I’m a composting nut. I’ve saved tons of food waste from entering the landfill and raised millions of healthy earthworms. since 1975…for really…I have composted all of my cooking refuse. there is a stainless steel 4 quart soup pot that lives on the counter by the sink. It has a lid and is always shiny. throughout the day everything from fruit and veg peelings, hulls and seed pits to tea bags goes in. at dusk I walk back to the fenced composting area and dig a hole, chop everything up, layer it with shredded leaves or grass and bury it. back inside I wash the pot and we’re good to go for tomorrow.
all through the growing season I have instant, at the ready, beautiful rich compost to add the garden and top dress the shrubs.
This post was submitted by Donna Iona Drozda.
In my area they’ve now added a ‘green box’ for composting. It makes us cringe because, as you point out, it’s very easy to compost things at home. If one has a garden – you want all the compost you can get. In the fall we’re driving around grabbing pumpkins and picking up bags of leaves … for composting.
We gave up on vermicomposting. It worked – but it was too slow for us. We have a few composters in the back yard [and more at the community garden] and it’s easier to just put things into that.
If you’ve not read it, I suggest The Humanure Handbook (free online):
http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure_contents.html
I’m partial to what we had on the farm though (excluding the manure from the cattle, ducks and other animals) – a compost pile the size of the one in the Humanure Handbook – something like a pair of 4′ square boxes.
The square plastic composters are garbage and a pain to use. The round ones are nice – you just lift them up, take out what’s composted and fork the rest into another composter.
Note that nitrogen is an excellent accelerator for compost. That’s why some people add regular fertilizer. However, a much easier solution is right at hand – you’re peeing out tons of nitrogen every day. All of that excess protein which we eat (and boy is there a lot of it as we easily eat 4x as much as we need) comes out as nitrogen leeching calcium from our bones …
http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2004nl/040100puproteinoverload.htm
If your compost is steaming hot – then it’s working well (more on that in the book).
A good source of carbon is coffee grinds. I can get 3 gallons per day easily – but straight it’ll kill your worms and straight it’ll mold – mix it with leaves and other compost. Coffee shops will give you the stuff if you just give them a 4 gallon pail to fill and it’s a great way to recycle nutrients removed by plants.
Comment by Eric — January 27, 2010 @ 11:41 am