Fall is here — leaves are flying and clear plastic bags full of them are piling up at the curbs.  Some of those leaves have made their way to our compost piles, thanks to some happy volunteers raking in our neighborhood, and one of our crew members, Brandon, who filled his van full of bags and brought them for us to (re)use.  Leaves are great fuel for the compost pile — they’re an excellent source of carbon (see below) to feed your compost pile, bin, or bucket.  Having a compost pile reduces the amount of garbage you generate, and using the fallen leaves you rake helps take a bit of the burden off the street sweepers and garbage collectors, providing you with some “black gold” for your garden and good Karma for reusing your waste.  Putting compost in your garden soil improves its structure and its ability to hold water, and also provides essential nutrients and beneficial micro-organisms to the soil and the plants you grow in it.  Still not convinced that you should start your own compost pile? Wait until you see how easy it is…

Here is the new compost bin we setup at our garden to help us reuse our garden waste and the leaves we have been raking up.  The container that you use for a compost setup can be just about anything, or nothing — 5 gallon buckets, straw bales, an old garbage bin with holes drilled in the sides (for air circulation), a circular frame of “chicken wire” (welded wire), or a simple, large, static pile right on the ground.  In the picture, we used a forklift pallet and some reclaimed 2×4′s and slats to build a frame, and closed up the front with a bit of welded wire mesh.  Every container may have a slightly different process to how you compost in it, but you’ll figure it out as you go.  Compost is a great learning experience because of just that — there isn’t an absolutely “right” way to do it, but you learn ways to do it better as you go.

When choosing or building a container, important things to keep in mind are the amount of space you have to work in, the amount of materials you have to work with, air circulation, and where the container will go.  If you have, for example, a small upper apartment, you might be better off going with an indoor worm bin or a Bokashi composter. Also, the 3-bucket compost system utilizes three small containers (like 5 gallon buckets) to quickly decompose small amounts of waste at a time in a small space — and it’s especially helpful in winter.

Compost is the product of nature’s decomposition process.  You can make it scientific or simple.  Bacteria, mold, and fungi break down waste with a little help from their friends — the worms.  As they break down the materials, it consumes oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, creating heat and releasing water.  Having a good balance of oxygen, moisture, carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials creates an ideal atmosphere for the beneficial bacteria and other decomposers hard at work making your compost.  Learning how to get that balance is part of the experience.  It’s not completely necessary (anything will break down over time), but it helps reduce odors, speeds up the process and makes a better product.

When you begin your pile, and while you build it, try to balance the kinds of ingredients you put into it by adding a layer of one when you add the other.  If you put a layer of kitchen scraps in your bin (primarily “greens”), put a layer of leaves or shredded paper or wood chips (“browns”) to even it out.  You can get very technical, but you don’t have to — it’s your compost pile.  Compost 101 has a good article to reference for carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials.  They have a very rigid, technical approach to balancing the carbon to nitrogen ratio (25:1 C:N) — which is a bit over-complicated for the beginner — but is helpful to think about.  They also have some great tips to consider as well.

There are two types of ingredients for your compost: browns and greens (or carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich).  Browns include: paper, ashes, cardboard, cornstalks, leaves, and wood chips.  Greens include: grass clippings, garden waste, coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, and weeds.  See the link above or google for a more complete list. AVOID Adding: meat scraps or bones, sawdust from treated woods, grease or fatty foods, domesticated animal feces, clippings from chemically treated lawns, etc.  Think about what you add to your pile before you add it.

Aeration and moisture are the only other elements that you may have to provide, depending on how you establish your compost system and how you maintain it.  If you purchase a bin composter, or build one from a old garbage can, you may need to turn it every now and then to give it some air.  If you build a large static pile, you may only turn it over once or twice.  If you add too much nitrogen-rich materials, you might end up with a wet, stinky mess — and too much carbon leaves your pile dry and cold.  My suggestion is to keep it simple: start small and add a little bit of brown every time you add a little green, and experiment with different kinds of compost techniques to learn how the materials work.  As your experience grows, so will your pile (and vise versa).

Friday, October 8th at 1PM — Join us at our office @ 158 Eaton (just behind the ReSource) for what may be the last Rain Barrel Building Workshop of the year.  Although the warm weather is leaving us, there is still plenty of rain to come before it turns to snow… Use that rain for watering your houseplants or washing your car before Winter, just make sure to empty it and store it indoors or upside down before the temperature falls below freezing!!!

This workshop is free, and includes detailed overview of the tools and materials necessary to build a rain barrel, and you’ll also learn how to install your rain barrel to your downspout. If you want to build your own and take it home with you, it’s only $30!!!

Also, we will have plenty of rain barrels in stock for the Holiday season –  they make great “stocking-stuffers” for the gardener or Eco-conscious friend or family member in your life…

Can you tell me what kind of vegetable this is?  E-mail me at Brad {at} BuffaloReUse(.)org

Reward:  A seed sample from this little guy

Join us on our porch @ 158 Eaton on Wednesday, September 1st from 3pm – 6pm, where we will be demonstrating two different recipes for canning tomatoes.  Our workshop will overview blanching, a common preserving and cooking technique, as well as sterilizing, packing, and sealing your jars.  A $5 donation is appreciated to help cover the costs for the workshop, and attendees go home with their own jar of ReUse Tomatoes!

Summer harvest is here — the tomatoes are ripening, squash is in endless supply, and you’re wondering what you’re going to do to keep up with the hoard of fresh vegetables that are growing in your garden.  Preserve the bounty that you put so much time and effort into!  That’s what you’re going to do.  Rather than sending highly nutritional food (that you’ve worked so hard to produce) to the compost pile simply because you have too much to eat, you can devote a little bit more time to preserve your harvest, and enjoy what you’ve grown for months to come.  Growing a surplus of food in the summer and preserving it creates food security for the winter months.  Doing it yourself creates the feeling of accomplishment, and the assurance of safety and quality.  Preserving food is a tradition that dates back centuries, but in the last half century has lost its appeal and necessity as modernized commerce and global food availability have made eating much easier (imagine trying to find a banana in January in Buffalo, 300 years ago…)  Canning, freezing, and dehydrating are excellent ways to preserve food — as well as the nutrients and flavor it holds.

Freezing Vegetables

Freezing your harvest (or part of your harvest, unless you have a really big freezer) is a very easy and effective way to preserve food.  A common preparation to freeze vegetables is blanching, but vegetables can be prepared to freeze in many ways (depends on the recipe).  Blanching works well for most vegetables, and is a technique used for canning as well.  Blanching removes bacteria and dirt, etc. from the surface of your veggies, and more importantly, stops the process of enzymes inside the vegetable that would cause it to toughen, lose flavor and nutrients, and change color.  Blanching is done by putting fresh, prepared vegetables into boiling water for a short amount of time (amount of time varies from vegetable to vegetable), and then immediately moving the produce to ice-cold water to stop the cooking process.  Typically, vegetables should be cooled in ice-water for the same amount of time that they were cooked in hot water, unless a recipe notes otherwise.  Guidelines for freezing and blanching are easily accessible online, and can also be found in cookbooks and books on preserving food.  Here are some guidelines for freezing beets, tomatoes, and zucchini:

Beets

Select young, tender beets, 2 – 3 inches across.  Wash carefully.  Cook in boiling water until tender,  from 60 – 90 minutes.  Cool in cold water, skins peel off easily.  Slice.  When cool, transfer to containers.  Label.  Freeze.  Keeps for 6 months.

Zucchini

Slice into 1-inch pieces, do not peel.  Saute in melted butter until barely tender.  Cool, pack into plastic containers, leaving headspace at the top.  Label.  Freeze.  Keeps for 3 months.

Tomatoes

Dip into boiling water 1 minute.  Remove, and dip into cold water for 1 minute.  Remove and peel.  Place on a tray and freeze for 30 minutes.  Place in plastic bags, remove air, seal and label.  Keeps up to 6 months.

There are many resources and guides for freezing vegetables from A to Z, whether online, or in a book.  Check out GardenGuides and PickYourOwn for online guides to preserving vegetables.  Extend your season, and eat your home-grown foods until they start growing again next year.  Please join us, as we are holding a Tomato Canning Workshop on September 1st @ 3pm in our gardens @ 320 Northampton.  If it rains, we will hold the workshop indoors @ 158 Eaton St.

You are probably seeing more and more rain barrels popping up in gardens, driveways, and backyards — if you haven’t found one for yourself yet, look no further.

And if you do not yet know: rain barrels can make a huge impact on our local ecology by conserving rain water, slowing water runoff, and preventing pollution and debris from being carried into our waterways and municipal systems.  Installing a rain barrel allows you to catch clean, untreated water that has fallen from the sky and hold it there until you need it — taking a bit of the burden off your tapwater, and the municipalities that make it.  If everyone in the city did this, think of the difference that could be made!!!

You will most likely see rain barrels all over if you are out and about for Buffalo’s Garden Walk this weekend, so if you get jealous and have the urge to keep up with the Joneses (or just want to water your garden or wash your car), you can get yourself a rainbarrel from our store at 298 Northampton for just $30.

Looking to Volunteer?  Like to garden?  Look no further!

Grassroots Gardens has put out the call for volunteers to help at a few community gardens around Buffalo — now is your chance to get involved and get your hands dirty!  Join us on the following workdays to make these community gardens more wonderful than they already are:

7/17: The Cottage District Community Garden is looking for some muscle and a few extra hands to help out with a project at their garden at 10AM on  Saturday, July 17th @ 60 York St (between Normal and Plymouth).  They’re looking for at least five people, but more is always merrier.

7/31: Also, on Saturday, July 31st at 10AM the Community Garden at 20 Orton Place will need as many volunteers as they can get–they are going to be taking down / moving materials and replanting the gardens.

Come help out!!!!

Learn how to build that rain barrel that you’ve always wanted!

Stop by Buffalo ReUse on July 7th @ 4pm for a free workshop demonstrating how to prepare and assemble a rain barrel from a 55 gallon (food grade) barrel.  If you’d like, for $25 you can build your own rain barrel after the demonstration to take home with you.  And if you don’t want to build one but still want a barrel to harvest rain from your roof, you can buy one that’s ready to go at the ReSource on 298 Northampton for $25 as well.

What: Build-a-Barrel Wkshp

When: July 7th @ 4pm

Where: 158 Eaton St, Buffalo

Why: Because it’s fun!

The process of creating a rain barrel from a plastic drum is easy, doesn’t take much time, and needs only a few supplies.  At the workshop you will see the materials that go into assembling a barrel, and the process we use to put ours together.  We will have already-assembled rain barrels available for sale, and we will have the materials ready if you want to put your own together (so you know for next time, or if you want to show a friend).  Hope to see you there!

Throughout the last week of June, a concert series presented by The Good Neighborhood is being held in support of Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo and their efforts to revitalize and beautify vacant land in our community. Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo is a community gardening program in Western New York working with public and private sectors to revitalize neighborhoods and build quality of life through the reuse and beautification of vacant land. The event will take place at the Sportsman Tavern and Pearl Street Grill & Brewery over four nights (see below), from June 23rd to the 30th. Grassroots Gardens will be there to share information about the mission and programs and upcoming garden events, and will also be holding a raffle each night to support their work.

Check out the article about the Concert series at Buffalo Rising!

The full lineup is as follows -

Wednesday, 6/23, Sportsmen’s Tavern, 7-10pm, $5 – Dee Adams, Bob Buckley, Zak Ward, Alan Whitney

Friday, 6/25, Pearl Street Grill & Brewery, 9:30pm-12:30am, $4 – Lazlo Hollyfeld & Sonny Baker Talking Heads tribute, “Stop Making Sense”

Saturday, 6/26, Pearl Street, 9:30pm-12:30am, $4 – DJ Cutler Ultimate Breaks & Beatles, Photos of Wagons Magical Mystery Tour

Wednesday, 6/30, Sportsmen’s, 7-10pm, $5 – Pamela Ryder & Friends Homecoming Hoot

We hope to see you there!!!

Summer is almost (technically) here, but from a quick glance while passing by a garden, it is clear that summer in Buffalo is pretty much in full swing.  We are operating several gardens on Northampton near our store, and have built / created a few others around our neighborhood as well–including a rain garden on the corner of Michigan and Northampton.  Our gardens here at Buffalo ReUse are coming together nicely, and I wanted to take some time to show them off to the world over the course of a few blog posts, so keep your eyes peeled.

Patchwork Garden – our community garden, a piecemeal collective of 4′x8′ raised beds that we put up for adoption at the beginning of the growing season.  Neighbors and community members have adopted more than 40 of our 50 available beds.  At the Patchwork lot we also planted Three Sisters Gardens (a Native American tradition where the three sisters–corn, beans, squash–live and grow together harmoniously), onion mounds, potatoes, and a deep, tiered bed for carrots.  Here’s a sampling of what we have growing in the Patchwork so far this year:

Cabbage, Onions, Marigolds, and Choi

Raised beds planted by neighbors

Broccoli buds, collards, lettuce

Three Sisters

Children’s Vinery – just next door to the Patchwork Garden, this is where the “Tanglers, Danglers, and Creepers” live.  This garden’s primary focus is children, and getting them excited about and involved with the wonders of growing things.  We have peas climbing trellises made of reused materials and tree limbs, topsy-turvy tomatoes, colorful Swiss Chard, interesting squashes and cucumbers, potatoes and raspberries growing in old garbage bins, an earth oven, and a sweet, sweet strawberry patch.  We have already harvested almost twenty pounds of Strawberries this year, and more are coming! Join us on June 26th at 8pm, when we are hosting our Strawberry Moon Celebration–we will harvest our remaining berries, hold a workshop for making Strawberry jam, and project movies on the screen in the Patchwork Garden all while enjoying the early summer breeze and the company of neighbors and friends.  Here are some shots of the Children’s Vinery:

Rainbow Chard and Mr. Big Pea

Peas growing up

Our Strawberry Patch

Keep your eyes peeled for more garden biographies, and more pictures of our progress as the season goes on.  There is plenty more to come!!!