We received an email from Marque Cornblatt the other day encouraging us to check out his website, Gomi Style. I decided to pop over for a look and it seemed quite interesting (and fun) so I made sure to earmark it for further investigation.
Cornblatt himself seems to be a colourful (literally - check out his bio page) and interesting individual. According to his bio, he is an artist in San Francisco currently working on his Masters of Fine Arts at SFSU. Here is a bit more from the bio page in case you are curious:
Cornblatt’s robots, machine art and video scuptures have been exhibited at the SF MoMA, San Jose Museum of Art, Downey Museum of Art, and at galleries throughout California and New York. A self described “Promosexual”, Marque has appeared on numerous TV programs and is currently developing a pilot for cable TV called “Gomi Style”, a DIY lifestyle and design show.
Gomi Style seems to center around the idea of building useful and/or aesthetically pleasing creations using ‘waste’ materials - but there seems to be an actual culture built up around the idea. As they point out, Gomi is “more than dumpster diving, it’s a way of life”.
There are some fun YouTube videos posted on the site showing how they’ve put together some of their Gomi goods (such as the cardboard furniture created in the video posted above).
Being keenly interested in waste management myself, I certainly appreciate the idea behind Gomi Style. The fun & entertaining approach they have taken with the videos likely helps to draw in a larger mainstream audience as well.
Happy New Year everyone!
As mentioned previously, despite moving the Winter Composting Extravaganza to the Compost Guy blog this year, I still want to keep everyone updated on my progress over here (for the benefit of anyone who might be interested, but has not been keeping tabs on happenings over at the other site).
I’m happy to report that everything has been going very smoothly thus far! I learned a lot from my mistakes last year, and feel quite confident that I’ll be able to compost all winter long, thanks to my new insulation system and improved techniques. We have had a LOT of snow and many days below the freezing mark. If you followed along last year, you may recall the fact that we barely had winter weather at all until January.
The coldest days are still ahead I’m sure, but the performance of the system has been very impressive! For example - during the last 24 hours our air temperatures have been very cold (we were down below -20C / -4F last night for sure), yet when I took temperature readings inside the bin this morning I found many zones in the + 20C / + 68F range! Not too shabby at all.
Anyway, I’ll definitely provide at least a couple more updates here between now and spring, but if you want to stay completely up-to-date with my progress be sure to check out the Winter Composting page over at CompostGuy.com.
I wrote about this year’s extravaganza back in November, describing some of initial steps I had taken in order to get the bin ready for winter. Since then winter has arrived in a BIG way and we are certainly off to the races as far as this year’s cold weather composting goes!
I recently made a YouTube video outlining my efforts (see above), but also posted a much higher quality version on my Worm Composting Videos page (at Red Worm Composting). You’ll likely be relieved to learn that volume is NOT required in order to get the full benefit of watching the video, and in fact some may feel that MORE benefit is actually derived when the volume is off!
As mentioned, primary coverage of the Extravaganza will be provided on my other sites, but rest assured I will still be providing plenty of updates here as well, just in case anyone is interested in following along!
I mentioned last month (ie in one of my most-recent posts! lol) that main coverage of my Winter Composting Extravaganza is going to occur on a ‘secret‘ website - which of course was only ’secret’ because I wasn’t ready to make it public yet. I’ve been slowly working on it in fits and spurts for months now, and I’ve finally decided to share it. There is still considerable work to be done, but I’ve decided to just ‘let go’ and launch it as-is (which will provide me with lots more incentive to make time for it from here on out).
In case you haven’t figured it out, the site is called Compost Guy - not unbelievably original, but still a very fitting title given my passion for the topic.
I decided to launch the site in the hopes of reaching a much broader audience than is possible via Red Worm Composting, yet a somewhat more targetted audience than our readers (or former readers, haha) here at EcoSherpa. I’m going to be talking about a lot more than just composting of course, but there are plenty of eco topics I won’t be discussing. I’m confident that the three blogs will tie together very well, and I certainly don’t mean to imply that I am abandoning any of my current projects.
If you happen to be keenly interested in topics such as composting, aquaponics, eco-gardening etc, and have enjoyed my coverage of these topics here, then perhaps you’ll want to add Compost Guy to your feedreader as well (but no pressure - haha!).
That being said, Steve and I will still be talking about ALL aspects of sustainable living here at EcoSherpa.
Anyway, I won’t say more than that for now, but rest assured you hear more about it in coming months!
Well, the kooky, cold-weather composter is officially back in action - and ready to take on Old Man Winter in round 2 of the ‘Winter Composting Extravaganza’! The cold winds have really started blowing and even a little snow has fallen - signs that it is definitely time to really soup up my composter for the cold months ahead.
Luckily I took advantage of some free time (something that is in incredibly short supply these days) and some decent weather last weekend to get things rolling - just in time it seems! Ever since then the weather has been much colder. Given the fact that I’ve been prepping the bin by essentially starving it (don’t worry - all my wiggly friends are doing just fine!), leaving it exposed in this weather may have had resulted in some serious consequences (since temps in the bin were essentially ambient before my weekend work).
I’ve started by adding multiple layers of cardboard all around the inside wall of the bin (last year I only had one or two layers thick), along with a nice thick layer of organic materials to kickstart some microbial heating. As mentioned in another post, I like to bag my lawn clippings (normally mulched) at the end of the year so I can add them to my composter. Well this year I lucked out and ended up with a very nice mixture of clippings and leaves (I hadn’t raked yet) from my last cutting - perfect fodder for the bin. I also mixed in the remains of two jack-o-lantern pumkins (and associated ‘guts’) along with a bunch of left-over garden tomatoes - gathered during my recent garden clean-up. I decided not to add any water to the mix (it was quite dry), so that I could take advantage of a more ’slow-release’ heating. As you may recall, last year I ran into over-heating issues by optimizing conditions too much (and too early)!
The system has responded beautifully!
Despite frigid air temperatures, internal temps in the composting mass are between 20 and 30 degrees C (68-86 F) in multiple zones - and this all with considerable room to spare at the top, relatively little material in general, and no tarp over top. I tested temperatures in my other outdoor bin (a more traditional plastic composter) and found no indication of heating at all! I suspect the contents of that bin will end up as winter fuel for my main system (along with the big heap of garden waste I’ve accumulated). I can’t wait to see how the system performs once it is totally ready for action!
Speaking of which, later this week my dad will be coming over to help me prepare the bin for serious cold weather. Unlike last year’s sad insulation efforts, I’ll be going ‘all-out’ this time around. My dad happens to have a large quantity of old insulation collecting dust in his basement, so we are going to build an outer wall for the bin and simply stuff the space in between with the insulation.
I’m actually going to be making a powerpoint movie (ie still shots with me narrating) of the event and will definitely let everyone know once it is ready. One other thing to mention - main coverage of this year’s ‘extravaganza’ will actually occur on Red Worm Composting and another secret location (not yet ready for launch). Rest assured I will still post updates here at EcoSherpa, and you can also be sure that this site is going to continue on its merry way (and will actually be much more active in general soon!).
In case you missed our winter composting series last year, here is a list of my posts:
TC - Terracycle; WC - Worm Compost; C - Control (water only);
MG - Miracle-Gro
This update is beyond overdue! Unfortunately I’ve been completely sidelined, working on an important project for the last little while!
I actually ended the challenge back on August 12, which was day 31. I figured the one month mark was a good time to call it quits, especially considering some of the issues that were cropping up towards the end. As I learned, with increased size comes increased responsibility! haha!
Most of the sunflowers were geting pretty cramped in their pots and keeping the soil moist was becoming a bit of a chore. Some sort of pest (I suspect a squirrel) was also digging in some of the pots. (see picture to right)
All issues aside, there were some interesting and surprising results from the challenge by the end.
I hate to admit it, but I really wasn’t expecting all that much from the Terracycle-only treatment, especially given the relatively infrequent TC feedings (while the Miracle-Gro sticks released more nutrients with every single watering). Don’t get me wrong - I definitely have a lot of faith in worm compost & tea, but just expected the fertilizer sticks to provide the sunflowers with more of the nutrients needed for healthy growth.
In my ‘Day 20′ update (the last one) I reported that the TC-only plant was growing like crazy after a very slow start. That growth continued, and as you can see from the big picture above, TC-only outgrew MG-only. In fact, the TC-only plant ended up being the tallest of all of them (even though the TC/WC/MG plant was the clear winner as far as total biomass goes).
One thing I should mention re: the Terracycle used for the experiment. The bottle mentions an “added nitrogen boost”. I’m definitely curious to know precisely what this means. Have they added some inorganic fertilizer into the mix to help give it a little extra ‘zing’? Whatever the source of the added nitrogen, it likely explains the rapid upward growth of the TC-only plant.
Unlike the Terracycle-only plant, the vermicompost-only plant (WC) never seemed to recover from its sluggish start. It was clearly larger than the control by the end, but seemed to have been impeded by something. I have a sneaking suspicion the worm compost I used was not yet mature, but it’s hard to say for sure.
As far as the Terracycle Challenge “Jr” goes, it too ended up surprising me by the end. For whatever reason I had it in my mind that there were no obvious differences between the plants from the three treatments (TC, WC, MG). Unlike the sunflowers, all the bean plants in the Jr challenge were proportionally very similar. I think that because I was so zoned in on looking for size differences, I ended up missing some very obvious colour differences - until the end of the experiment that is.
It finally dawned on me that three of the nine plants appeared healthier (few signs of disease or pest attack, rich green colour). Once I grouped them together I realized they were all from the Terracycle treatment. Even the MG treatment looked pretty rough (a little better than the worm compost plants though).
What’s cool is that the results of the Jr Challenge are also more valuable from a scientific standpoint, since multiple reps were tested - and as you can see from the photo, the results were quite consistent.
All in all, both my TC Challenges turned out to be very interesting and a lot of fun! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to test out TC again before too long - next time I’ll try to make it more scientifically rigorous.
While I certainly won’t make any sweeping claims based on the results of this challenge, I think it is at least fairly evident that Terracycle worm tea can help boost plant growth and potentially even overall plant health. It isn’t the cheapest fertilizer out there, but as I discovered a little goes a long way!
We are certainly overdue for a TCC update. I want to make sure people don’t assume I’ve thrown in the towel!
The picture above provides a pretty good overview of the results so far. Here again are the label codes just in case you need a refresher or are just joining us:
TC - Terracycle
WC - Worm Compost
C - Control (water only)
MG - Miracle-Gro
Definitely some interesting observations thus far! Initially it was looking as though the TC-only plant was going to grow about as well as the control, but it has gone gangbusters recently and is starting to gain on some of the multi-treatments. Worm compost (WC) on the other hand has not proven itself at all - at least not when used alone. The WC plant has made only slightly more progress than the control thus far - unless we see a sudden surge of growth in the home stretch, it will definitely come in dead last as far as treatments go.
The WC/MG plant was the largest and healthiest looking of the bunch, but very recently the all-inclusive (WC/TC/MG) plant has experienced a serious growth spurt and is looking like it might put all the others to shame.
Another interesting note about plants grown with worm compost (including those in the “Jr” challenge) - most of them are a much lighter green colour than the rest of the plants. I’m not sure what to make of that.
Speaking of the TCC Jr challenge - nothing overly exciting to report there. Most of the plants are quite similar in appearance (aside from the light green colour of the WC plants).
Some other important things to mention. I’ve decided to take an even more laid back approach to my already laid back methodology. Now that the plants are getting much larger and we are encountering another serious hot-dry spell, I’m finding that they are needing a lot more water. As such, I’ve decided to opt for a thorough soaking approach vs an exact amount of water (it would take WAY too long if I had to measure out exact amounts of water every single day). I figure as long as I make sure they all have as much water as they need it shouldn’t be an issue.
When you think about it, exactly measured quantities make no sense at this stage anyway, since some plants are going to require a lot more water than others (because they are much larger and growing more quickly).
The only concern this raises is the potential for washing out the Terracycle doses. When it comes down it, I’m really not going to be able to compare the results of MG vs WC vs TC anyway, since a stick of MG will undoubtedly offer FAR more nutrients than periodic waterings with TC or a small quantity of WC. If I was using ONLY Terracycle (ie no water) for the TC treatments it might be a bit more of a realistic comparison, but unfortunately that would cost me a small fortune! (haha)
What I’m really interested to see is how the different combos compare to one another and to the control. So far it has certainly been fun to watch how each of the plants has grown!
Anyway, thats all for now! Stay tuned for more updates!
I just wanted to pop by and provide a bit of a Terracycle Challenge update for this week. We’ve (surprisingly) had a decent amount of rain since I started a little over a week ago, so today is actually the first time I’ve even had to water the plants (and since I’m going with a roughly 1-week Terracycle addition schedule, it worked out quite well).
If things stay fairly dry, and as the plants become more demanding, I’m sure I’ll need to water much more frequently (but will still only apply Terracycle once a week).
I’m definitely starting to see some noticeable differences amongst the various treatments. The control started off strong but is no longer looking as robust as some of the others. I can’t say I’m surprised to see all the MG treatments doing well. Worm compost and Terracycle on their own are not doing particularly well. In fact the worm compost treatment is the smallest plant of the bunch! It may not have been quite as ‘ready’ as I had hoped. I will definitely be interested to see how that plant fares over the long haul.
Sorry I haven’t included more photos. I definitely want to devote a section of our flikr gallery to the challenge. Once I get a bunch of photos up I will let you know.
The Terracycle Challenge Jr edition seems to be going well. I’m definitely glad I opted for multiple reps for that one - allready seeing a decent amount of variability amongst the members of each treatment. In general, the bean plants seem to be doing fairly well across the board. Given the fact that it’s a legume (ie. creates it’s own source of nitrogen), I imagine the most noticeable differences will occur later once the demand for other nutrients (such as phosphorus) becomes greater.
Something just occurred to me - I totally forgot to set up a water control for that experiment! Man, I’m such a dunce! Oh well, what can ya do?
Anyway, hopefully I’ll have time for a more interesting update next week (plus photos), not to mention some other EcoSherpa posts. Sorry for the drought in that department!
Well I finally squeezed in some time for EcoSherpa this week, and my activites revolved around getting our Terracycle Challenge officially rolling.
Our sunflowers were all ready to go (enough for 1 per treatment), my worm compost was ready, and the stars and the moon were aligned just right - no stopping us now!
I felt kinda bad though - quite a few baby worms had hatched in the worm compost. I tried to move as many as I could over to one of my active indoor bins. The rest, along with plenty of springtails will simply have to make do with their new environment (in the plant pots).
One change to methodology I should mention - just so you know, I’m now back using fertlizer sticks NOT liquid fertilizer (sorry for the flip-flopping). They are still MiracleGro though. This will make things so much easier since I won’t have to mix anything. Each MG pot gets one stick.
Today every pot received 300 ml of either rainwater or Terracycle (depending on treatment). All treatments will now only receive water until it’s time for our next round of TC (will likely use it once per week as suggested on bottle).
I also kickstarted my second TC Challenge, which I’ll be referring to as “Terracycle Challenge Jr”. Kinda ironic that I would belittle it like that, since it’s actually much more of a scientific experiment than the main challenge. I have 3 reps for each of the 3 treatments I’m testing (MiracleGro, Terracycle, and Worm Compost).
I’m using green beans for this one since they grow very quickly and…well…I love eating green beans!
It’s not technically ‘Day 0′ for this challenge though - I decided to hold off on watering today since the peat pellets they were grown in were soaked this morning. I will start the actually watering them (and Terracycling them) tomorrow.
I’m aiming to provide updates for the challenges at least once or twice a week! Stay tuned!
As I discussed in our summer newsletter, our “Terracycle Challenge” is underway. If you have absolutely no clue what I’m talking about, be sure to check out my original post: Terracycle Challenge.
As you can see in the picture above, we are making some progress - but as you can also see, we’ve run into a bit of a situation with one of our pots! I had hoped that by putting two seeds in each pot I’d greatly increase our chances of having at least one test plant for each treatment (of course, if I had started with a lot more seeds I definitely would have planted more than two in each pot).
Unfortunately some local bird hooligans had other ideas and decided to munch on both seedlings as they emerged from one of my pots. I had one other casualty, but luckily there is still another plant left in that pot.
In hindsight of course I wish I had purchased a lot more sunflower seeds (unfortunately I still was not sure what type of plants I was going to use for the challenge), but oh well! I could track down another package of the same type of seeds, but I’m not sure I’ll have time this week and the other plants are already well on there way.
SO…
I’ll either transplant one of my other seedlings (most likely) or get rid of one of my treatments (don’t want to do this).
I should also mention that I am going to setting up a similar experiment using different plants in the near future. While it can’t be considered at second repetition (since different plants are being used), it will still be interesting to see if we have similar results.
Back to our current challenge…
Once the second set of leaves (first set of ‘real’ leaves) emerges I will start ‘Phase 2′ of the experiment. Each pot will become a distinct treatment, and various fertilizers and amendments will be added accordingly. It just occurred to me that I’ll need to make sure we only have one plant per pot at that point so there isn’t any uneven allocation of resources (2 plants sharing resources obviously won’t grow as well as a single plant).
Anyway, you can expect to see another update before too long!
