5/17/2009

The Compost Post

Those who know us well know that we enjoy gardening and green things. In fact, one of the major reasons we bought the house we did was because of the many flowerbeds and lawns (or potential lawns) in both the front and back. Emily LOVES growing flowers and I'm holding out for the day when we start growing vegetables. I LOVE veggies!

Ever since we bought a house we have talked about composting to help our garden become more "green" (in more ways than one). Some stores sell composters, but most are well over $100.
 That's been more green than we've wanted to spend to become "green," especially when the composting is somewhat experimental for us. 

If you aren't familiar with composting click here for a Wikipedia article explaining it in a little more detail.

A few weeks ago I learned that composting can be done in a makeshift compost bin made from a garbage bin.  I took my trusty drill and drilled a bunch of holes in my $10 garbage bin (it was made from 100% recycled plastic) and added the necessary ingredients.


For those of you who aren't familiar with composting (and didn't look at the Wikipedia link
 above), composting requires 4 important elements:

1. Browns (carbon-rich materials) such as wood, cardboard, newspapers, leaves, lint or even hair.

2. Greens(nitrogen-rich materials), including grass clippings, carrot peels and other kitchen waste.



3. Water--just enough to make the browns and greens as damp as a wrung-out sponge.

4.  Oxygen--this is the reason I drilled a bunch of holes in the garbage bin.

Now we turn the contents weekly and wait for the end result: compost. And just in case you're still wondering, compost basically a super-organic fertilizer.  Or something like that.  


3 comments:

Sarra said...

I'm proud of your maiden voyage into composting! I've had lots of practice with it, and I gotta tell you, a major plus to the compost is also manure. It's smelly, but your garden will love you more for giving it manure than other people's gardens love them for NOT giving them manure. Make sense?

Team Aries said...

You forgot the 5th and most important thing. Nose Plugs! Good luck.

Mutti said...

I have to second Team Aries comment! We are proud of your efforts to go 'green' without much 'green'.