Talk:Trashing organic foods

"Students, Come to the Gym and meet THE SCHOOL'S HERO!"

...I have composted in Arkansas since 1969. After High School, I went to Long Island to take art classes from two famous painters, where I was "Enormously Disturbed at the condition of the corn-rows," -around and near the Hamptons.

Most people would not have been so upset, but I remember saying that the situation on Long Island was "Bordering on Criminal Negligence!" I went to the Dean at the Hampton Day School to convince her of the need to start an organic garden. She reluctantly allowed me to use a portion of their unattended land for 'recycling,' with the explicit understanding that I would remove all of the debris, "if it started stinking." Man was she ignorant, so I thought.

I built an 8'x8' plot, about 3' high. (This was the only size heap I knew how to manage.) By the end of the summer, I had convinced the students and staff to contribute and while it was stewing beautifully, I spread the mixture carefully along the fence-line, a little at a time, each day as I walked home from Brigehampton to Sag Harbour.

This is no Bull, mostly fishbones, veggies, milk and lawn-grass!

It was of no real consequence at the time, but I couldn't have lived with myself had I not done this. About 25 years later, I stopped by the school just for the memories. They actually had a security guard. When I explained my interest in their flourishing gardens, I found myself at the center of a virtual Mardi-Gras Celebration! I was soon covered in flowers. Supposedly, I remain the uncontested 'Hero' of the Hampton Day School.

The secret is; "the bugs and parasites must create an eco-system of their own balance." It takes very little time to understand P.H.- and temperature, something that fascinated these kids, causing their great minds to blossom!

-Tom Scott Gordon, A/V Systems Engineer