compost – Lauren Warnecke

John Oliver totally nails our food problems

In 17 minutes, John Oliver totally nailed everything that’s wrong with food in America:

When I was a barista, I set up a donation program for our morning pastries. After 2pm, whatever wasn’t sold went in the garbage, so I arranged for someone from a residential mental health facility to come and pick them up on a daily basis. Sandwiches and salads had a one-day shelf life, and for all the reasons John Oliver discussed, we couldn’t donate them. Our solution was to bag them and place the night’s sandwiches next to the trash bin on Michigan Ave., rather than out in the dumpster, thus unofficially “donating them” to the homeless in the area.

Our dorms here in Dublin have common kitchens, each consisting of four waste bins: glass, waste, plastic and paper, and food. That’s right, food and waste aren’t the same thing. It’s been really great to live in a place where composting isn’t weird, but also a little bit frustrating to watch my American flatmates try to adjust. Not to rat on them, but I’ve found spinach in the waste bin, and plastic bags in the food bin (bins with labels on them as to what you should and shouldn’t throw in). To me, it’s a sign that we’ve conditioned ourselves into thinking that once we’re done with something it doesn’t matter where it goes. Just stick it in a bin, and it’s not our problem anymore.

I could go on, but if seeing this gets one person to eat around the bruise on an apple and throw the core next to a tree rather than tossing the whole thing in the trash, then I feel pretty good about today.

The Beautiful Garden that I Only Sort of Grew…

I am fulfilled.

$75 and some prompt attention to the Vedgewater registration deadline landed me a little plot of earth to play with for the summer. I love apartment living, but really miss digging in the dirt. With less availability for farming this summer, this little 4′ x 8′ raised bed is all I need to get my gardening fix. Shortly before leaving for Wyoming we planted a bunch of stuff before it really should have been planted, and then there was a cold snap that killed some peas and onions and nearly zapped the overly-expensive tomato plants from Gethsemane Garden Center. So even though I left a note on the community board and gave friends free reign to play in our garden I fully anticipated returning home after three weeks to a wooden frame of dead plants.

Instead, there was this:

Beans, carrots (hidden under a mountain of squash), cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries. Along the perimeter of the bed are marigolds from recycled seeds and three heads of lettuce that were harvested for dinner that night. It’s still rather astounding to me that I can put a few little pellets in the ground and grow my dinner, but deserting a garden that sits on top of a concrete slab in Chicago for three weeks and returning to a fully grown dinner is pretty frickin’ mind-blowing.

Apparently a hands off approach + three weeks of rain = Bountiful Urban Garden.

Yeah. Mind-blowing.

I think the abundance of worm poo added to the bed had a lot to do with it, and I’m pretty sure I used up every morsel of good gardening karma I had left, but for the bowl of lettuce alone I’ll take it.

True confessions of a bike commuter: Ann Hinterman

Ann Hinterman is a rock star.

I first met Ann when I was living in Ravenswood and we connected over our mutual love for worms. Ann is the Market Manager for the stellar Glenwood Sunday Market, and all-around advocate for all things organic, local, and sustainable. As such, she’s also an avid bike commuter.

The Hinterman canning bike — There's nothing Ann can't carry on her bike, even canning supplies for her annual tomato processing fest!

Where do you live? Rogers Park (a neighborhood on the North side of Chicago, IL)

How long is your commute? When I began commuting by bike, I was working at a bakery in Lincoln Park, biking 13 miles round-trip daily. My commute now that I work in the 49th Ward Alderman’s office is a wimpy 1 mile round-trip!

What kind of bike do you ride? A powder blue Raleigh hybrid affectionately called Baby Blue, or the Blue Bombshell

Do you wear work clothes on your bike, or wear bike clothes and change at work? When my commute was longer, I’d peel off my sweaty riding clothes and change into something more customer-appropriate after a quick stop in the walk-in freezer to cool down. On the road, the hard core cyclists were always swishing past me in aerodynamic outfits, so I thought that’s what bike commuting should look like. Visiting Amsterdam with it’s incredible bike-centric cultural opened my eyes to a world of commuting sans Spandex. One woman even said that a bike commute is the perfect venue for those gorgeous killer heels, because you don’t have to walk in them! Now I hop on my bike in work clothes and a bandanna to wipe my brow.

How do you carry your stuff? Paniers? Messenger bag? Milk Crate? I installed a rear rack with two collapsible metal baskets. It’s heavy, but I haven’t come across a load I couldn’t carry on my bike. This includes the delivery of two giant canning pots to a friend across the ‘hood, and (gentle) transport of my office compost worms- bin bungeed on the back, hand-carrying the container of worms while biking one handed.

Fair-weather rider? No way! I don’t really have an excuse, now that my commute is so short. I say that I bike in all weather because I’m lazy- it would take way longer to walk than to ride! Plus, now I’ve outfitted myself in a stylin’ Dutch cycling poncho, so I’m ready for anything!

Scariest moment on the bike: Off-leash, bike aggressive dogs. Yikes!

Tips for new riders: Get a bike you love or get a good tune-up of your current bike, find a carrying system that works for you so you’re not limited by what fits in your backpack, and start riding! Don’t give up, it gets easier.

Why you ride: It’s faster than walking, cheaper than CTA, good for me and the planet. And I can rock my Glenwood Sunday Market bumper sticker 🙂

If you are a bike commuter and would like to be featured in this series, please send an email to lauren@artintercepts.org for consideration. Thanks!

Even Master Composters kill their worms

Through a series of unfortunate events, I’ve endured a couple casualties over the past two weeks. I’ve been worm-sitting for the Glenwood Sunday Market, and am sad to report that not everyone has enjoyed their stay with me…

In short, I killed them.

Ok, well, let me preface that with the fact that many of them are doing just fine, but I crammed them all in close quarters knowing full well that they were too crowded, and a few days later there were dried runaways on the countertop and a not-so-nice smell coming from the bin.

Then Nancy put the bin outside in really hot weather (she does not have an appreciation for smelly worms).

Then it rained.

All I have to say is, that Darwin guy was pretty smart with the whole natural selection theory, and bravo to the survivors who weathered those storms and are still alive and kickin’.

Moral of this story:

Even Master Composters screw up and kill worms sometimes. The only difference is that we know why we killed them. And we’re good at making worm babies to make up for the loss.

Lauren Warnecke, M.S., M.C.

You know you are in good company when a group full of middle aged women in applique vests, young eco-hipsters (like myself), and old men who rent greenhouses for the winter can share a potluck dinner while passing around gifts of worm poo while the mistress of ceremony tells stories about her lifelong passion for compost and childhood trips to the circus to pick up elephant manure.

Last night I proudly and officially assumed the title of Master Composter. So far I think it’s safe to say the I’ve used this title much more than the one for which I owe the US government an ungodly amount of cash.

The MC program was something I did on a whim, but in hindsight it was exactly what I was looking for to engage a change of lifestyle, and perspective. I met new people who are doing incredible things to conserve our resources and reduce waste. Without this program, I wouldn’t look at garbage and wonder if my worms can eat it; I wouldn’t want to make things from scratch, or clean things with vinegar, or mend old clothes instead of buying new ones.

Humbling, indeed