Compost Awareness Week
Everyone’s favorite week is here: International Compost Awareness Week. And we are taking this opportunity to once again remind everyone of the free money that’s available from folks like Zero Foodprint. You get paid to fertilize your crops… this is close as you can get to growing money on trees. Apply for your grants at Zero Foodprint’s Compost Connector.
Kids Love Compost
Did you know kids love compost? It seems like they have a natural urge to stick their hands in dirt, and then rub it on your car seats… Educating the next generation about the regenerative role compost plays in a sustainable society is key, and we’re happy to help. We recently hosted a booth at Sonoma County Farm Bureau’s Ag Days where we educated the next generation of composters about contamination of feedstocks and what can be done about it.
More Grants from Zero Foodprint
Everybody loves free money. With the a few clicks of the mouse and tippytaps of your keyboard, you can apply to have part of your compost purchase refunded by grant dollars. Zero Foodprint’s Restore Grants are now accepting applications. Couple this up with a Healthy Soil Grant (see below), and your next compost order could be close to free!
Healthy Soils Week and World Soils Day
We know we’re late to the party, but earlier this month we celebrated Healthy Soils Week (Dec 2-6) and Healthy Soils Day (Dec 5) by stuffing our faces with Christmas cookies and chocolate. It’s hard to play in the soil with all this rain… But this is another chance to remind our customers about the Healthy Soils grant program and how it can help pay for compost applications on California farmland. Grant programs can be complicated, but we can say from experience that Healthy Soils is a useable program that will help you pay for compost. They even offer technical assistance for anyone who’s confused by terms like “Geo-tagged photos,” “digitally signed PDFs,” or “C:N ratio.” Start the paperwork now, and hopefully you can start applying compost when the sun comes out. Merry Christmas from the crew at Cold Creek Compost!
Pumpkins and Christmas Trees
We love composting your holiday leftovers: whether it’s the pumpkins, Christmas trees, or grandma’s burned Brussels sprouts. Altogether they make for a healthy mix of nutrients and carbon that’s perfect for fertilizing. But please, before you throw the pumpkins in the greenwaste bin, take your candles out. And make sure to take the lights off your Christmas tree before stuffing it in the bin. And of course, take grandma’s favorite silver serving spoon out of Brussels sprouts before tossing them. That way we can keep making compost without Christmas lights tying knots in our machines. Thank you, and Happy Holidays!
Shone Farm Fall Festival
At Cold Creek Compost, we are proud to support Shone Farm, a cornerstone of agricultural education and community engagement in Sonoma County. Located in the Russian River Valley AVA, Shone Farm is part of SRJC’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Department and provides students with hands-on learning experiences that go far beyond the classroom. We are excited to help promote their upcoming Fall Festival, a celebration that brings our community together in a spirit of learning, fun, and collaboration.
The Shone Farm Fall Festival, now in its fourteenth year, will take place on Saturday, October 12, 2024, from 10 am to 3 pm. What began as a small garden open house has grown into one of the most anticipated events of the year, drawing over 3,000 guests last year alone. This year’s festival will feature a wide range of activities, including hay bale rides, a pumpkin patch, apple picking, wine tasting, a kid’s zone with a rotten fruit slingshot and compost lessons, tractor displays, sheep shearing, and a showcase of student enterprise projects.
We encourage everyone to attend this wonderful event, and you might even be lucky enough to see some of our compost in action.
Compostable Plastics are Tricky
Have you ever found yourself confused when you’re standing at a garbage can with recycling, trash, and compost compartments? We don’t blame you. Some green film plastic bags are compostable, and some are green but no more compostable than your water bottle. And to make matters even more complicated, some of those “compostable” bags are only compostable in some facilities. And some are “biodegradable” but not “compostable.” All of this is caught up in a convoluted web of regulation, environmental concerns, and practicality. For a look at the tip of the iceberg, read this article from Civil Eats. And until all of this gets sorted out, we’re all going to continue scratching our heads when we get to the green, grey, and blue carts.
Donkey Day Care
Have you ever wondered why you don’t see lonely homeless donkeys walking the streets of Mendocino County? It’s because of the kind-hearted folks at Oscar’s Place. Oscar’s place is not only a sanctuary for donkeys, it is also a great place for people to get some donkey therapy. Cold Creek Compost is happy to donate our donkey-doo processing services to Oscar’s, and you can help, too! They’re always looking for volunteers to help give the donkeys love and snuggles.
Can Soil be “Used Up”?
The short answer is yes. Each year a farm produces crops or is grazed, it loses a bit of it’s life. Then there’s all the land that is paved and compacted into cities, homes, or roads. Soil is an increasingly finite resource, one that we can’t afford to lose. Luckily, we have composting. Composting emulates the natural regenerative cycle and replenishes our soils so that they aren’t “used up”. For more details about how soils are disappearing and how compost helps, check out BBC’s article on soils disappearing.
Park Farming Organics Wins Conservation Award
We’re jazzed to announce that one of our customers has been awarded the Leopold Conservation Award. While we only just started working with them, we are excited to be a part of their ongoing sustainability. Learn more about Park Farming Organics and the award on the Sand County Foundation website and on the Sustainable Conservation website.
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Cold Creek Compost is proud to be featured in the children's book Composting Abbie, a tale of how a whale can be composted, and how a tragedy can be turned into an opportunity.
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