The good news: we just came back home with a heavily discounted Smith & Hawken Biostack Composter bin from the City of LA Bureau of Sanitation/Griffith Park Composting Education Facility. The bad news: the inside of my car smells like earthworm burps...
City of Los Angeles Compost Bin Sales
We purchased the Biostack, the square model above, which normally sells for $129 from Smith & Hawken. But if you make it to one of the workshop/sales events sponsored by the city, you can nab one for a reasonable $45. There's also a $20 model (the cylindrical unit). One of the representatives from the city noted that the price of all these compost units will likely increase in the near future due to higher petroleum prices, so now is a good time to nab one at a discount.
We were happy to see a steady influx of people there to either pick up a composter or some some compost soil. We overheard one couple weighing the merits and responsibilities of having a composter (he wanted it, she was a little hesitant about the maintenance). They still had not decided when we left, but we hope they got one.
Before you purchase, you can walk through a small gated section where 12-15 composter models are showcased, each unit accompanied with a description.
Before leaving, we shoveled ourselves a bag of some very unique compost that came from the LA Zoo. So inside our earthy mix was some mighty exotic animal %#$&@ which we hope will fuel our compost bin to some rich rewards. About six weeks after we start composting, we should have some material to spread out in the garden and share with others. And if we need additional compost material ahead of time we can always swing back over to the Griffith Park Composting Facility for additional compost for free, which is stacked on the side near the parking lot for the public.
If you're ready to dive into the wonderful world of composting, you can attend the upcoming Cal State Northridge Compost Bin Sales Event and Workshop tomorrow. Information available here.
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I highly recommend this to event to anyone in LA considering composting. I took attended the event in West LA a few years back and it was very informative and I got myself up and composting without spending a fortune on the unit and armed with easy to use instructions.
view Seaside's profile
I have two of those Biostack composters (and two large wooden pallet composters, and a worm composter; I am a huge fan of composting), and I have to tell you that if you expect finished compost in six weeks you are a bit optimistic. I've only gotten compost that fast from a pile kept hot by very very careful mixing of ingredients and regular turning and watering. Since I don't have that kind of obsession, time, or muscle, I fill each composter to the top as I garden/cook/obtain compostables, then let it cook for a year, topping it up as it cooks down. In the spring I turn the pile over (moving the bin with it, ring by ring) and get finished compost off the bottom (about eight inches deep). I have a double lot so I got a lot of material for composting, and I have chickens so I get a lot of high-nitrogen material in my piles.
One thing you can do to speed things up is post on your local Freecycle looking for bunny poo from pet owners. It's a miracle compost ingredient; I get five-gallon buckets of it from a bunny-owning friend and a day after I add it to the pile things have sunk by several inches thanks to the bioactivity.
And don't turn down free compost: I pay to have five to ten yards of the stuff delivered to my garden every year (darn those restrictive laws of physics that don't allow me to create more matter from thin air!) even with my major composting effort.
view ayse's profile
I've been lazily composting for the past ten years and the Biostack has been my favorite method so far. It looks nice (okay, not so obtrusive) in the garden, which is really important as my garden is quite small.
I started using it about 6 months ago. I kept adding stuff (mostly expired veggies and garden cuttings) to the top and eventually it all decomposed. I just turned over the stack (it finally reached the top) and had finished compost on the very last stack. Very nice compost too! I kept it right next to my worm bin and I think some of them migrated over to the Biostack because there's a ton of critters in there too.
Oh yeah, don't forget to water inside the bin, it helps speed things up!
I use the mulch from the Griffith Park yards on my garden pathway. I'm a bit wary on using it in the vegetable garden but perhaps I should add it to the compost bin...thanks, for the good idea!
view perejil's profile
I've been wanting to get a compost bin so badly. My parents use to compost before I entered their lives and then just stopped and it wasn't till a few weeks ago I learned this when I brought the idea up to them. I'm the one who does all the recycling here at home so I feel like I might be the only one doing their part :\
anyone have any composting tips?
view witchbaby's profile
OT: I love Emily's haircut here.
view gretchen's profile
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