Composting- From your home to your yard

High Holidays are over and we are back!!! Hi everyone!

Composting is simple - or at least it should be.

Whether you live in the country or city, composting is essential to keeping our environment healthy.  By composting, you are not putting extra things, like food scraps and paper into the landfill, incinerator or recycling plant.

When someone says, "I compost", it means that they are making sure that all their eggs shells, coffee grounds, banana peels, apple cores, veggie edges, uneaten food (no meat or cheese - keep your compost pile kosher), computer paper, newspaper (anything without a wax cover), leaves, grass clippings are going into a container that will stay moist in a shady area so the organic materials can breakdown and make soil.  Soil is the final goal.  And because you didn't put anything inorganic into the pile, it will turn out to be a rich brown soil that your plants will love.

This is our in- home compost container that we bought on www.gardensupply.com.  It has a carbon filter in the lid which we change every 3 months.  The carbon filter keeps the stink down.   And because the container isn't huge, we have to empty it often, also helping to avoid a smelly kitchen.  We spent a little extra money and got a nice ceramic one.  We spend so much time in the kitchen, that we don't want to look at something we think is ugly.

We empty the ceramic container into our huge compost pile in the backyard.   (see the one above - not exactly like ours but close) All this is is chicken wire and some garden stakes.  Instead of the square one shown here, ours is a circle.  Here are all the pluses to the one we have:
- easy to turn the material with a pitch fork (important to keep air flow through the pile)

- easy to empty our small container
- easy to get to
- because we maintain it, it doesn't smell
- tall enough that animals can't get into it.

You can also use other neat things for your outside compost container, like these (pictures are from www.gardensupply.com)

These are more expensive examples of compost containers.  Whatever you are making your compost in, just make sure it is easy for you!! 






The biggest thing I tell people when they are deciding if they are going to compost is to make sure that it is in an easy to reach spot.  Just make this process easy and fun and you will be rewarded.

Any questions???