Featured: Orlando Students Help Grow One Million Tomatoes for Community Gardens and Food Banks

The U.S. Composting Council’s Million Tomato Campaign is still in it's early stages, especially in the Midwest, where it's still pretty cold to think about tomatoes. It's definitely understandable that Florida would get a bit of a headstart on us. However, we find this story very impressive. Students from Orlando are working to help the campaign.

This workshop for the program is a great exemplary program because it displays every stage represented by the campaign. The students will grow the tomatoes, sell them at the farmer's market, and learn to cook fresh recipes with them. The students will kick off the program by learning about compost and it's numerous benefits to their tomato seeds.

Read the whole article here and tell us what you think!

We would love to hear other stories about learning programs surrounding the Million Tomato Campaign. Have you heard any? Share them in the comments!

Featured: 10 Things You Can Recycle Through the Mail

We're always looking for new ways to recycle, so we love articles like this. They make recycling as easy as stopping by the post office!

If you have a program locally that takes these items that's great, and we encourage you to use them for your recycling. However, if you're like many people you don't have a place to go for batteries, electronics, light bulbs and many other odd or chemical recycling options.

This is where these mail in programs are extremely useful. They can take products that you would otherwise send to the landfill and that could be potentially very dangerous there. These programs make sure that anyone can recycle products, no matter what services are available locally.

Read the full article here. Let us know what you think! Would you use these programs?

Composting in Higher Education in Iowa

As an early adopter of composting in the Midwest, we've had the pleasure of working with many higher education institutions. We think that this work provides many opportunities for both the schools and the students who experience the composting process. Here are the lessons we love about composting in Higher Education

Composting is Easy
It's a common misconception that composting is hard, that it's time consuming, that it won't work because of these reasons. One thing we love about implementing our program is that students and dining management learn just how easy composting can be. It's simply adding another bin to the mix, and many colleges find that most of their waste can go in the compost bin, especially in cafeterias.

Composting Makes a Difference
Before implementing a composting process, it's often hard to visualize just how much waste shouldn't be going to a landfill. Often times there are students working in these dining halls who see, next to management, just how much of an impact composting can have on the waste stream. Seeing the pure volume of the organic waste will open their eyes to the benefits of composting, especially if they know the consequences of landfilling organics.

Everyone Should Be Doing It
Higher Education is one segment that is the most excited about not only pre-consumer waste, but also post-consumer. They bring it to the students as a learning experience and it will change how the students handle their waste, whether they realize it or not.

Do you want composting in your campus dining hall? Contacting your Dining Services Director and encourage them to contact us, we'd be happy to help!

Must-Haves to Start Your Garden This Year

We recognize that a lot of our readers come from varied planting background, therefore, for today's blog post we've put together a list of the top must-have tools to start your own garden this year!

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Gardening Gloves

Love it or hate it, gardening can be rough on your hands. Between thorns, blisters, and other hazards, you'll be happy you picked up a sturdy pair of gloves!

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Trowel

Don't let the size of this tool fool you- it's extremely useful! Your trowel will help you break up dirt and dig holes for planting. We recommend a comfortable grip- it will make it much easier to use!

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Hand Cultivator

For a starter garden you won't need anything bigger than this, but it will be a wonder tool for you. This tool helps you to break up the ground when first planting seeds, but it also helps you with your weeding when you're further into the process. 

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Pruners

When it comes to caring for your garden, pruners will be a necessity. Trimming away old foliage, shaping of plants, and deadheading all keep your plant healthy and in good condition.

These are just a couple of many tools that could have made our list. Do you have others that should be added? Tell us in the comments!

Don't forget that the most important thing for a healthy garden is healthy soil. For healthy soil we recommend adding compost! Let us know if you're in need of some compost and we'll put you in contact with one of our composting facilities.

Featured Vegetable: Rhubarb!

Leading up to Spring, we're going to be featuring vegetables that are great additions to any garden. We're starting with Rhubarb! Rhubarb is great because it looks great and it's stems are edible! If you're a fan of a classic Strawberry Rhubarb pie this would be a great plant for you- you'd never have to buy Rhubarb for your favorite summer sweet treat.

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Not only is this plant's stems edible, but it makes quite a showpiece for any garden! Look at the lovely one above! Although be careful if you have pets that like to nibble- the leaves of a Rhubarb plant are toxic!

Will you try growing Rhubarb this year? What are your tips to growing Rhubarb? Share them in the comments!