Sustainable Living

Composting

The ground of Gastromeni in high summer is rock-hard, dry, clayey and liberally studded with stones. The dense hardpack firmly grasps the long and tenacious roots of thorny bushes and dried weeds. Digging in it requires a hefty pick-axe and a strong back.

The first autumn rains soak into this ground and transform it into a reddish soil, out of which spring the tender green shoots of native weeds. When we first witnessed this, Christos declared that we did indeed have viable soil for growing plants. Kathy, more skeptical, tested it with a simple home kit, the kind in which the soil is dissolved in water, chemicals added, and the depth of the color change indicates the fertility of the soil. The solution remained completely clear, with not the faintest tinge of color. We did not have soil; we had plain old dirt.

Without any knowledge of the subject, we attempted a primitive kind of composting of our kitchen waste by hacking a hole in the hillside, dumping in the scraps and sprinkling dirt on top. The stuff attracted insects and rodents, plus it mostly just disappeared over the winter, leaving a few cinder-like clumps. A visiting friend, Dr. Peter Peterson, a professor of genetics highly knowledgeable in all things regarding plants, clued us in on the basic requirements of composting.

This gave us insights and the impetus to embark on a serious composting operation. We started in Louisiana in late 1999 with two composting bins, and when we moved to Greece in late summer of 2001, we brought the composting bins with us, later susplimenting with additional bins.

These bins, with open bottoms, are placed directly on the ground. The bins have vents for air circulation, wide tops for easy filling and mixing, and removeable bottom doors for easy access to the finished product.

Compost and Garbage

The composting operation not only helps amend the soil without resort to commercial fertilizers, but it also keeps our garbage free of rotting, smelly materials.

Our current way of dealing with garbage is to dispose of vegetable matter in the compost. Animal products are first run through the resident cat, and then offered to sea life (such as crabs) in an underwater cave that can be accessed from the rocky coast through a hole in its roof. The occasional bleached steak bone that washes up on the beach is gathered with the rest of the beach garbage. That garbage, mostly tar-covered plastic items too grungy for recycling, along with used toilet paper, is virtually the only garbage we take to the island garbage bins. Recyclables of glass, plastic and metal are taken to the island's recycling bins, after a system was instituted in 2010. (Previously, we carted these back to Vrilissia with us.)

In our mainland home in Vrilissia, we also compost and the compost there attracts an abundance of red earthworms with wondrous results. We attempted to transplant some of these worms to the bins in Kythnos, but when the time came to harvest the compost, there were no earthworms in evidence. Later, however, when we turned over the soil in some terraces where the compost had been added, we discovered earthworms in soil that previously had been devoid of them.

Christos, the grand keeper of the compost, has reached a point where he can "sense" the needs of the batch and amend it accordingly, adding greens and browns as needed to maintain the proper balance. 

We use the compost we produce as mulch around trees, dug in every year and replenished as a ground cover, or spread on the terraces. A few years after the process began, the previously-sterile soil now tests as reasonably fertile, and it successfully supports plant growth.