Compost Awareness Week May 7-13, 2006

We're celebrating compost awareness week in the U.S., Canada and the UK, May 7-14, 2006. If you're looking for something green to do, get down to earth and make a huge difference with composting. Yard trimmings and kitchen waste make up approximately 25%-30% of our landfills. Back yard composting is something simple you can start today to decrease landfill waste, and create free fertilizer for the garden. If you've ever driven past a landfill, the smell alone is enough motivation for personal action. You ask, why won't my yard trimmings and kitchen waste break down in the landfill? Landfills have liner systems to keep the waste contained. Your kitchen waste needs contact with soil and worms, and insects, and microorganisms to break it down into compost.

Forget all the complicated instructions you've heard on how to compost. If you have a yard, all you need to do is:
1. Pick a sunny spot, remove the sod in about a 3' x 3' area, and enclose it a little (I used some large rocks I found)
2. You're ready to begin! Wow, how easy is that?

Ideally, layer your kitchen waste, alternating with yard trimmings. Turn it about once a month, and make sure it gets some water. Don't worry about adding worms. If you create a compost the worms will come, along with a lot of other insects you never knew existed. I recently dug up some compost from the bottom of my pile and it looked like "A Bug's Life" under there with a small, very quick black snake. If you have bug-phobia I highly recommend using a shovel with a very long handle for turning. There are some items you should and should not put in your compost:

Do Compost

Fruit& vegetable scraps
Egg shells
Coffee grounds and filters
Tea bags
Cardboard
Fireplace ash
Leaves
Grass
Yard clippings
Vacuum cleaner lint
Sawdust
Crumpled up non-recyclable Paper
Manure


Don't Compost

Dairy products
Meats, Fish & Bones
Fats
Grease & oil
Pet waste
Diseased plants
Weeds (the seeds may cause excessive weed pulling in the future)

*I keep a large bowl next to the kitchen sink for scraps and take it out to the compost pile once a day.

If you live in an apartment you can still compost, it's a little more labor intensive, but not that difficult. Look up "vermicomposting" on the web.

Today, make a worm smile.....

Until next time...Peace & Love