One of the artists, Sophea Lerner, is passionate about composting, both at home in her apartment and while she travels. Sophea and her friends were happy to work with Narrandera Food Garden to make use of our compost tumblers while they were in residence, and in return Sophea shared some of her home composting tips with us.
While in Narrandera, Sophea also showed us her portable 'garden in a suitcase', and some of her friends conducted wild-greens foraging activities and created artworks based on the edible plants they found. (If any readers have photos of these let us know!)
Sophea Lerner sharing some of her composting tips with Narrandera Food Gardeners and friends
One of Sophea's key tips: make sure you have enough (chemical free!), carbon-rich, dry, 'brown' waste - such as shredded paper, dried hay, or dead leaves - to balance your nitrogen-rich, wet, food scraps or fresh garden clippings. This will help your scraps break down into rich, friable compost, and avoid becoming slimy and smelly. Keeping your wet scraps covered by a dry layer can also help keep pests out of your compost.
several days of adding food scraps
Inspecting the compost in the tumbler
- it was a little wet, we needed to add more brown matter!
Four-footed gardener Gigi learned a few tips as well (and caught us a mouse)
