Composting is easy all year round
Keep your vegetable scraps out of the garbage disposal and landfill

Daisy Brosi-Spears places spoiled produce on her family’s little back yard compost pile.

Her father, Michael Spears, says the pile has “absolutely not been a bother.”

    Every home should have a compost pile for recycling kitchen scraps, leaves, grass clippings and other plant waste.  
    There is a simple way to keep a compost pile which works perfectly well all year round. Whenever you have kitchen scraps and other plant material just put them in a pile. In about 6-12 months they will have turned to compost!
    Turning is not needed unless you want to speed up the process. You can take compost off the bottom of the pile as it is ready.  Or you can start a new pile while you let the old pile completely finish.  
    Compost piles ordinarily do not smell. If you notice an odor, it means your materials are not loose enough to let air circulate. Including materials such as small twigs or stiffer stems helps to let the air in. And make sure water isn’t trapped within the pile.
    A mix of moist “green” and dry “brown” materials (like kitchen vegetables and dry leaves) works best.  Don’t include meat products.
     If you want a neat looking pile you can make one yourself with scrap boards or fencing. Always be sure to leave space for air circulation.
     One of the easiest ways to keep your pile neat (and keep dogs out) is take a  piece of fencing about ten feet long,  bend it into a cylinder and stand it on end.  Just lift the wire cylinder when the compost is ready.
    It's far better to enrich the soil by composting than to put valuable vegetable material down the garbage disposal where it may shorten the life of your septic system or add an extra burden at the water treatment plant. 
    Another reason to keep vegetable material out of your garbage is that plant material in a landfill decomposes without oxygen, forming methane gas.  Methane gas is a very potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
    If you have no outdoor space to compost, see our upcoming tip about indoor worm bins!

Copyright 2008 Christine Missik