Green Wednesday: Local Climate Solutions and Composting Tips
By Cindy Watter, UC Master Gardener of Napa County and Susan Crosby, Environmental Contributor
Having endured fires in our own region and felt the power of global support, our hearts are with those impacted by the Los Angeles County fires. Napa Valley Features will donate 10% of all new paid subscriptions through January to aid relief efforts.
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — Every Wednesday, Napa Valley Features includes posts from environmental voices and the UC Master Gardeners of Napa County, who share research-based horticultural advice. Together, these contributors provide valuable insights into sustainable gardening practices and climate-related topics relevant to our region.
Summary of Today’s Stories
"Make Your Own Compost" by Cindy Watter, UC Master Gardener of Napa County: This piece provides practical tips for creating compost at home, explaining methods like hot, warm and cold composting to transform waste into nutrient-rich soil conditioner.
"Composting creates a useful material out of waste, avoids adding to landfills and reduces methane output." - Cindy Watter
"Documenting Solutions: The Green Screen Film Series Is Back" by Susan Crosby, Environmental Contributor: This article highlights the Green Screen Film Series, showcasing short documentaries on regenerative agriculture, fast fashion and water conservation, each offering innovative solutions to critical environmental issues.
"While the effects of climate change are growing grimmer, there are legions of clever people working to address them." - Susan Crosby
Make Your Own Compost
By Cindy Watter
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — When I joined the University of California Master Gardeners of Napa County in 2016, I had planned to check out the MG committees and decide which one was best suited to my nascent talents. Jill Pahl had another idea: “Cindy, we could use you on the compost committee right now.”
I was taken aback. Compost? Isn’t that related to the rotting pile of organic matter in the southwest corner of my yard to which I add vegetable scraps but otherwise ignore? Shouldn’t I be capering about in vineyards or rose gardens? I soon learned that while compost is not glamorous, it is fascinating. Composting creates a useful material out of waste, it avoids adding to landfills and it reduces methane output. And I don’t have to espalier it, either! I have been on the compost committee ever since.
The City of Napa has been ahead of the compost curve for years. Even if you don’t have a home compost bin, you can put your leftover food and organic waste in your yard waste bin —including detritus such as greasy pizza boxes and chicken carcasses, which you shouldn’t compost at home — and the local garbage service will take it to its composting facility in south Napa. There it will join a pile as big as a city block and swiftly turn into the soil conditioner known as compost. But why not make your own compost?
In general, there are three types of backyard composting: hot (the UC Davis favorite), warm (the most frequently used) and cold (throw it in a corner of the yard and forget about it for a couple of years). With hot composting, you collect your materials — approximately equal amounts of dried leaves, shredded newsprint, chopped-up twigs, chicken manure, green yard waste and kitchen scraps, which can be coffee grounds and eggshells and fruits and vegetables with no butter or oil. Put them in a compost bin and toss them with a garden fork a few times a week.
Sometimes it is confusing what is green or brown. For example, coffee grounds look brown but are considered green because they are nitrogen-rich. Browns are carbon-rich. According to The New York Times, if you set an item on your kitchen counter for a week and it starts to dry out, it’s probably brown. If it starts to rot, it’s probably green.
Cut your materials up first. You can do this by using a knife (or a food processor or for large amounts) or a weed whacker in a garbage can (wear a mask and protective goggles for this task). The smaller the pieces, the faster the decomposition. The ideal size is 1.5-inch pieces, more or less. Add enough water so the mass is the consistency of a wrung-out sponge and you are on your way to producing a wonderful soil conditioner that will improve your soil’s ability to absorb water and nutrients.
Compost will give you healthier soil, stronger plants and will conserve water. A hot compost pile, assiduously tended, can produce finished compost in four to six weeks. When the compost is ready, it will look dark and have an earthy, woodsy smell. You will be surprised at how much it has reduced in mass, too.
Warm compost is very similar, only you add the materials to the pile as you collect them. (Bury new food scraps in the center of the pile to discourage vermin.) Keep the pile slightly damp and toss it once a week or so. It will take longer to produce compost — a few months — but warm composters aren’t in a hurry.
Cold compost can take more than a year. This is the method by which you keep adding to a pile, don’t turn it and after a few years say, “Hey, I wonder how the compost is doing?” You will find a deep, rich, dark decaying heap.
Sifting your finished compost will make it easier to incorporate into your soil. You can buy a round sifter (like gold miners use) online and a 5-gallon bucket anywhere, or you can make a sifter out of an old window frame and quarter-inch wire, mesh like I did, and screen it over your wheelbarrow. Wear garden gloves. Any compost matter that doesn’t fall through the mesh should be put back in the bin for further decomposition or used for mulch.
Note that while the garbage company can create compost out of meat scraps and other foods that contain fat or oil, home composters can’t. Commercial compost gets very hot and can deal with bacon fat and chicken bones. Home compost generally doesn’t get above 155 degrees, so you shouldn’t add weed seeds or rose thorns to your compost, and leftovers with fat will only attract vermin. No pet waste, either! When people tell me “My compost pile smells awful!” I know that there is either an old cheese rind in there — or Fifi’s feces.
Several kinds of compost bins are available, or you can make your own. Mine is dark plastic and 30 years old. The typical size is 27 cubic feet. I have seen bins made of wood, wire and even a wide plastic tube standing on end with lots of holes in it. My grandmother kept hers in an old oil barrel and would roll it around to turn it. As the saying goes, “Compost happens.”
It is satisfying to make a useful product out of leftovers that would otherwise go to the landfill. If you are interested in learning how to make and manage your own compost pile, the first compost workshop of the year will be held on March 22, at Hagafen Cellars. Sign-up information will be coming soon in the space below.
QWEL Training: Napa County landscape and irrigation pros are encouraged to become Qualified Water Efficient Landscapers. Earn this EPA WaterSense award-winning professional certification and save water and money for clients. The City of Napa is sponsoring free in-person QWEL training in English on four Wednesdays starting Jan. 15. Space is limited. Register here.
Planning a Cut Flower Garden: Library Talk, Thursday, Feb. 6, 7 to 8 p.m. via Zoom. Napa County Library. Register at the UC Master Gardeners of Napa County website.
Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Ave., Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description of the problem. For best results attach a photo.
If today's story captured your interest, explore these related articles:
Explore all Napa Valley Features stories on our main page.
Cindy Watter is a UC Master Gardener of Napa County.
Documenting Solutions: The Green Screen Film Series Is Back
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — As the new year unfolds, Napa residents can look forward to the latest installment of the Green Screen Film Series, a lineup of short, pithy films about important environmental topics with some surprising solutions and a healthy dose of humor. The documentaries will screen in January, March and May at the Napa County Library on Coombs Street. The series is co-sponsored by the county library and the homegrown climate action group Napa Climate NOW!. The films are free to the public.
“While the effects of climate change are growing grimmer, there are legions of clever people working to address them,” noted Ginger Gregory, a member of the film series team. “Some of the technology needed to limit the devastation already exists, and more strategies are being hatched all the time. In other words, it’s far from too late, and untangling the challenges can even be entertaining.”
The three films highlight solutions and introduce some of the people working to put them in place. They look at regenerative agriculture, the fast-fashion industry and that most essential resource, water.
In agriculture and water conservation, some of the innovations demonstrated are so effective they seem like magic — except these “magicians” wear dusty overalls or have fallen in love with North America’s largest rodent. The fast-fashion industry is another matter: It’s a dirtier business than most people would ever imagine. Fortunately, it’s also a business that responds to consumer choice, making it an area where ordinary people have an extraordinary ability to bring about positive change.
“Around the country and the world, individuals and groups are stepping up with large-scale strategies and small, do-it-yourself actions to help reduce waste and pollution,” Gregory added. “This film series is intended to shine a light on some of those actions.”
The series opener, “Common Ground,” will be shown on Jan. 19 at 2 p.m. The film, which received wide attention when it debuted in late 2023, looks at regenerative agriculture practices that can help heal the soil and the planet. Farmers and celebrities featured in the film discuss the ways in which moving away from chemical fertilizers and pesticides can renew the land, produce more abundant harvests and sequester carbon from the atmosphere: a win-win-win. At the end of the screening, there will be an opportunity to share ideas and impressions, then a short, upbeat, animated film, “The Story of Solutions,” will roll as a cheerful bonus.
Next up on March 16 at 2 p.m. is a screening of “Unstitched: How the Fashion Industry is Destroying the Planet.” This solutions-based documentary looks at the fashion industry and the surprisingly profound damage fast fashion does to the natural world. But while the sheer scale of the impact is shocking, there are inspiring strategies to address the problems. The film presents an optimistic view, featuring solutions and showcasing a range of change-makers. Following the film and short discussion, the audience will be treated to a showing of the lively animated short, “The Story of Stuff,” a look at the (avoidable) pattern of overconsumption in our daily lives.
Finally, on May 18 at 2 p.m. the Green Screen Film Series will close with “The Beaver Believers.” This award-winning feature-length documentary shares the story of an unlikely cadre of activists in Wyoming who are working to restore the North American beaver, that most industrious, ingenious, whimsical, bucktoothed engineer, to the watersheds of the American West. Filmgoers have fallen in love with this largest of North American rodents, learning why they build those elaborate dams, the various uses of their signature flat tails and why their teeth are orange. (It’s rust: beaver teeth contain iron — how else to dine on trees?) Guest speakers from Abuelitos and the Institute for Conservation Advocacy, Research and Education will be on hand after the film to talk about some local efforts to protect water and other natural resources in Napa County.
If today's story captured your interest, explore these related articles:
Birdwatching in Napa County Reveals Avian Wonders and Conservation Champions
Calistoga's Old Faithful Geyser: From Tourist Trap to Natural Wonder
Explore all Napa Valley Features stories on our main page.
Susan Crosby is a former Montessori teacher and teacher-trainer and a bilingual elementary teacher at the Napa Valley Language Academy. Now retired, she does freelance editing and translating as a volunteer for environmental groups. Her extraordinary talent for worrying about the future led her to become a member of Napa Climate NOW!
you can also compost kitchen waste with worms. They love garbage!!!!1