Thursday, March 26, 2009

Re-Cre8 Your Garbage: Composting

We've had a composting bin for years, but we didn't know what we were doing with it. We had it next to the shed in the shade and we only put yard clippings in it. It wasn't doing much.

So, as our small little container gardening was going so well for us last summer, we thought we were ready for the next step of composting. We moved our bin to the sunlight. We started collecting kitchen scraps, old cardboard boxes, along with the yard waste to balance out the bin. DH religiously waters and turns the compost. At first, it was a pile of garbage (surprisingly, not too smelly). Eventually it became a beautiful pile of rich topsoil that we can use for this year's planting. Yeah.

And, we've got worms. Ours came of their own accord to feast on the glorious coffee grinds, banana peels, and junk mail. Oh, glorious day!



Composting gets two thumbs up from me. Here's my top ten list for why composting is great.

10. Lots of free pet worms!

9. A chore little kids love - adding their banana peels to the composter.

8. Makes it fun to clean out the refrigerator. The moldier the better for the compost.

7. Switch to fewer garbage pickups and save money.

6. Organic fertilizer for your landscaping.

5. Less waste has to go to waste processing facilities which saves energy.

4. Use fewer plastic trash bags.

3. Great free topsoil for the garden.

2. How often can you get excited about dirt?

1. No stinky food trash smelling up the garage.

Interested in composting? Here are some good resources:
Nature.org
HowToCompost.org
Easy Composting from Montgomery County Recycles

1 comment:

Amy @ Finer Things said...

Our compost is made in this "built in" cement pit at the edge of our yard. Would love to know what it was originally intended for, but that's how we use it! ;-)