Our 2023 Backyard Compost Challenge has come to a close. We’re still waiting for a few data inputs, but so far the final aggregate total for pounds of food waste kept out of the Rockbridge landfill over the course of these ten weeks is 3,810 pounds: almost two tons. Thanks to your post-project surveys we learned other interesting things that …

It’s week ten, the last week of the 2023 Backyard Compost Challenge. Pretty soon we will have our final food scraps data and we will know exactly how much food we managed to keep from rotting in the landfill and adding methane to our atmosphere. For this week’s blog we wanted to let you know just how big of an …

Can you believe it? Week nine of the Backyard Compost Challenge is upon us. For the blog this week we thought it may be interesting to check in with some of the folks who have reported the highest and lowest food scrap weights so far. We got an inside look at how different households function and the many variables that …

This week on the blog we talked to Ginny, our compost data number-cruncher, to learn about Boxerwood’s other major composting endeavors. The Backyard Compost Challenge is a wonderful way to encourage our community to compost at home, but our work doesn’t stop there. To help bring about a culture of composting all through the county, Boxerwood is partnering with local …

It’s week seven of the Backyard Compost Challenge! Hopefully you all are feeling like compost experts by now. Since we’ve spent quite a while talking about compost, I thought this week we’d talk about some other ways to reduce household food waste. Did you know that nearly 40% of food is wasted in the United States? While much of this …

Hello Citizen Scientists! I’m Ginny Johnson, Boxerwood educator and behind the scenes number-cruncher for the Backyard Compost Challenge (BCC). One of the other Boxerwood programs I facilitate is COREworks, our homegrown carbon offset marketplace. You may remember seeing it mentioned on the form you filled out at the start of the BCC.  COREworks is a mechanism to take your earth …

In our last blog post we touched on why your food scraps are so much better for the environment when they go into a compost pile versus when they go into the landfill. That positive change made by composting is a really big reason why composting is a good thing to do. But it’s not the only reason! Making compost …

Last week we heard from Phyllis Fevrier about the tiny chefs in our compost pile and treating your pile like a habitat. This week we wanted to build on Phyllis’ post with some more specifics. Phyllis wrote about the importance of keeping a balance of greens and browns in your compost pile because greens provide nitrogen and browns provide carbon, …

If you were one of the many folks who came to pick up your composting supplies on Saturday, March 11th you probably spoke with Phyllis Fevrier (photo, far left). She, along with other Master Gardener volunteers, had a wonderful informational display table all about how to compost successfully. Phyllis is an invaluable resource for all things gardening and compost, and …

Thank you to all who submitted  the pre-project survey that we sent out over the weekend. The survey gives us a sense of the knowledge and experience we’re bringing to the project – and the story behind our many motivations. Here are some the highlights:  The basics: There are 103 participating households (including 22 returning households) involving 400+ people from …