City of Beacon Plans Zero Waste Garden Tour 2011

Last June in the lovely little city of Beacon, we had a city-wide garden & compost event. It was called Beacon Composts: Zero Waste Garden Tour, and it's goals were to:

1. Increase awareness of composting and principles of Zero-Waste
2. Provide information about composting techniques and products
3. Reduce garbage output
4. Encourage fertilizing of lawns and gardens without chemicals

The volunteers who organized last year's event are delighted to say that the event will happen again this year, with more of a focus on gardens. They're currently planning out the walking tour, and getting a list of gardens that are candidates for being on the tour. Meetings will be held on the second Saturdays of every month @ Bank Square Coffeehouse, 10:00 am. Join their Facebook group for more info, to get involved, and to get your garden on the tour!

I got excellent gardening tips at the first meeting (not that I have a garden yet). The organizers of the meeting are top-notch gardeners: they know not only how & when to grow things, but also know how to make the most of their tools. Anna West showed us her repurposed egg case/greenhouse, and yogurt containers. The thinness of the plastic (#1 or 2) makes it ideal for growing seeds.

I obviously have a lot to learn, and repurposing plastics certainly gets my attention! I am into composting, however. At my last apartment, I built a compost bin and took kitchen scraps from 2 kitchens to it. In my new place, which I'll only be until July, there is no compost and I'm not sure that building one in February is a great idea. The frozen ground won't thaw out and start breaking material down for another few months. What to do in the meantime? Check out GoBike, a project by my friend Kim Myers! On her cargo bicycle that pulls a heavy-duty trailer, she's picking up kitchen scraps to bring to compost sites all around Beacon for a monthly fee. What's this all about? From her site, "GoBike is just a bike a trailer and a woman......A woman who wants more compost, less waste, more gardens and a lot more backyard chickens in Beacon, NY!" Kim rocks. The bicycle comes from Peoples Bicycle, a used & new bike shop in town that carries a variety of cargo bikes.

Check out both sites, and visit again for more info on the Garden Tour.