to the active cultures, Kombucha must be consumed within 3 days after the seal is broken. Although I love and crave Kombucha, I can't consume a large jug that quickly myself. (Also, it was actually slightly more expensive per ounce for the large bottles).

I could also eliminate the purchase of new bottles altogether, and reuse the ones I already have by making my own Kombucha. Live Kombucha "mushrooms" or "mothers" are available online for starting your own culture colonies at home. The idea of preparing and growing my own food obviously holds great appeal to me. However, there are potentially serious health risks associated with consuming contaminated Kombucha (see this article from the Mayo Clinic, for example). While I tend not to be too alarmist, I think some of these concerns are valid. I live in a small, old apartment that is not very well sealed against contaminants blowing in - not at all close to sterile. I am happy to grow plants at home, but I am much more wary about growing my own bacterial-yeast colonies.

I would be much more comfortable refilling my Kombucha bottles with tea made in a professional facility. Not too long ago, Americans routinely left out glass containers for the milkman to refill. Now the market is dominated by disposable containers (though many are considered recyclable, they are still single-use).

I would love if they would take back their bottles to be cleaned, refilled, and resold, as with milk in days of yore. In the meantime, I've simply resorted to reducing by just not consuming Kombucha more than once every few weeks as a special treat.

I know this post has gotten rather long, but hopefully this example has raised provoked some thought regarding product packaging. Especially for something as addictive as Kombucha, there is a lot of waste associated with this habit!

WWOOF!

2008-12-29T17:25:00.000-08:00

WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, formerly Willing Workers on Organic Farms. It is a group of organizations that helps connect those interested in learning about organic farming with hosts around the world.

In exchange for 4-6 hours of help each day on the farm, visitors receive free meals and lodging. Many people use "WWOOFing" as an alternative way to travel on a tight budget. Others stay for longer apprenticeships or internships.

WWOOF-USA has its own directory (a $20 membership fee allows you access to the online directory for one year, as well as a printed copy of the WWOOF guide) - to participate in other countries you must apply directly to their respective WWOOF groups.

A long-time animal and nature-lover, I have always dreamed of living in a rural setting. My childhood home was in a suburban residential neighborhood, but surrounded by farmland. I had friends who lived on acres with fields, ponds, creeks, and apple orchards, and I hoped that someday I could raise animals on a hobby farm (even if not until retirement).

Although my mother is a prolific green thumb (a Master Gardener in fact), my own interest in gardening is more recent. With hopes of learning more about organic gardening practices, I signed up for WWOOF-USA recently.

As I was excitedly browsing through the WWOOF guide, I noticed one humble listing for a backyard CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden just 2 miles from where I work! I sent an e-mail to the gardener asking if I could volunteer for a few hours once a week in exchange for mentoring (and perhaps a few fresh veggies).

Imagine my delight when I went to meet the "urban farmer" who not only keeps a garden full of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, but also 10 egg-laying hens! I have since helped out in the garden four times, and have enjoyed not only the hands-on experience of organic gardening, but also delicious, freshly-laid eggs, and zucchini that became zucchini bread for various holiday-season potlucks.

Cooking from scratch is a fairly new venture for me. I was a long-time lazy cook who relied on convenient, affordable, delicious frozen foods from Trader Joe's. For a variety of reasons, I have been making an effort to participate more in all the processes involved in putting food on my table - from the growing of vegetables to the preparing of dishes from scratch - to how food waste is disposed of. I have also been slowly "greening" my kitchen by transitioning from Teflon-coated "non-stick" pots and pans to cast iron and aluminum-core stainless steel cookware.

In future posts, I will go into more depth about my experiences in the local "WWOOF garden," experiments in the kitchen, kitchen equipment upgrades, attempts to reduce consumption of disposable or over-packaged goods, and much more.

More about Bokashi

2008-12-29T17:08:00.000-08:00

Before I talk about my recent gardening adventures, let's review how Bokashi composting works.

Food scraps, including meat and acidic foods (restricted from conventional composting), are mixed with Bokashi "effective microbes" in an anaerobic environment. After a few weeks of fermenting, or pickling, the mixture is buried in soil, where it breaks down further.

Why aren't the food scraps simply buried in the ground in the first place? What is the purpose of pickling them first?

Remember, when food scraps, yard waste, and other organic matter are sent to the landfill, they naturally become buried under other trash. In these anaerobic conditions, the organic waste putrefies and releases methane. In contrast, with conventional composting, oxygen is a necessary ingredient for encouraging "healthy" decomposition by beneficial organisms.

One Bokashi EM retailer describes the process of Bokashi composting this way (emphases added):

"Bokashi will ferment the food waste, preventing it from rotting, and therefore eliminate odor and reduce the attraction to flies...The fermentation results in the breaking of lignin (fibers) in the food waste allowing the waste to break down within two weeks after being buried in the ground or incorporated into an existing compost pile...The fermentation is a stabilizing or preserving method during which vitamins, amino acids and antioxidants are increased, which will then become excellent nutrient sources for plants."

The way I interpret it, pickling has two main benefits:

It modifies items such as meat into a form that favors decomposition by "beneficial" microorganisms, rather than attracting "pests" or promoting rotting
The fermentation accelerates the composting process, which in conventional aerobic composting can take many months

I am not a professional specialist on composting, so any statements I've made about the mechanisms for composting are simply opinions based on information I've gathered. I haven't done any scientific research on composting myself, so the above are my interpretations of how Bokashi works its magic.

Back Up! Why Compost?? Part II

2008-12-29T16:04:00.000-08:00

The previous post presented a case for composting by pointing out the negative consequences of not composting. This post focuses instead on the many positive benefits of composting.

The material we call compost is referred to by many as "black gold." Revered by gardeners and farmers, compost enriches the soil.

I like this description from the City of Long Beach web site. For me, it evokes poetic images of leaves falling softly to the forest floor:

"Composting is a form of recycling that occurs in nature as vegetation falls to the ground and slowly decays. This process provides minerals and nutrients needed by soil, plants and small animals. Setting up a composting system in your backyard speeds up this natural process... The resulting material is called humus, an important component of healthy soil. The humus that results from composting adds nutrients to the soil that can increase the health of your plants and help save money ordinarily spent on fertilizers."

My city, Burbank, offers a bit more technical description of the function that compost serves. It is described as "a rich soil amendment that:

Reduces the need for commercial fertilizers and pesticides
Improves drainage and loosens heavy clay soils
Conserves moisture in light sandy soils
Produces healthier plants and slows evaporation, which reduces water usage
Saves money on fertilizers and water
Reduces the need for City collection of yard waste"

Let's paraphrase the impact of some of the points above:

Compost helps your garden grow without chemicals. Consequently, fewer toxins tracked into your house on your shoes, on your pets' feet, and in your homegrown food!
Compost improves the quality of the soil and the health of plants. Both of these aspects help conserve water - very important in Southern California.
Composting at home reduces waste collection by the city.

The third point ties in with my previous post about the negative impacts of sending organic waste to the dump. Some cities do have large-scale composting operations for yard waste too. However, keeping organic matter at home to convert it to compost has the added benefit of reducing emissions from the trucks that would have carted your yard waste away.

A recent article from the Washington Post summarizes this concept nicely:

"In this age of thrift and environmental concern, it seems bizarre that we then bag or curb our leaves to be taken away. And to where? Yard waste makes up 13 percent of our trash, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Many municipalities divert this away from landfills and into composting yards, where the leaves are shredded and piled into steaming mounds that are halfway decayed come spring; enterprising gardeners then collect it and return it to their yards. Wouldn't it make more sense, though, to keep the leaves on-site?"

Gardening is not only an enjoyable hobby for many - it has benefits that everyone can appreciate. Growing some of your own food, in particular, allows you to:

Save money
Gain practical skills
Control how your food is grown
Avoid toxic chemicals in your food
Gain a sense of personal achievement
Create low-cost gifts for friends
Spend time connected to nature
Promote national food security (independence from foreign foods!)

Admittedly, some of the points I listed above are quite subjective. I would really recommend checking out this article from Sierra Magazine, which I found quite inspiring.

If you have a yard or garden, it will be easy to find uses for your finished compost. But what if you don't have your own plot of land on which to plant, let alone start a compost heap? Just as there are ways to compost without a yard, there are also many ways to garden without a yard.

If you live in a condo or an apartment with a balcony or patio, use planter boxes or pots
Grow potted herbs on your kitchen counter or windowsill, or install a planter box on the outside of the window.
Work on a plot in a community garden
Find a friend who gardens, or offer up your black gold on freecycle or craigslist

I mentioned in a previous post that I was planning on starting a small planter box garden in an "upcycled" storage bin. I have since decided not to grow vegetables, but instead focus on a variety of herbs. Why? Point #4 above - I found a friend who gardens. Much more on that to come!

Back Up! Why Compost?? Part I

2008-12-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

Let's take a step back and address the big question - why should anyone compost?

I look at the reasons for composting from two main angles:

Prevents negative impacts of sending compostable waste to a landfill
Provides positive benefits by enriching the soil

This post focuses on addressing the first point: why don't we want compostable waste to go to the landfill?

Aren't food scraps and yard waste biodegradable anyway - so won't it all just break down in the dump eventually?

The answer to this question is also twofold:

Food and yard waste take up a lot of valuable space
Decomposing organic matter releases a significant amount of methane

According to the EPA, food and yard waste together made up about 25% of the waste collected in 2007 (from both residential and commercial sources).

A larger issue, which I will explore later, is that so much food waste is generated in the first place. Between US consumers, retailers, and restaurants, an estimated 25%-50% of food is discarded. (Read more about food waste in these 2008 articles from CNN and The New York Times).

In my opinion, the most important leg of the "Reduce-Reuse-Recycle" mantra is the first: Reduce. If we all make an effort to be conscientious about how much waste is produced in the first place, we will have less composting, recycling, and disposing to worry about.

Nevertheless, most people don't eat banana peels and onion skins, so let's continue discussing how to deal with these materials. Organic waste takes up a great volume in landfills, which are a limited resource (I don't think it's a stretch to assume that the creation of more dumps would be an unsavory, non-ideal, not to mention unpopular solution). But perhaps even more far-reaching are the negative impacts of byproducts released during the decomposition of organic waste in landfills. Because food and yard waste become buried under other trash in landfills, there is little access to oxygen, and the organic waste rots anaerobically.

According to the EPA, "as yard wastes decompose in landfills, they generate methane gas and acidic leachate. Methane is a colorless, explosive greenhouse gas that is released as bacteria decompose organic materials in landfills."

The significance, as the EPA explains, is that "methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2)."

Regarding the scale of landfill-related methane, the EPA states: "Landfills are the largest human-related source of methane in the U.S., accounting for 34% of all methane emissions."

Furthermore, the EPA adds, "If methane is not controlled at a landfill, it can seep underground and into nearby buildings, where it has the potential to explode. Yard wastes also contribute acidity that can make other waste constituents more mobile and therefore more toxic."

In contrast, with conventional composting, air (oxygen) is one of the necessary ingredients. Little methane is released, with CO2 instead as the predominant gas released. Should we be worried about the CO2 generated from composting? Remember that when an equal volume of CO2 is released from waste that is composted instead of thrown in the trash, the atmospheric impact is only 5% of what it would have been at the dump.

The California EPA states that "CO2 emissions [as a result of composting] are considered "biogenic" by U.S. EPA and are not part of the overall GHG emissions inventory." Translation: the CO2 released by composting is considered part of a natural biological process, and not counted as a contributor of harmful man-made greenhouse-gas emissions. This isn't to say that composting does not emit greenhouse gases -the emissions are just categorized differently.

To read more on the emissions related to composting, here is a lighthearted post from the "Dear Abby" of environmentally-minded questions: "Global Worming: On Compost and Climate"

The first stage of Bokashi composting relies on an anaerobic environment inside an airtight container. According to a municipal government site in the UK, while "there are no exact statistics on methane production...the temperature reached in the [Bokashi] composting process is considerably less – 40ºC as opposed to 70ºC. This makes the methane emissions virtually negligible."

Day 25 Update

2008-11-12T13:54:00.000-08:00

Last night I realized something that perhaps is obvious - I rarely have to take out the trash anymore.

Composting has reduced the sheer quantity of matter that goes into the trash can, of course, but the main reason I make very few trips to the dumpster nowadays is because there is no offensive, rotting trash that must be removed from my home.

In the past, if I threw a single banana peel in the trash can under my kitchen sink, I would have to take out the trash within a day or so - even if the can was barely full. Otherwise, the entire apartment would smell musty, and fruit flies and ants would appear. Now, with all my food scraps contained in the Bokashi bucket or the freezer, I haven't seen any pests for weeks.

As far as non-food trash goes, I save most sturdy plastic tubs for storing food scraps in the freezer, and save most glass containers as well. I empty a single paper grocery bag of recycling about once a week, which contains a mix of paper and various containers (the city does not require us to separate out different types of recyclables).

The remaining trash now contains little else besides dental floss and facial tissue*, and I can't even remember the last time I had to take a bag out to the dumpster!

* I have made several strides toward moving away from using disposables in my personal care routine. I have fairly bad allergies, and have tried using washable handkerchiefs instead of disposable facial tissue, but have not been able to fully convert away from disposables. Minimizing the use of facial tissue is something I'm still working on. And I'm not planning to do anything kooky regarding dental floss - yet!

Day 16 Update

2008-11-03T21:19:00.000-08:00

Since last weekend I've drained the Bokashi juice twice, and added a new layer of frozen food scraps.

The juice was much lighter in color than the first time I drained it. I remembered to save some, and diluted it to water my houseplants (although I think the concentration was higher than the recommended 1%).

Everything still smells just fine, and the mold growing on the fermenting food is still white. Also, the contents of the bucket continue to settle (since I'm throwing it in frozen and bulky), so I think it's going to be quite a while until I have a finished batch to bury.

I've been dreaming of a little planter garden. I'm planning to get some used planters or tubs from craigslist or freecycle. Since the climate here is pretty mild in the winter, I'm excited to see what kinds of vegetables I can grow in a container. I'm hoping for tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and mint.

Day 8 Update

2008-10-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

A full week has passed since I started my Bokashi project. Today there was finally enough juice to drain from the spigot (I would estimate a pint or less).

I directed the spigot at my bathroom sink, which has been known to drain very slowly. It had gotten so bad recently, my landlord had to call a plumber. I had already tried home remedies, including baking soda and vinegar chased by boiling water, as well as a small hand plunger, to no avail. The drain was like this when I moved in a couple months ago, and I'm hoping that now that it's been cleared by a pro, I can use Bokashi juice to help prevent another clog.

As I started draining the juice into my sink, I got so carried away I forgot to save a little of the liquid to dilute and feed to my potted plants! Oh well, maybe next week.

The Bokashi juice was dark reddish brown, and slightly viscous. The closest analogy I can think of for the smell is soy sauce.

Additionally, I added another 2 layers of frozen food scraps to the bucket, and when I opened the lid, I was pleased to find that the smell inside the container was also inoffensive.

There was a fuzzy layer of white mold growing on the surface of last week's scraps, but I have been reassured this is normal. So far so good!

The bucket is still less than half full, and that's with 3 weeks worth of scraps. This means it will probably take about 6 weeks to fill it to the top - and I've read that the retail Bokashi buckets hold about 2 weeks' worth of scraps.

I'm not sure if my homemade bucket is just way larger than those, or if I just have less food scraps than what is "typical". That would be remarkable, considering we were just marveling at how MUCH food waste it seemed like was accumulating! One week's worth of food scraps takes up more than a quarter of the space in my freezer.

And yes, when I have food scraps from meals and snacks eaten at work, I do pack them up in plastic tubs and take them home! My coworkers already know I'm a nutty re-user/recycler (I'm the only one in my department who doesn't buy cases of bottled water to drink at my desk), so I haven't gotten any weird comments yet.

Day 5 Update

2008-10-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

So, theoretically you are supposed to drain the juice from your Bokashi bucket every couple days.

My Bokashi pile has produced only a very tiny layer of juice in the bottom of the bucket that I can see through the side - probably 1/4" or so - not enough to drain through the spigot.

I'm not too concerned, because my friend had mentioned that her Bokashi system also produced less liquid when she began storing her food scraps in the freezer.

Another thing to note is that there has indeed been NO odor!

If I put my face very close to the bucket, I get a faint whiff of bananas, but that's about it. I saw a fruit fly hovering over a pear core that was laying in the sink the other day - but none near the Bokashi bucket, which is out in the open just a few feet away.

Bokashi Bucket DIY - Part III

2008-10-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I finally got my Bokashi bucket up and running!

First we drilled holes in the bottom of the inner bucket for drainage. We made the holes fairly small so that bits of food don't fall through. The bucket with holes fits snugly inside the other bucket with the spigot, so I think the set-up with be relatively air-tight.

Below you can see the containers of food scraps I had been saving in the freezer for about two weeks, as well as one of the 1-KG bags of Bokashi mix I had ordered.

As I had outlined previously in a post about basic Bokashi how-tos, the first step was to sprinkle a layer of Bokashi powder in the bottom of the inner bucket.

I then began adding food scraps and more Bokashi powder in layers. In total, we had three layers of frozen food scraps with a handful or two of Bokashi powder covering each layer.

Then, I used a plastic grocery bag to compress and cover the top of the pile before putting on the lid.

In case you decide to build your own Bokashi bucket using the same components I did, just know that the lid is very tight. It took a lot of effort to pry off the lid and push it back on, so I will probably continue to save food scraps in the freezer and add to my bucket weekly, not daily.

Lastly, I transferred the unused Bokashi powder to an empty plastic container, which is easier to use and keep airtight than the original ziplock bag. Below is the finished set up - ta da!

Bokashi Bucket DIY - Part II

2008-10-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

My buckets arrived on Tuesday, but I've been so busy I didn't open the package until last night (and haven't had a chance to research any of the topics I outlined last week - but will, I promise!).

When nested, the inner bucket indeed rests above the spigot, as I had hoped. However, the end of the spigot itself is level with the bottom of the bucket. I decided to twist it so it's angled to the side instead of straight up and down, or else it will be touching the floor.

Here are some photos of the preliminary set-up. A friend lent me a drill, so I am going to put holes in the bottom of the inner bucket tonight.

I've been storing food scraps (mostly banana peels and egg shells) in the freezer for about a week, and it's getting surprisingly crowded in there! When my Bokashi mix arrives, I'll have plenty of material to start composting.

By the way, I heard a rumor that Whole Foods carries Bokashi mix. I went to the Glendale location and spoke with associates in both the house cleaning and gardening departments - no one had any idea what Bokashi was.

In the Meantime

2008-10-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

While I wait for my Bokashi equipment to arrive, I've been saving my food scraps in a container in the freezer.

I'll be researching and writing about the following topics in the meantime until I begin my own Bokashi project.

Why should anyone compost, anyway? Why shouldn't food scraps go to the dump? Don't they just break down and disappear anyway?
Why do we care about the end product - what does compost do to enrich the soil? What if I don't have a yard or garden?
What exactly is "EM" - how does it work?
How do you make your own Bokashi mix?
Why do you want Bokashi to "pickle" your food, anyway? (What does "pickling" really mean?
Similarly, why don't we just bury plain food scraps in the yard - why does it need to be fermented by Bokashi first?
Does composting attract pests?
Related topic - septic systems.

Bokashi Bucket DIY - Part I

2008-10-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, the parts for my DIY Bokashi composting system have been ordered!

I had a glimmer of doubt about not ordering the prefab Bokashi bucket, but after pricing out everything including shipping, I found that the most cost-effective combination was to order the bucket components from "More Beer!" (a home beer-making supplier), and the Bokashi mix from Gaiam.

The complete Bokashi starter kit is $65.99 from SCD, but including standard UPS Ground shipping, it's $81.03, since SCD calculates shipping rates by weight.

The same starter kit is $75.00 from Gaiam, and with standard UPS Ground shipping (charged by order value instead of weight), it's $86.99.

Even though Gaiam's price per 1-gallon bag of Bokashi is $3.00 more than it is from SCD, Gaiam charges shipping rates based on your order value, and not the weight. Plus, they ship from Colorado instead of Missouri, saving my Bokashi mix 600 miles of travel (in addition, the beer-making equipment ships from the San Francisco Bay Area, which is only 300 miles from Los Angeles).

6-gallon bucket with spigot - $11.45
Plain 6-gallon bucket - $7.95
Lid - $1.75
Shipping (UPS Ground from Concord, CA) - $9.26
CA State Tax - $1.74
Two 1-gallon bags of Bokashi mix - $12.00 each
Shipping (UPS Ground from Louisville, CO) - $5.99
Project Total - $62.14

With this combination, I was able to save about $20 and get an extra bag of Bokashi mix in the process! (Well, I had to order at least one more bag since it was $5.99 for shipping whether I ordered 1 bag or 2). Not bad at all!

Bokashi Buckets

2008-10-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Online retailers offer pre-made plastic Bokashi buckets that are cute-looking and handy. These buckets have a false floor inside that allows liquid to drip down and stay separate from the fermenting matter, as well as a little spigot on the outside so you can drain away the juice.

Sustainable Community Development (SCD) offers the "Happy Farmer Kitchen Composter" by itself for $59.99, or as a complete starter kit with a 1-gallon bag of Bokashi mix (normally $9.99 by itself) for $65.99. It's offered in tan with a green lid, all black, or "marble" (all white).

Real Goods and Gaiam (same company) offer the same starter kit for $75.00, and the 1-gallon Bokashi mix refills for $12.00. Although they are more expensive, I'm listing them in case you want to check out all their other cool product offerings :)

Al Pasternak, a dealer of "Biosa" brand EM, sells the above kit for $45.00 - but without a spigot - and only in Canada. His Bokashi refills are $15.00 a bag.

You can also make your own Bokashi buckets for a lot less. Click here to see an awesome DIY project by a man named Jay, who made his own Bokashi bucket out of a square tub that some kitty litter came in. Instead of nesting two buckets, he built a false bottom out of a piece of acrylic, and also added a spigot.

I don't have the tools to make such a fancy Bokashi pail, but after a bunch of digging around online, I came up with a very affordable source for buckets with a spigot already installed - from a home beer-brewing hobbyist site!

My plan is to drill holes in the bottom of a plain 6-gallon bucket, then nest it inside a bucket with a spigot.

6-gallon bucket with spigot: $11.45
Plain 6-gallon bucket: $7.95
Lid (very important!): $1.75
Total: $21.15 + shipping (although I still have to order a bag of Bokashi mix)

My only worry is that if I nest the plain bucket inside the bucket with the spigot, the bottom of the plain bucket may sit lower than the spigot. I hope that's not the case! From eyeballing the photos, I think I'll be okay.

Bokashi vs. Vermicomposting

2008-10-08T13:22:00.001-07:00

Here are the pros and cons of both methods, as I see it for my particular living situation:

Space - at first, it seemed like a tie. A worm bin is roughly 2'W x 1.5'D x 1'H. A Bokashi Bucket is roughly 1' in diameter and 1.5' high - but in order to keep your system going (since a full bucket needs to sit for 2 weeks), many people recommended buying two, which would increase the footprint to 2' x 1'. However, both the Burbank recycling coordinator and my friend in Chicago advised that you can store your scraps in the freezer in the meantime - meaning I would only need one Bokashi bucket. Bokashi wins on space constraints.

Container Price - The price of a pre-made worm bin ($100+ online, but $5-$50 from local recycle centers), can be lower than a prefab Bokashi bucket ($60+, from retailers only) - especially if you have more than one Bokashi bucket. However, the DIY price for making a worm bin or Bokashi bucket is about the same, so I'd call this one a tie.

Organism Price - Once you buy your worms (about $20 for 1 lb.), they will reproduce and you should not have to buy more if you maintain your farm correctly. However, with Bokashi, you will need to buy or make your own Bokashi mix as you run out. If you purchase ready-made Bokashi powder, it's $9-12 for a 1 gallon bag. If you make your own, you will need EM culture and the base ingredients (molasses, wheat bran), as well as room to spread the mix out while it dries. Worm bin wins on the price of keeping your system going.

Food Scrap Restrictions - With a worm bin, you cannot include meat, dairy, or anything oily (so no cooked foods). You are also supposed to avoid citrus fruit scraps, as the acidity is unsuitable for the worms. On the other hand, since the worms need fibrous bedding, a worm farm is a convenient way to recycle your newspapers. With a Bokashi system, you can include ALL food waste, including meat, bones, oily scraps, and citrus fruits. Although I eat very little meat, I often cook with oil. Bokashi wins on flexibility.

Obtrusiveness - While a worm bin could technically be kept inside your apartment, and not just in a garage or patio, my particular apartment lacked the space. Even when the stairway alcove seemed secure (before my landlord cleaned it out), I was concerned with the possibility of a worm exodus. Apparently, if your worm bin becomes too wet or acidic, your worms will leave in droves to seek out a better environment. Now that could potentially be offensive to the other tenants in my building :) The Bokashi bin can be kept under the kitchen sink, and nothing will escape or bother anyone - Bokashi wins.

Odor - Both systems are odorless when the bin is closed. As long as you cover food scraps with the bedding in your worm bin, there will be no noticeable odors. With the Bokashi system, the food scraps produce a sweet & sour, pickled smell, but not the decayed stench of rotting garbage. This one is also a tie.

Finished Product - The worm castings are a finished product that will make your plants and the earth happy. The Bokashi product, however, still must be buried for a few weeks before it's done. My building does have a small lawn directly outside my window. Although it's not my own private yard, I can bury my scraps behind the bushes to finish the composting process. Others recommend keeping a tub or planter of soil to bury the pickled scraps. Vermicomposting wins on this front, as that method eliminates an extra step before final compost product.

Overall, although both methods had pros and cons, I decided that Bokashi composting would work better for my current situation, and this is the method I will be trying first.

Very Basic How-To: Bokashi Composting

2008-10-08T13:21:00.002-07:00

Buy or make a Bokashi bucket, to be used indoors. Bokashi buckets often have a little spigot near the bottom to drain out the liquid that is formed during fermentation. Or, they are made of nesting buckets, with the inside bucket having drainage holes to separate the liquid from the fermenting matter.
Buy or make the Bokashi mix.
Sprinkle a layer of Bokashi mix on the bottom of the bucket before adding food scraps.
Every time you add food scraps (chopped up into small pieces), throw another handful of Bokashi mix on top.
Then, cover with something (e.g. a plastic sheet or bag) and press down. This helps to keep air out of the fermenting material. Also, close the lid of the bucket tightly - keeping air out of the bucket is important in odor prevention.
Drain the juice that accumulates in the bucket every couple days. The liquid can poured directly down the drain (supposedly this helps to clear out your drains by preventing algae buildup), or it can be diluted to a 1% solution with water and used to fertilize your house plants.
When the bucket is filled to the top, let it sit for 2 weeks sealed. Continue to drain the liquid every couple days.
After 2 weeks, it's time to open the container. The food scraps may still be the same size and shape as before - this is normal. There may be white mold growing - also normal.
However, green or black mold is a sign that the fermentation did not happen correctly, and you need to throw your project in the trash and start over (try using more Bokashi powder between layers next time).
Bury the pickled food waste in soil. This can either be done by digging a shallow trench outside, or indoors in a planter box or tub. This step is very important, as the food waste will not have decomposed yet - it is simply fermented.
After another couple of weeks, the buried food scraps will have decomposed, and can now be used the same way worm castings or other compost would be used to enrich your garden.

Very Basic How-To: Vermicomposting

2008-10-08T13:21:00.001-07:00

Buy or make a worm bin, which can be set up either indoors or outdoors (in the shade, and protected from temperature extremes)
Buy 1 lb. of worms (approximately 1000 worms)
Soak your bedding material (e.g. coconut fiber or shredded newspaper) in water, and squeeze it out until the moisture level resembles a wrung-out sponge
Place the worms in the worm bin, on the damp bedding
Add a handful of soil to add grit, which will aid in the worms' digestion
Begin adding food scraps (chopped up into small pieces) on one side of the bin, under the bedding. Hiding the scraps under the bedding will help limit odors.
Add new food scraps in sections, working your way across the bin.
The worms will begin to create castings, which fall to the lower layer of the bin.
Collect the castings and continue adding new bedding and food.
The castings can be combined with potting soil at a ratio of 1:2, which can be sprinkled on your garden, or used to pot new plants.

What is Bokashi?

2008-10-08T12:23:00.001-07:00

Bokashi refers to a mixture containing "effective microorganisms" or "efficient microbes" a.k.a EM, which are contained in a base of water, molasses, and bran. The Bokashi mix is used in household composting when tossed in an airtight container with food scraps. The EM ferment the food waste through an anaerobic process, effectively pickling the organic matter (as opposed to allowing the food to simply rot).

Bokashi composting apparently originated in Japan, where much of the population lives in compact spaces within urban areas. Therefore, the Bokashi composting method seems inherently suitable for my tiny studio living situation.

Obstacles to the Worm Farm

2008-10-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

After learning about vermicomposting from Lisa Harris of the City of Long Beach recycling program, I was very excited about starting my own home worm farm.

A few obstacles needed to be tackled first:

Where would I get a worm bin?
Where would I store my worm bin?

The City of Long Beach sells nice, tiered worm bins at a discounted rate of $45 for Long Beach residents. The City of Los Angeles offers an even more basic worm bin for only $5! Unfortunately, I am a resident of the City of Burbank, so I don't qualify for either.

The City of Burbank leads composting workshops and sells composting bins, but they no longer offer worm bins.

Online retailers generally seem to offer worm bins for over $100 (!). There are also many sites that provide instructions on how to build your own worm bin, so I was considering going the DIY route.

However, the second concern - where would I keep my worm bin - is what led me to choose Bokashi composting instead.

As I mentioned previously, my apartment is under 300 sq ft. The main room is about 10.5" x 14", and is dominated by my queen bed. The kitchen is about 8" x 10", which is generous for such a small unit. However, there doesn't seem to be a convenient place on the floor where the worm farm could live without interfering with traffic flow.

In my small apartment building, I share a stairwell with only two other units. There is a small alcove under the stairs that had been neglected for a while, housing an abandoned kitty litter box, an old bath mat, and other junk. I envisioned my new worm farm here - safe from the hot sun, and out of the other tenants' way.

However, earlier this week my landlord suddenly went on an unprecedented cleaning spree, and out went the kitty litter box and other orphaned items that had long called the alcove home! Now I wasn't so sure that my worm farm would be safe there after all.

I began researching Bokashi composting instead, which I had heard about from a very cool friend of a friend who lives in a Chicago studio. My next post will outline the pros and cons of vermicomposting and Bokashi composting for my living situation.

Getting Started

2008-10-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

When I first became interested in composting earlier in 2008, I did a bit of online research, then checked out a couple books from my local library. Unfortunately, I came away even more confused!

I was interested in composting kitchen scraps in order to reduce the amount I was adding to the waste stream. My previous apartments had kitchen sink garbage disposals, so that was where much of my food waste was going.

Most books and websites I initially found seemed geared toward traditional composting involving large volumes of yard waste, like leaves and grass clippings - this was not applicable to me.

I shelved the idea for a while, and in the meantime moved to my current studio. My new studio lacks a garbage disposal, so I had been trapping food scraps with a plastic sink strainer, then throwing them in the trash. I also no longer have a parking garage or other private, shady spot, so I knew I would have to keep my composting container indoors.

Last weekend, on Sunday, October 5, there was a festival in Long Beach called "University by the Sea," which had a series of workshops including an introduction to composting. The composting seminar was led by Lisa Harris, the (very enthusiastic) City of LB recycling specialist. It was so helpful to get an overview in person and to be able to ask questions. Lisa helped me clearly understand what kind of composting would be appropriate for apartment life.

Traditional Composting

As I mentioned, this system is great for homeowners who have a lawn or garden and end up with bags of yard waste that normally get trucked away. A large container (which you can make yourself or purchase from a retailer or local recycle center) is used to isolate your yard waste outdoors, where it decomposes naturally once you provide a balanced mix of nitrogen materials ("green" e.g. grass clippings) and carbon materials ("brown" e.g dried leaves), as well as water and air. This method was what many resources I had read referred to - and was not the method for me.

Worm Composting (Vermicomposting)

With vermicomposting, a small, multi-tiered bin (which again can be homemade or purchased) houses your worm farm, either indoors or outdoors. Different from regular earthworms, composting worms (e.g. red wrigglers) feed near the surface of the soil and create castings (i.e. worm poop) that are highly beneficial for your garden.

Since worm bins tend to be relatively compact, vermicomposting can easily be done indoors in a modest apartment. The worms live in a nest that can be made of anything from coconut fiber to newspaper shreddings (kept at the moisture level of a wrung-out sponge). When you add food scraps to the top of the bin, the worms feast on the microorganisms that decompose the organic material, and produce rich, fertile castings that fall to the lower levels of the worm bin. After speaking with Lisa, I became very excited about the idea of implementing vermicomposting in my apartment.

An Introduction

2008-10-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a 20-something Midwestern transplant living in the Los Angeles area.

I've been in the process of trying to apply the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle mantra to as many aspects of my life as possible.

For about 4 years I lived in various 1-BR apartments. While these apartments were great for throwing dinner parties and hosting guests, when I was by myself there was more space than I needed. Downsizing to my current apartment - a cozy studio that's smaller than 300 sq ft including the kitchen and bathroom - was one step toward minimizing my lifestyle.

My current project is composting kitchen waste in my apartment - specifically using the Bokashi system - which I am going to document in this blog.