A few weeks ago I was in Kanazawa with family. We were visting Forus, a multi-floor shopping center. On one floor, there was some sort of fall crafts and information event happening. At that time, I noticed a sign for something called LFC Compost. I'd been extremely interested in composting since my first season gardening, but because I'm a veranda gardener and have a bug-phobic family, I steered clear of any composting system close to home.
Not composting has been a continuing source of anxiety. Gardening can be an act of take, take, and take some more. Of course, that approach leads to depleted soil, plants that don't thrive, and a need to use fertilizer. Not composting means sending perfectly good nutrient-dense food scraps to landfills. It means pollution and reallocation of nutrients, minerals, etc. to places they aren't needed. I'm reminded every time I need to refresh planter soil, add fertilizer, or listen to a gardening podcast.
It's with this in the background that I looked into LFC Compost. LFC stands for Local Food Cycling. It's a company borne from decades of NPO work connected to reduction of waste and protection of natural resources. The company's product is basically a bag within which you add LFC's proprietary compost substrate. You aim to add 400g of waste to the bag each day over a two-month period, add some water to cure the compost over another 3 weeks, and you should have yourself fresh compost made of 20 kilos of food waste at the end.
Reviews from other users say they have very little trouble with lingering smells, bugs, and whatnot. Those were my biggest concerns as those were the tests I needed to pass to convince my family. I got the green light.
Around the same time I was reminded to join in on the Furusato Nozei system here in Japan before the deadline. Furusato Nozei is a special tax scheme that allows you to allocate a portion of your taxes to areas of your choosing around the country. Different areas offer different "Awards of Gratitude" for lack of a better translation. Some offer fruit. Others camping goods. There is really a lot. I'll talk about it in more detail in a future post, I'm sure.
On a whim, I searched for LFC Compost and it popped up. So, I relocated ￥16,000 (~$108) to Fukuoka City and in return I got this kit.
I'm on day three with it so far. I've been adding food scraps to it every day with no signs of decomposition. It's said to take a week or so before the microbes in the substrate kick into gear. I'm hopeful.
I'm a little nervous that with increasingly cool autumn temperatures I picked a weird time to start. Still, I am very excited. There is already a noticeable reduction of food waste, and it's much easier to just toss stuff into the compost bag than have to bag it before throwing it away. Beyond that is the reduction of those anxieties. I'm closing the loop, or at the very least I'm rebuilding it. I feel even better about being a gardener now. I am very much looking forward to how the veranda garden will react to some homemade compost.
Are you a composter? If so, what method are you using? If not, is it something you'd like to start?
Check back later this week for the newest installment in my garden journal. In the meantime, you can find me @naturalfukui on Twitter and Instagram.
I compost. With mixed results. I have several methods on the go. There is a fairly large framed structure with that I made from repurposed remnants of an old bike shed that collapsed. It has chicken wire 'walls' so plenty of air circulation. I chuck the larger, tougher weeds and expired veggie plants etc. They break down slowly but effectively. (larger, woodier things, like tree prunings, sunflower stalks, kiku imo stalks, raspberry canes etc get put through the shredder and used as mulch) For kitchen waste and smaller garden waste, I have one of those green compost bins (that my local city office USED to give out freely). It works well enough, if I remember to keep a good balance…