Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Every day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the ninth day of the month is "Location."
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Our town doesn't pick up yard waste. Instead, everyone in town takes their yard waste to a compost site. This site is huge and there are a variety of piles for brush, garden waste, and wood (like if you cut down a tree). What you're seeing in the above photo is half of the area for garden waste. It's like 90% leaves right now. It's huge and it's really a great community building place.
The city takes all this and mulches it down and creates a big giant pile of mulch that is free for anyone to take.
The compost pile is the one reason my husband and I sometimes wonder if we should own a small pickup truck. There is nothing worse than us cutting down approximately one zillion cup flowers (that regularly grow over eight feet tall) and have to break them down to fit into yard waste bags to take them to the compost. If we could just cut them down with a machete and toss them in the back of a pickup, our lives would be made so much easier.
Regardless, this week I've taken many trips over to the compost site as we try to clean up for the winter. I pulled everything out of two overgrown beds and put cardboard over the beds hoping to kill everything in them so we can mulch them in the spring and replant with fewer plants. I've raked up five billion leaves. I've picked up six billion pinecones by hand.
Does your town do yard waste pickup or have a compost site? What do you do with your yard waste?
When I was single the town that I lived in required everything to be in bags for curbside pickup. Then in the fall they did leaf pickup which was easier because I only had to rake the leaves to the curb. Do you have to bag your leaves as well? I can't even begin to imagine how many bags that would take.
ReplyDeleteMy husband likes yard work and I don't so it's a match made in heaven. All that I do is maintain our small garden and help out once in a while. It's a good life!
Our town does do leaf pickup, but the area for us to put leaves in is challenging. We're supposed to put it in the grassy area between the sidewalk and road, but ours is elevated and hilly and the leaf pickup leaves about 75% of the leaves there and a lot of the leaves end up blowing in the street, which is exactly what we don't want since it clogs up the sewers and gets in the rivers. *huge sigh* We have a lot of tress and a lot of leaves and it's a pain. LOL.
DeleteOur town definitely does yard waste pickup. Even if we do something huge like cut down a tree, they'll take that (as long as we cut it into smaller pieces.) I like the idea of seeing what happens to the hard waste, and being able to take free mulch- but on the other hand, I'm pretty grateful for the curbside pickup. We don't have a truck and it would be hard to transport all our yard waste by ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI would LOVE curbside pickup, but I also really like the communal nature of the compost site. I think there are pros and cons to both strategies.
DeleteWe have curbside pick up for yard waste. We also have separate leaf collecting trucks. Do you have leaf collection, or do you have to haul that too? Or I guess we often just mulch it into the grass with our lawn mower. But we only have half a tree (shared with the neighbors) to worry about.
ReplyDeleteI also have a Husband who takes care of it all. He loves to garden and do yardwork. I like to sit on the patio with a good book and watch him.
Neither of us likes yardwork, so it's really just who breaks first and starts doing it. My husband does mulch the leaves, but I think it's too cold to do that now, so we'll have to figure out what do to with the remaining leaves.
DeleteWe do have pick-up and I would go crazy if I had to drive it to a compost site. I usually fill up our green bin every week. Because of the limited space I sometimes have a pile in the backyard if we cut back something bigger but so far so good.
ReplyDeleteThe compost site is not nearly as inconvenient as I thought it would be when we first moved here, but our compact cars are certainly a problem in terms of the sheer number of trips we have to take over there. Our yard is big and full of vegetation, so we have to be pretty creative about how to get things over there.
DeleteWe have a couple city wide leaf and brush pick ups, but we have this ONE TREE that always waits to drop its leaves until everyone else's are done. We joke that our tree is uber competitive. It's like, Look at me, the LAST MAN STANDING! hahaha. So most years we still have piles of leaves after the final leaf pick up has ended. I think people have complained to the city about this and have requested a later pick up, but to my knowledge nothing has changed yet. We also have a "recycle center" that accepts leaves and yard waste. I am jealous of all the people commenting above how their husbands love yard work. My husband loathes yard work. But yet, I do a LOT of other stuff around the house/ kids/ etc., so I'm really not willing to like, take all the yard work on myself. That seems like a very good "husband chore". So he does it, most of it, anyway- I do help some as needed. But he gripes about it every year, especially all the fall clean up, plant cutting back, etc. I personally think he makes a way bigger deal out of it than it actually is. I mean, yes, it's a few days/ hours of work, but it's seasonal! And then it's over. Not like he has to clean up leaves every week all year. Anyway. I think it may be related to the fact that in Mexico his family does not have a yard. So this is not something he grew up doing, or seeing modeled for him, either. He finds zero joy in going out and putzing in the yard, like many American men seem to. Oh well!!
ReplyDeleteYes to the issues with leaf pickup! There are always so many leaves left when they stop picking it up. In our town, they only pickup in front of each house once a season, too, so that's annoying.
DeleteWe both LOATHE yardwork, but it's gotta get done, so whoever has time on nice days has to get to it. That's sort of the deal we've made. We've also decided that having the worst yard in the neighborhood isn't really a problem for us! LOL.
We have both in our town; every two weeks we have garbage pickup which includes: separate bins for garbage, glass/metal recycling, paper recycling, cardboard recycling and compost. So we have to separate things out a LONG way!
ReplyDeleteWe also have a drop-off site that runs from spring - fall; same thing, where you can get free compost/soil, too. But we only have a sedan, so it doesn't work well to use this. A truck would be VERY handy for this sort of thing.
Yes, the car situation does make it challenging. We have two compact cars and getting stuff to the compost can seem like an endless job!
DeleteWe live in the city limits, so we have yard pickup (and a newly add-on organic waste requirement, which I think is terrific). So yeah, we have a large garbage can for all that, but our yard is small and the leaves in front of the house are manageable.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of other places where they have compost and recycling site and I think it's terrific if the residents diligently do their duty and drop it off there.
I do kind of like the community nature of all of us dutifully going to the compost site. We're all doing our part for the environment!
DeleteWe live in a townhome complex, and we have 'green waste' bins, that I believe go to compost. They include things like leaves and such from gardening, as well as food waste. There is a place to get compost as well, I believe for free. I've never gotten any, I'm convinced my dog would eat it. He's that way.
ReplyDeleteHa! I'm just imagining your dog running around our compost site. A lot of people bring their dogs with them and the smells must be amazing for them!
DeleteWe have compost pickup for 2 weeks in spring and 2 in fall. At other times, we take it to the compost yard. As of this weekend it will be closing until spring.
ReplyDeleteIf ours closed right now, the town would revolt! We're still dealing with leaves falling! We have until the first Saturday in December to get to the compost.
DeleteOur city does yard pick-up through mid-Nov I think. And then year-round compost for non-yard things. I love the compost program! My husband calls me the "compost queen" because I am often saying - 'you can compost that!'.
ReplyDeleteAhhh this reminds me (again) that I need to get my little balcony winter ready otherwise all my herbs will die. Time...
ReplyDeleteThis is what I truly dislike about living in an apartment. I don't need yard waste (thank goodness) but good GRIEF I am sick of bagging up my recycling. I have to put it in a plastic garbage bag. They take a lot of stuff, including glass and all kinds of paper, but arrrrgh the bagging thing. Sorry, it's a 'thing' for me. Also, I wish I could compost. I have so much organic waste that just... goes in the garbage. Sigh. I love your town's compost pile - my parents have a huge pile of decomposing leaves in the woods at the bottom of their yard. They've been adding to it for 40 years now! There is probably some really good dirt on the bottom of that pile. :)
ReplyDelete