Creative Compost: 2009

The Northcoast Co-op Newsletter p. 11

Sep. 15 2009. Photos by Jacque Torres.

Text by Kelly 'Compost' Karaba.

Kelly Compost demonstrates how kitchen scraps quickly become ingredients for a compost recipe that will bloom into good food and return to your table.

In the compost kitchen we’ll be layering up some homegrown remedies for sustainable good eaten’.
Come with a snacking appetite and take home your very own garden starter. Kelly Compost started composting when she just couldn’t continue throwing away the pulp from the fresh vegetable juice she made every morning. As the fresh juice revived her health, she wanted to give back to the earth that had given her such good food. So, she started digging holes in her parents’ back yard and burying the juice pulp and other kitchen scraps. This was her way of saying,
“thank you.”

After several months, she had turned her parents’ hard clay filled back yard into a lush fertile world. Squash, potato and tomato plants sprung up from the once barren earth and began producing fruits.

Kelly was in love with this amazing spectacle; her food was making food! And she has been hooked ever since. After transferring to HSU, Kelly found her niche as the Compost Education Coordinator for the Campus Recycling Program. Here she could literally spread compost by spreading the word and teaching others how to utilize their valuable kitchen scraps and reduce
landfill at the same time.

Through her research and community compost workshops, she encountered various styles of composting systems and various levels of attitudes toward the whole thing. For Kelly, composting is a culinary process that involves balanced ratios for a desired outcome.

For example, cake would develop a soiled reputation if the ingredients were unbalanced. A cake with a pinch of flour, 2 cups of salt and no sugar would be awful and people wouldn’t like it. The same goes for the composting process. People that have had a poor attitude toward compost most likely encountered bad recipes.

In the upcoming workshop, Compost Kitchen, we’ll learn the ingredients and a recipe that’s ripe for successful composting. This technique makes composting easier, cleaner and more efficient. Composting starts in the kitchen, and with the right recipe from the start, you’ll save time and energy down the road. Kelly Compost invites you to make the world a better place by making compost, enriching the soil and vitalizing oxygen giving plants we thrive on.

Kelly also explains the science behind composting, how it works, and what it is. To grow good food, you need to feed it good soil. As a wild microscopic kingdom devours the scrumptious delicacy, it breaks down the nutrients stored in the compost recipe into tiny pieces, small enough to be absorbed by sprouting roots. Seeds that go into the compost system, such as tomatoes and squash can survive the decomposition process and grow new plants right out of the compost bin.

Compost Kitchen
$20/$10 Co-op Members
Kelly “Compost” Karaba invites you to make the world a better place with compost. To grow good food, you need to feed it nutritious soil. Composting kitchen scraps is a great way to make fodder for your garden. Seeds that go into the compost survive the decomposition process and grow new plants, which absorb microscopic nutrients without ever leaving the compost bin!
Learn how to start your own garden in a compost bag, make healthy soil, and eat good
food. Kelly will make stew and use the vegetable waste for compost. Each participant will take home a compost bag for their garden.

Wednesday, October 1 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 25 from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
Monday, November 17 from 4:30 to 6 p.m.