Advance Review: Compost City by Rebecca Louie

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Compost City Practical Composting Know-How for Small-Space LivingCompost City is clearly written, humorous, informative, and above all practical. Rebecca Louie is a certified Master Composter with years of experience composting, and she covers multiple kinds of composting, giving methods suitable for anyone at any location, though her emphasis is on composting in the city where space is limited. She starts with the basics—what is composting and how does it work? After this, she moves on to particulars. Rather than stopping with hot composting vs. vermiculture, she describes several different methods and forms of composting and possible locations—outdoors, indoors, underground, with worms, and bokashi (pickling!). In each case, she gives specific instructions for do-it-yourself methods or for purchasable products and talks about how much and what kind of work it will take to maintain the compost and what to do if things start to go awry.

Louie writes enthusiastically about the benefits of composting and includes a chapter on how to organize community composting. Like her previous chapters, this is full of solid, practical advice including lists of the various kinds of people who will need to be contacted and what their concerns may be. Further, she has included short interviews with and profiles of individuals and groups who have successfully worked on a community level in their composting efforts. At the back of the book, Louie includes a list of links and books for those who want to explore composting or community efforts.

I recommend Compost City to anyone who gardens, is considering composting, or already composts, no matter where they live or what scale they plan on working.

Compost City: Practical Composting Know-How for Small-Space Living comes out May 19 2015. While you’re waiting, you may want to visit Rebecca Louie’s site thecompostess.com/. Her less compost-related website is at rebeccalouie.com

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