before earth
If you want to compost your vegetables in Greenpoint, there’s only one place to do it, at the North Brooklyn Compost Project. They’ll take your greens and give you fresh compost for your plants, but you have to volunteer once per summer in exchange. Last summer I managed to wheedle my way out of volunteering, but this year, someone trapped me, and I found myself headed to the compost pile to give my time on one of those hot, humid mornings where the air sits on your arms and weighs you down, the kind of a day that make you hate New York. I tried not to be grumpy about it, even when my roommate fled to the beach. It was only a two hour shift after all. The compost project was set up in a busy corner of the park, between the dog run, the farmer’s market, and the farm share. It was 11 am, and the corner was crowded with the early risers, people that I rarely see in the neighborhood on saturdays. I stood there next to the steaming piles of decay and looked at the farm s