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By Root 256 0

food comes from organic soil, and the best organic gardening soil is made up almost entirely of compost. While composting may seem complicated, it’s actually a very easy addition to a green lifestyle. Compost is essential to a successful organic garden because it replaces the functions of all chemical fertilizers and sprays and provides the authentic nutrients that additives so poorly mimic. Again, just because the use of chemicals produces food that looks good doesn’t mean it tastes good or is good for you. Composting does both, and it does it in a way that promotes a healthful environment for a worm population in your garden. Worms are Mother Nature’s microplows and fertilizers. They till and aerate the soil and lay down essential nutrients as they go, and they do it all day long for free.

Perhaps the best thing about compost is that it, too, is free. It’s essentially decomposing plant material so why would you pay for it? (Aside from the fact that most city folks do just that when they buy plastic bags of it for their home gardens.)

Another great thing about compost is how easy it is to produce. You begin the process every time you prepare a meal with fruit or vegetables. Kitchen scraps—the tough ends of the asparagus or the banana peel—are not garbage. Embracing this idea can change your waste consciousness as well as your garden. Read it again: kitchen scraps are not garbage. Uncooked kitchen scraps are still food, so don’t toss them. They are a banquet loaded with life-sustaining food that the microorganisms in your composter will just love to get a hold of.

Follow these easy steps and you’ll be on your way to composting at home:

BUILD OR BUY A COMPOSTER

The composter is just a place to allow the decomposition of plant materials in an optimum way. There are many on the market: tumblers, grates, bins, pods, even glorified garbage cans. Some are made from recycled plastic that would have ended up in a landfill. Research the various types online or at a local garden shop and decide which one suits your needs and space requirements. You can also make a composter with stakes and chicken wire or recycled wooden pallets. You can make a functional composter by binding, screwing, or wiring four wooden pallets together, thus keeping the pallets out of the landfill. (A local grocery, furniture or lumber store, or even large electronics outlet will be happy to get rid of their old wooden pallets.) Our composter is a simple wooden box with slats to allow air to circulate.

CHOOSE A GOOD LOCATION

Use a well-drained, level spot, away from walls or wooden fences. If possible, keep the composter away from trees, as their roots will tend to seek the moisture and nutrients in your compost pile. You’ll need to set aside 4 or 5 square feet of space; the more space you have, the easier it will be to access the composter. If you have a lot of space and a large garden, you may want to place three composters side by side and use them in a rotational sequence to optimize the composting stages. But for the purposes of this book, I’m going to focus on the easier, single-bin method.

LEARN HOW TO USE THE COMPOSTER CORRECTLY

First, lay down a base layer of branches and twigs, about 6 inches’ worth. (You can even use a wooden pallet for the base layer.) This will help air to circulate under the material you will add to the composter. You will fill it gradually with layers of both brown and green material.

The green layer can include:

Grass cuttings

Tea leaves (including the bag if it’s made of organic recycled material; be sure to remove staples)

Cut/dead flowers Weeds (leaves only—no roots or seeds)

Seaweed, pond clearings (leaves or matter found at the top of a pond), algae

For the brown layer you can use:

Wood material, prunings, wood chips (shredded if possible)

coffee grounds

Recycled brown paper, cardboard, paper towels (without any food on them)—shredded if possible

Leaves (small quantities)

Egg shells (rinsed and crushed) and egg cartons Sawdust, wood shavings, pine cones

Hay and straw (small quantities)

Clothes-dryer