A Visit To Mercer Educational Gardens

I finally got out to the Mercer Educational Gardens for their annual plant sale. It's out past Terhune Orchards a ways, and features well-tended gardens and various useful demonstrations.

For instance, a variety of rainbarrels are on display. The giant white cistern, which looks like it holds a thousand gallons, is what you'd actually need several of if you were serious about capturing all the runoff from your roof.

I've been starting to see these lately--plastic rainbarrels made to look like pottery. These two are in tandem. The second one has an overflow pipe if they both fill up.

This appears to be a compost bin that actually converts the decompositional energy inside into classical decompositions which, if played backwards through the speaker on top, sound like music. Devotees of this obscure genre may be familiar with some of the more accomplished and experienced decomposers like Nevohteeb and Levar.

This sign explains how 41% of our "household trash" is compostable.

Maybe if more homeowners in Princeton read this sign,

(warning: pet peeve about to be taken for a walk)

they wouldn't keep dumping their high-nitrogen grass clippings on the street, where they create a mess and pollute the local waterways.

Thanks to the Mercer County Extension for encouraging people to do right by their gardens and their local streams, and showing them the way..