Open (Green)House!

OK, so it’s finally beginning to look and feel like spring on the Central Coast. We’re itching to head into the garden this weekend to begin prepping the soil for our spring and summer veggie garden. Looks like we have everything needed to get started:

1.     Clean, sharpened garden tools – check!

2.     A lovely pile of fresh, local Harvest Blend Compost – check!

3.     Rain – check! Wait…what? Not this weekend!

Rain will definitely dampen (no pun intended) our plans. What to do, what to do. Hey, isn’t there something on Harvest Blend Compost’s Facebook page about a greenhouse tour? Yeah, here it is. It’s the Central Coast Greenhouse Growers annual Open House: SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 2012

They have a lot of great things planned for their visitors! All seven nurseries will be showcasing locally grown products for sale.

IN NIPOMO

·        Viva Farms’ beautiful hanging baskets

·        Pacific Sun Growers’ amazing tropicals and succulents

·        Clearwater Nursery’s vibrant potted flowers

·        Eufloria’s gorgeous long stem roses in every color!

IN ARROYO GRANDE

·        Native Sons’ features hearty, healthy outdoor landscape plants

·        BallFloraPlant’s decorative, colorful containers

·        Ball Tagawa’s trays of veggies, bedding pack and ever popular potting soil

If you’re farther South, fear not! Rain or shine, Santa Barbara County Flower and Nursery Growers’ Association is hosting a day of farm tours in the Carpinteria Valley this Saturday April 14th between 11 am and 4 pm.  The public is invited to come and learn about the local flower industry and see the variety of crops that are grown. This event is free and open to gardeners of all ages.

Don’t let a little rain stop you from meeting your Flower Farmer. These tours are mainly indoors but in case of a little rain, an umbrella may be handy. Tell your friends and share this unique opportunity to meet your local flower grower! You might pick up some great flowers, tools and/or ideas for your own garden. Naturally!

For compost info visit www.GotCompost.com

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Compost Your Pumpkin!

Pumpkins are at the very heart of our fall celebrations. Halloween and Thanksgiving feature the plump squash, either as a decoration or delicious food, but there’s one problem with this big old veggie. What to do with it when the holidays are over?

Did you know that the Department of US Census Bureau reports that in the USA alone more than one billion pounds of pumpkins were produced in 2010? The $101 million dollar pumpkin industry is potentially disastrous for local landfills. Pumpkins are pretty bulky, so they not only take up a lot of space in the landfill, it also takes a good deal of fuel to get 'em there. If we care about our environment we need to find an alternative to sending used pumpkins to the landfill.

Compost vs Landfill
Pumpkins, which of course are 100% natural, will break down quickly as compost in your yard, providing you with valuable nutrients for your lawn or garden. Pumpkins are an easy addition to your compost pile. All you need to do is to remove the wax and candles and put the pumpkin into your backyard composter. Some composters say it’s better to smash or cut the pumpkin up first before you put it in the composter. The smaller the vegetable matter the quicker it will compost.

New Life for Jack-O-Lantern

Your Halloween pumpkins can enjoy renewed life as compost, bringing a grin to your face when discovering all the benefits compost delivers to your landscape. The organic matter has been transformed into nutrient rich food for your soil - making it the perfect soil amendment and lawn top dressing. Naturally!

Compost Facilities Can HelpThe City of Santa Maria recently implemented a green waste recycling program, aimed at diverting organic materials from the landfill. This is the ideal spot for our discarded pumpkins. Just remember to place your pumpkin in the brown curbside bin...you'll be doing a good thing for your community. Click here for a curbside pick-up schedule. 

If your city doesn’t offer this service contact your local compost facility to find out about alternatives. Let’s all pitch in to keep compostable organics out of our landfills! Everything we can do to reduce our contribution of compostable materials to local landfills is a reduction in greenhouse gas production.

For more info, check out http://www.gotcompost.com/ We're here to help you with all your compost needs. Naturally!

Peabody School Completes Playground Renovation

On September 30, 2011 a dedication ceremony was held at Peabody Elementary, in Santa Barbara, CA, to recognize the completion of the school’s renovated playground. Representatives from Engel & Gray, Inc. were on hand to receive a certificate of thanks along with a large poster, containing messages and signatures from the students of Peabody.

Four months ago, Engel & Gray Regional Compost Facility delivered 160 cubic yards of compost to Peabody School, a participant of the City of Santa Barbara’s Food Waste Recycling program. Project manager, Jeff Holbrook, worked with Engel & Gray to arrange for delivery of the donated soil amendment, used to improve soil for a safe, revitalized playground.

Parents, students and teachers appreciate their food waste recycling program coming full circle. The students and faculty have regularly sorted their food waste and other compostables into 65 gallon bins, to be collected by Engel & Gray Regional Compost Facility in Santa Maria. Recycling Peabody’s organic materials into nutrient rich compost for use in renewing the playground is the ultimate in recycling – helping the community to successfully “Complete the Cycle”.
Santa Barbara has a waste diversion goal of 70 percent, and in 9 more years, an ambitious 85 percent.

With time, effort and education, students will learn to recycle and compost like it’s second nature. They will have years of hands-on experience sorting, recycling and composting their waste – and Engel & Gray, Inc will be on hand to serve and support the effort. Naturally!

For more all the details on compost use, click here

You pick up a package in the market. It reads, “Biodegradable”. You buy it, thinking you’re doing the best thing for the planet, but are you? The good news is that there are many eco-friendly alternatives to traditional disposable packaging, flatware, cups and cutlery.

The bad news is that the terminology is often confusing and the best disposal method is sometimes unclear. Here's a quick & simple guide to cracking the code:

Recyclable: What does it mean?

 'Recyclable' products can be collected and reprocessed to produce new items. Common recyclable materials are: paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, aluminum, and electronic waste. Recycling is very important in diverting waste from landfills.

How Do You Identify Recyclable Products?

Many simple paper and plastic products are marked with the universal “chasing arrows” recycling symbol. Many electrical products (mobile phones, computers, printers, etc.) contain parts and materials which can be recycled by taking the products apart. Other products such as batteries, paints and fertilizers can be specially processed to reduce the environmental impact of their disposal.

For more info, visit www.Earth911.org  or www.Lessismore.org  

How Do You Dispose of Recyclable Products?            

• The easiest way to recycle is through your municipal curbside garbage program, assuming such a program is available. Find out what sorts of materials are accepted through this program, and how the materials should be separated to ensure they are processed correctly.
• Many communities conduct yearly collections of electronic recyclables. For recycled materials which aren't collected curbside, use a service like Lessismore.org to find a local drop-off center.

Biodegradable:

What Does It Mean?

'Biodegradable' simply means that a product will break down into carbon dioxide, water and biomass within a reasonable amount of time in the natural environment. The term 'biodegradable' however has no legal enforcement or definition therefore the term has been used loosely by some manufacturers.

Biodegradability is a desirable feature in products such as cleaning agents. Conventional cleaning agents will often release harmful phosphates and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as they break down, but biodegradable versions will not.

How Do You Dispose of Biodegradable Products?

Products that are labeled as 'biodegradable' can be disposed of in your garbage. However it is important to remember that landfills lack the microorganisms and oxygen required for waste to biodegrade in a timely manner, so you should still try to minimize your use of items that are not recyclable or compostable.

Compostable: What Does It Mean?

'Compostable' products are biodegradable, but with an added benefit: when they break down, they release valuable nutrients into the soil, aiding the growth of trees and plants. These products degrade within several months in an industrial composting facility and produce no toxic residues.

Compostability is a desirable feature in traditionally-disposable products such as plates, bowls, cups and cutlery. These products are commonly made out of PLA (Polylactic acid), bagasse (sugarcane fiber) or vegetable starch. It is environmentally responsible to use disposable products that are labeled 'compostable' rather than just 'biodegradable'.

How Do You Identify Compostable Products?

Look for the compostable logo on all bags and packaging. It's the only logo that ensures the item you're buying will effectively break down when taken to a commercial compost facility. This is what the logo looks like:

How Do You Dispose of Compostable Products?

Products that are labeled 'compostable' should enter an industrial composting facility to fully degrade into organic matter.

Note: Engel & Gray operates the only Regional Composting Facility in Santa Barbara & San Luis Obispo County permitted to handle all organic feedstocks.  Since 1993 Engel & Gray Regional Compost Facility located on the Central Coast of California has emerged as an innovative leader in Biosolids and Green Waste recycling, offering services to municipalities, agricultural, and landscape companies and individuals.

Visit www.EngelandGray.com for more info

Together with the City of Santa Maria and its other partners in composting, Engel & Gray is permitted to recycle 400,000 yards of materials every year – waste that might otherwise end up in our already overused and capacity limited landfills.

If your city has a composting facility, place these products in your compost collection bins to be picked up. Compostable products will typically degrade in 30-120 days in an industrial composter, depending on the product size and material used.

If your city doesn't provide industrial composting, you can dispose of compostable products in your backyard or home composter, but they will take longer to degrade.

Do not put compostables into your recycling! They are not recyclable and will contaminate the recycling process.

Complete the Cycle! When shopping for garden supplies look for recycled and reclaimed materials. When you use Harvest Blend Compost to amend soil or top dress your lawn, you'll be caring for your landscape in the most environmentally responsible way. Naturally!

Humus - Food for Thought!

Boy, what a difference one letter can make! As most healthy eaters know, “Hummus” is a soft food from Greece and the Middle East that’s made from mashed garbanzo beans and eaten cold with bread. Yummy! But take away an “m” and we have "Humus" - another food substance, only we don’t think we'll be spreading this stuff on toast or crackers any time soon. 

In general terms, Humus refers to the organic component of soil.  Humus formation begins when the organic remains of decaying plants and animals meets up with microbial life in the soil.  The carbon compounds contained within the remains were synthesized by the plant or animal when it was alive, and now become food (protein and energy) for the various bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes involved in the decay process. Finished compost is frequently referred to as humus. 

Visit www.GotCompost.com for more info

During humification of organic matter, microbes dismantle most of the sugars, starches, proteins, cellulose and other carbon compounds and use them for their own metabolism.  Most of the nutrient energy absorbed by the bodies of microbes is re-used by other microbes when they die.  Some is mineralized back into plant food and some is transformed into sturdy compounds that build up as elements of humus.

So, we can think of Humus as mainly a gigantic storage battery containing energy that first came from the sun. This energy is used by many varieties of soil organisms that carry out different functions in the soil, like recycling nutrients and changing them into a form that’s usable by plants.  Eventually the plants die and slowly decay in the soil where the whole process is repeated.

The best way to sustain the humus in soil is to amend it with quality compost.  When added to soil, locally produced Harvest Blend Compost will add nutrients and oxygen, increase soil’s porosity and water holding capabilities while providing a lush, healthy landscape for all to enjoy. Adding compost to gardens or as lawn top dressing is, without a doubt, the most environmentally and biologically sustainable way to maintain soil’s health and fertility.  A healthy soil builds strong, vibrant plants which are much more resistant to disease and need less fertilizer. Naturally!

Click here to find Harvest Blend Compost in your area.

Green: it’s not just for Christmas!

OK. The presents are opened; the remnants of that holiday meal are just waiting to be discarded. Wrapping paper and cardboard – crumpled and stuffed into garbage bags – is reduced to a faint reminder of the recent festivities.

Does this mountain of wasted packaging give you a twinge of guilt? If so, you’re becoming more environmentally responsible and you’ll want to look into reducing this load. What’s the solution? Recycling! And that means your live Christmas tree too!

"The City will begin its citywide curbside collection of Christmas trees Monday, Jan 3^rd through Friday Jan 7^th ", said Bob Engel of Engel & Gray, Regional Compost Facility in Santa Maria. "Trees will be processed, along with regular green waste, into nutrient rich Harvest Blend Compost to be used as a soil amendment for landscape and agriculture".

Engel & Gray asks that you properly prepare your Christmas tree for recycling: please remove all ornaments, tinsel, and stands. Trees with stands and flocked trees will not be accepted and cannot be recycled. Place your Christmas tree on the curb, at least three feet away from your trash container on your regularly scheduled collection day.Recycling is the environmentally responsible way to dispose your live Christmas tree. Sending them to the landfill is a waste of natural resources. Transforming fresh trees into compost, which is used to make healthy soil and grow more trees, is the perfect way to “Complete the Cycle”.

More Holiday Waste Prevention Tips

You can help reduce the amount of waste generated in Santa Barbara County by taking a few of the following simple steps:

- Flatten, save, and reuse gift boxes, wrapping paper, bows and gift bags;

- Buy cards and wrapping paper made with recycled paper;

- After receiving new gifts, donate old items to a local charity or thrift store;

- Save and reuse holiday decorations (and gift bags) for future years;

- Cut up brown paper grocery bags to wrap parcels for mailing;

- Use comics, old posters, and shopping bags to wrap presents;

- remember: Styrofoam can NOT be recycled. Offer packing peanuts to local private mailing stores. Some companies are using starch based “compostable peanuts” that will dissolve in water or compost piles. Test peanuts by holding a few under running water – if they’re biodegradable, they’ll dissolve.

Now that you’ve recycled that mountain of organic materials, you’re on your way to a brighter, less cluttered New Year. Naturally!

for more info visit www.GotCompost.com

Dreaming of a Green Christmas? Quit dreaming - it's possible!

The most wonderful time of year? Maybe. Trashiest time of the year? No question.

Boxes, Styrofoam, packaging, wrapping paper, disposable plates, cups and utensils, bottles, cans and food waste - our trash bins overfloweth. But there are ways we can minimize the amount of waste we produce. Mainly, remember the simple phrase "reduce, re-use, recycle" - and they're in that order for a reason.

Reducing what we buy and consume will have the greatest impact on the environment. That includes the number and type of gifts we purchase and how we acquire them, as well as careful menu planning related to the number of actual guests expected. Look at your trash from a fresh point of view. Getting rid of one bag of trash this season may seem like small potatoes in light of America's mountain range of landfills, but if every household filled one fewer bag, imagine the difference we could make.

Meal planning: reduce before that holiday meal - greening up usually takes a little extra time and thought, but it’s well worth the effort. Here are two options for “waste reduction”:

Casual option: Look for compostable tableware and bags – they may cost a little more than the run of the mill plastic stuff, but you’ll be “Completing the Cycle” by re-using recycled materials. And don’t throw the compostable items in the trash. Does your community collect food waste? If so, be sure to place your compostables in the food waste bin. It may look like trash, but these are valuable natural resources that can and should be recycled into compost. Note: paper plates and cups advertised as biodegradable are made to degrade in a commercial composting facility (read the fine print on the package). Added to a small, home compost pile, they may take many months to degrade.
For more info on Compostable Events and Food Waste Recycling:

melissa@lovecompost.com

Formal option: A meal served on china surrounded by silverware, glasses and cloth napkins will take longer to clean up than disposable dishes and plastic ware (taking labor to buy them, and time and fuel to drive to the store). But china and glass are classier, and you can recruit guests to pitch in after dinner – put on your favorite Christmas tunes and the time will fly.

Tips for a Greener Christmas:

Live trees provide habitat for critters, are a renewable crop, and when grown locally, create local jobs. Making an event out of visiting a tree farm to cut a tree, have a wagon ride and drink hot cocoa can be a pleasant family memory. Note: don’t send your trees to the landfill – recycle ‘em! To properly prepare your Christmas tree for recycling, make sure to remove all ornaments, tinsel, and stands. Trees with stands and flocked trees won’t be accepted and can’t be recycled. Trees over six feet should be cut in half.

www.lessismore.org for more info on Christmas tree recycling and scheduled pick up in your area.

An artificial tree re-used for 10 or 20 years would be cheaper and result in less consumption than buying a live tree every year. However, it can't be recycled and is not biodegradable, so when thrown out, it will be a landfill lump.

Economics can be a challenge of going green. Green goods sometimes cost more, but on the other hand, the prices of trash disposal, pollution and energy continue to rise. Complete the cycle by re-using recycled materials and you’ll be helping your community (and have a Greener Christmas) - naturally!

For more info: visit

www.GotCompost.com

And what about trees? Even environmentalists debate whether a live-cut or artificial tree leaves a smaller footprint. Designate a recycling bin for guests to use, and asking them to bring containers for leftovers. Remember to buy local!

Foodscraps ► Compost - Santa Barbara Successfully Completing the Cycle!

On Saturday morning, Nov. 14, the City of Santa Barbara welcomed home a load of dark brown, nutrient rich compost – demonstrating the success of the city’s Foodscraps Composting Program. We say “welcomed home” because the ingredients began their journey in Santa Barbara, where they were collected by Engel & Gray, Inc. and recycled into compost @ their Regional Compost Facility in Santa Maria. Santa Barbara Environmental Services hosted this celebration in honor of the program’s one year anniversary, and the donated compost was there to illustrate the end product of the participants’ recycling efforts.

Photo: SB resident having bucket filled with Harvest Blend Compost, donated by Engel & Gray, Inc.

Who participated?
114 local businesses and 21 schools (8000 students) have contributed the success of this program, separating their food scraps for composting. In the last year Santa Barbara has diverted over 3.5 million pounds of waste from the landfill. Many of us think of food waste as just that -waste. But these vegetable culls, meat trimmings, coffee grounds, etc., are really a valuable resource - a vital component in compost.

During the past year Engel & Gray has collected and transported Santa Barbara's foodscraps to the Regional Compost Facility in Santa Maria. After blending the food waste with additional organic materials (feedstocks) it’s placed in piles, called windrows. The piles are carefully monitoring, insuring a quality product, and in a matter of months the raw organic materials are transformed into quality Harvest Blend Compost. Adding compost to soil will increase soil’s microbial activity and water holding capacity, improve oxygenation, create a healthy root system, bind and degrade harmful chemicals and destroy pathogens.

The ultimate in recycling: when we put compost, made from 100% recycled organics, back into the ground - we’re putting previously discarded materials back to work. Think about it. Instead of allowing these food scraps and other compostable materials to rot in our landfills, transformed into compost they’re put to great use: on lawns as top dressing, in the soil as an amendment, in flower and vegetable gardens, for planting trees and shrubs, and as an environmentally responsible erosion control solution.

While some folks were familiar with compost, Saturday’s event allowed others to discover its many uses and benefits. Residents were asked to B.Y.O.B – bring your own bucket – and fill ‘er up with the donated compost. Santa Barbara has always been beautiful, but adding Harvest Blend Compost to its soil can only make the surroundings more vibrant. Naturally!
Way to go, Santa Barbara! Thanks for being great “sorts”!

For more info on compost, its uses and benefits, visit

www.GotCompost.com

Use Compost - Get Off the Chemical Merry-go-Round!

OK, by now you all probably know that compost is organic matter that has been broken down through the action of aerobic microbes and the heat they produce then subsequently built up into humus. The art and science of making compost for use as fertilizer has been around for centuries. Engel & Gray Regional Compost Facility has combined this art with today’s science, equipment, and proven methods to produce compost that can help solve many agricultural and waste management problems.

More of a bad thing
In the 20th century, composting seemed to disappear as the use of chemical fertilizers increased. Growers thought the “New and Improved” chemical technology was the answer to increasing crop production. The use of chemical fertilizers has increased yields in many crops but their intense use creates crops that aren’t able to defend themselves against insects, microbial pathogens, and invasive weeds. To combat these problems, agriculture has increasingly developed and used insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides. In the beginning, the chemicals protected the crops. Soon the crops became resistant, needing stronger, more toxic chemicals to do the same job as before. Only now, communities are in danger from more and more harmful chemicals entering the environment.

Compost – making a comeback!
Compost is an alternative to the agricultural chemicals and fertilizers currently in use. Composting began a comeback toward the end of the last century with interest growing in recent years. Economic and environmental factors have started to change the way the world looks at crop production, the environmental concerns chemical agriculture raises, and the waste society produces. Utilizing compost means fewer chemicals are being put into the soil, while binding and degrading harmful chemicals already in the soil.

Landfills – are they land-full?
Another huge concern: our overused and overcrowded landfills. Many cities ban yard waste from entering landfills and insist on recycling glass, metal, plastic, and paper items. In the US yard waste is increasingly ground and composted either by the municipality itself or by a composting facility that takes the yard waste and composts it. Composting is an effective way to reduce the amount of organic material entering our landfills.

So, what’s the problem?
Compost sounds like the perfect way to get off the “Chemical Merry-Go-Round”, doesn’t it? Most folks will say they believe in composting and all the environmental good it does, but is compost use a part of their normal gardening/landscaping routine? Is the general public aware of the many benefits of compost use? Does your gardener know where to get 3 yards of Harvest Blend Compost to amend compacted soil or top dress a lawn? This lack of knowledge is keeping nutrient rich compost from being put back into the ground to “Complete the Cycle”. All the recycling efforts go out the window if the final product has nowhere to go.

Be part of the solution!
We can all make a difference. Instead of yard waste and food scraps going to waste in the landfill, we can put our valuable resources back to work – as lawn top dressing, soil amendments, in flower beds and also as an environmentally responsible solution to erosion control.

Visit http://www.gotcompost.com to locate a Harvest Blend dealer. Healthy Soil Begins With Harvest Blend Compost!