Tag: earth month

Happy Earth Month 2025! Inside the Compost Bin wins Riverby Award, selected for 2025 Green Earth Book Award Long List

~ Melody ~ Leave a comment

I probably get as excited for Earth Month as much as some people get excited for the holidays. Maybe it’s because at least for one month out of the year when I share my excitement with a stranger about something nature, climate, or sustainability related, it’s usually enthusiastically received and in-theme for April. During Earth Month there is much more sharing of positive news about the planet than any other time of the year, businesses are proudly showing off their sustainable practices, and on Earth Day (April 22), people come together to actively move the needle for a healthier, more beautiful world to live in.

I always hope that all this peak action would extend past the month and into the entirety of the year. It always brings me joy to hear and see sustainability take more prominence in our daily lives. It’s in the laws for how we manage our waste, and in the store aisles we walk through as we’re presented with options to choose products that are more mindfully sourced and produced. It’s in the recycled fabrics of the clothing we wear, in the plots of movies we watch, and in between the pages of the books we read. It’s in the electrified transportation we commute on, and in the food we choose, and don’t choose, to eat. Speaking of electrified, did you know that the theme for this year’s Earth Day is Our Power, Our Planet? The theme is an invitation for everyone around the world to unite behind renewable energy, with the goal to triple global clean electricity generation by 2030. An ambitious goal for sure, but that’s a future I’m excited to live in!

Along the theme of Earth Month, I’m deeply grateful to announce that my debut picture book, Inside the Compost Bin, is one of the winners of the 2025 Riverby Award, alongside six other excellent picture books (picture source: John Burroughs Association):

I also want to give a special congratulatory shout-out to my amazing illustrator duo, Rồng Phạm and Vinh Nguyễn, for giving my words so much life. This book is as wonderful as it is because you both illustrated it. Thank you, always.

The Riverby Award is awarded by the John Burroughs Association and recognizes exceptional nature books for young readers. Since 1988, this award has been given annually to works that “present perceptive and artistic accounts of direct experiences in the world of nature, demonstrating a respect for nature, accuracy of information, and quality of prose and illustrations” (source: John Burroughs Association). 

What was especially moving to me about this award is that I have a collection of John Burroughs essays right on my book shelf (spy the blue binding!):

Isn’t that super cool?

While I’m unable to attend the in-person awards luncheon next week in New York, to receive recognition from the association that is headed by John Burroughs’ descendants, and seeks to preserve his literary legacy is very meaningful to me.

Alongside the Riverby Award, I am also excited to announce that my book was long listed in the 2025 Green Earth Book Award! The Green Earth Book Award is the United States’ “first environmental stewardship award for books that inspire children and young adults to grow a deeper understanding, respect, and responsibility for the natural environment” (source: The Nature Generation). It’s such an honor to be listed with all these wonderful books. Can you find Inside the Compost Bin among the covers (picture source: The Nature Generation)?

Thanks for taking the time to read. I hope you have a wonderful Earth Month.

~Melody

What should I do with my composting worms while on a trip?

~ Melody

One of the things I did to fulfill my hours for my Master Composter certification back in 2019 was write a few articles for Solana Center. Recently, they posted one of those articles I wrote years ago in their newsletter and I thought it was good information to cross-post. =D

Check out the original post source here: https://solanacenter.org/2024/03/22/from-the-rotline-what-should-i-do-with-my-worms-while-on-a-trip/

Question: “What should I do with my worms while on a trip?”

Answer: Depending on the length of your trip, you will likely not need to do anything at all. Even a new population of worms only needs to be monitored every few days to assess how much food was eaten, moisture levels, and whether they need more food. If you’re planning to go out of town for the holidays this year, regardless of how long your trip may be, consider following these steps prior to embarking on your adventure: 

1. Make sure they have a good amount of bedding at a proper moisture amount. Instead of throwing lots of kitchen scraps into your worm bin to make up for your absence, which could disrupt the pH of your bin or even smother your worms, make sure you leave your worms an adequate amount of moist bedding– at least a six-inch layer. Worms can live off bedding material such as shredded paper, coffee grounds, or dried leaves, for a month or longer! Of course, you can still add kitchen scraps before you head off, giving them about twice what you’d normally feed your worms weekly.

2. Ensure your bin is in a shaded area. Worms do best at temperatures between 55°F – 79°F. Temperatures above 85°F can be lethal. 

3. If you are leaving during the wintertime, consider insulating your bin with a blanket or soil, or bring the bin inside in case of cold snaps. While worms do better in colder temperatures than hot, temperatures below 32°F can devastate your worm population. 

4. If you’ll be gone over a month, consider recruiting a “worm-sitter” to visit and add some food scraps after a few weeks. You can even prep some kitchen scraps in a bag or container in the freezer for easy feeding; frozen scraps can be added straight to the bin. Just make sure your sitter knows to cover the kitchen scraps with bedding so you aren’t greeted by flies upon your return!

When you return from your trip, provide your worms with some fresh kitchen scraps and they’ll be happy to see you!

Written by Certified Master Composter Melody Plan

Check out the original post source here: https://solanacenter.org/2024/03/22/from-the-rotline-what-should-i-do-with-my-worms-while-on-a-trip/

Cover Reveal + How a New Years Resolution Eventually Made Me an Author

~ Melody

Happy start of Earth Month! Dan was super awesome and put together this info graphic to show off the beautiful cover illustrated by talented artists, Rong and Vinh. Seriously, look how LOVELY:

I’m so excited to be able to hold a physical copy in my hands in just a few months, and can’t wait until you all can see what we created together.

I was inspired to start composting because of a new years resolution I made at the beginning of 2019. I had read a headline of an article about a girl, maybe about 11 or 12, who fit all her trash in a single year in a mason jar. I remember thinking to myself, “That’s impossible,” and sort of blowing it off, but for some reason the topic of the headline stuck with me throughout the day– it offended me somehow, bruised my ego as someone who considered themselves pretty eco-conscious. I was arrogant enough then to think, if I can’t do it then how can someone else? But as I thought more about the concept, it dawned on me that I was already considering it impossible without having ever tried.

I figured then that while I likely couldn’t fit everything in a mason jar right away, I could probably fit all my trash in one bin over the course of a year. And thus, the new years resolution: “Fit all my waste in one trash bin” was born.

This caused me to do a waste audit and investigate what I was throwing away. I found very quickly that about 75-85% of what I was throwing out weekly was food waste (banana peels, onion rinds, leftovers that gone bad, etc.). And so I knew if I was going to be honest about this resolution, I was going to have to learn to compost. I signed up for Solana Center’s Master Composter program quickly after that.

And the rest is history. =)

Volunteering with Solana Center to teach others the wonders of compost

To say I loved learning and teaching others how to compost feels like an understatement. There’s something familiar and comforting about returning the resources the world offers you back to the land to nourish it for future generations. Like our very own return to roots, as our predecessors did similarly by burying their own waste back into the soil. A connection to our past for a better, healthier future. The compost process is methodical, meditative, patient– it’s observing nature and mimicking her in a way that shows our gratitude to where food comes from, by giving organics new life, right beneath our feet.

Organics, like food waste, that end up in a landfill are generally wrapped in plastic trash bags, likely never to touch earth in our lifetime, our kids’ lifetime, or our great-great-great-great-grandkids’ lifetimes either. It’s nuts to think that every single piece of plastic ever made since it was invented, is still here with us. You might hear that plastic can decompose in as little as 20 years now with some new technologies, but even those plastics never truly go away, they just get smaller and smaller and become microplastics, to be eaten by marine life and leading to malnutrition, fertility reduction, and mortality.

This is all to say– this is how I got started composting, from a completely different place (assuaging my ego), and honestly it doesn’t really matter why you decide to start composting. What matters is, you start.

Maybe next new years resolution is fitting everything in a mason jar, eh? Til next time.

Melody