Kimberly Update

Farmer No. 2 was very doubtful. There are written rules about composting and last fall one of the farmers broke 90% of them. In the fall we stuffed Kimberly (our composter) full of yard waste and basically let her sit there over the winter. To No.2's amazement it almost all decomposed into a rich black gold. We peeked in a few weeks ago and saw some sprouting weeds. That happens when you throw weeds in for composting and don't tend the pile. A well tended pile heats up hot enough to kill seeds.

Back to Kimberly. We emptied her out to use in a new pepper box we built. (you can see a weed sprout)

The compost was still a little clumpy so it needed to be broken up.

And behold! Sifted compost ready for the plants.

Our Dirt

The farm spent the weekend prepping our dirt.
Famer No. 2 turning the dirt.
Farmer No. 1 mixes compost and soil conditioner to the soil.

We built two new boxes (Farm Boxes No. 3 and 4) this year. Here Farmer No. 2 fills the box with our new super soil.

Checking in with Kimberly

The Brooklyn Farm mascot is Kimberly the Composter. Her duty is to take in wasted organic material that the farm and kitchen produce and let it all decompose into compost that we'll put back into the soil. During the winter months this process moves much slower because all of the critters that make the decomposition happen are happier when it is warm. There's a lot of interesting science involved and it is a subject we will go more in depth with. Follow all of her adventures here.

Farm Boxes No1 and No2

The farm recently purchased Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomen. And while Mel does overly state his accomplishments (the originator of gardens in a box?) and he writes in the third person, this book does have worthwhile information about building boxes for plants. We like the aesthetics of the boxes but they are also practical for controlling soil quality and temperature. We bought 400lbs. of soil and manure to fill the boxes and also mixed compost from Kimberly in there as well.

Update: Kimberly the Composter

Kimberly, our fat little composting bin, has been hard at work since March 1. The compost should be ready but it has been a learning process on how to get the balance right between green (living/nitrogen) and brown matter (dead/carbon). Right now, between the farm waste and kitchen scraps there is so much more green waste than brown so we've been using shredded newspaper as the carbon source.
Farmer No. 2 cuts up the expired broccoli to feed to Kimberly. Chopping up the waste speeds up the process by exposing more surface area to micro-organisms. 

Plant Problems Post 1

Something is going terribly wrong. Leaves on our swiss chard have not been faring well. Theories range from too much sun or too much water. Online research prompted us to remove the dry leaves (and compost them), but keep the stems because they are still edible. There's no need to wait until the leaves are giant grocery store size swiss chard…we can pick the leaves earlier before they dry up. This discovery resulted in a delicious dinner—

Swiss Chard with Onions

Kimberly the Composter

Brooklyn Farm is composting now. Kitchen scraps, yard waste, anything organic can be thrown in there.