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Category: Compost

Compost for the garden

With the amount of vegetable peelings, grapes, weeds that don't have seeds, newspaper and everything else I been throwing in the compost this summer, I've managed to fill the two bins I have to the top.

So, to make more room, last night I opened up the bottom of one of the bins that had been composting since last spring and was able to get almost a bushel full of rich, dark compost. Well, actually that little door at the bottom of the bin is just not big enough, so I just pushed the whole thing over. Much easier. After taking out the compost it gave me more room to continue adding grapes, tomato peelings, etc.

It was a real lesson for the youngest daughter.She had never watched me get finished compost before; she thought that they were just two big garbage bins back there. She was almost right, but you need to have a combination of food waste (no meat or grease) and brown waste (such as leaves) so it will start to decompose over time in to a rich soil. You can read my previous posts on composting for lists on what you can and cannot compost to get an idea on what to put in your bin. I found one of my kitchen knives in there - that would definitely fall under what NOT to compost.

With the type of compost bins I have it can take anywhere from six months to 1 year to get finished compost. It helps to have two, one to fill, and the other to leave alone, and let compost.

You can catch up with my garden at Gardening in Lower MI.

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Category: Compost

Paper or plastic? How about reusable?

As I was composting last week I realized I had just been throwing a lot of green stuff in my compost and that I really didn't have any brown. To compost properly you need a mixture of brown-like leaves, pine cones, weeds and green-like vegetable peelings, no grease or meat.

Then I remembered I could use newspaper so I shredded some paper and got the compost started again. Later, someone informed me I could also use the paper bags you can get from the store. Well, I realized I didn't have any paper bags, I always get plastic.

There are three different stores we frequent, depending which offers the best deals on groceries that week. There is the store we go to once a month where you bag your own and get a good deal. When we go there, I make sure I bring my reusable bags.

The best store we go to, I think, is the one that just changed to bags that are 100 percent biodegradable. The cashier was a little worried the first time I got them and said they could biodegrade as I went to the car. It didn't quite happen, but I felt good about it anyway.

The other store just sticks your groceries in a plastic bag. I always make myself feel better about the plastic bags because we reuse them so much: for the trash in the bathroom, the kitty litter and dog waste. So we're reusing right? There is reduce, reuse and recycle. But oldest daughter informed me the plastic bags are still causing a lot of pollution.

Then, you have to think of paper bags whose former lives were as a tree and the amount of machinery that was used to fell those trees. It takes a lot of natural resources to make a paper bag. They decompose more rapidly than plastic, but at what expense? The debate goes on and on.

So what to do? I'm going to be brave, go to that plastic bag store this morning with my recyclable bags and hand them to the cashier before she starts shoving the food in the plastic bags. Also, I'm going to leave bags in both cars so when I stop for just a few things they will be there for me to use. It shouldn't be too hard to do but with every lifestyle change it will take some getting used to.

You can catch up with my garden at Gardening in Lower MI.

Category: Compost

You can't compost everything

The last blog post I wrote about composting included things you should compost for the environment and your garden.

When I was cleaning up the garden and throwing weeds in the compost bin recently, I started thinking about things you shouldn't compost. Kind of scared me; I wasn't sure if weeds were on Marion Olson's list, but after much research I found out I can compost weeds, but not if they are full of seeds. That way next year they don't return after you spread the compost in your garden.

Thank goodness mine didn't have seeds. With the rain we have been getting if you don't pick them up off the soil, they just dig down in and sprout up again later.

Then I continued reading and found a lot of things people may think about composting but shouldn't, such as:
dog waste or cat litter
bones
meat
weeds that are full of seeds
wood
diseased plants
human waste (yep some people do this)
BBQ charcoal
diary products
metal
glass
plastic
grease
rice
walnuts
mayonnaise and salad dressing
peanut butter
citrus peels (too acidic)
diapers

Many of these things can cause your compost to develop a bad odor, attract wild life or will harbor disease. I'm sure there are more, I'll add to the list them as I find them.

For city dwellers I have found another way to compost is in a trash can (also very economical). For detailed instructions visit Go Organic Gardening. So, composting is something just about everyone can do.

Stop by for a visit to my garden at Gardening in Lower MI.

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Category: Compost

Beyond kitchen scraps, leaves - what do you compost?

Composting is one the best things you can do for your garden and the environment. Compost is a combination of food waste (no meat or grease) and brown waste such as leaves that decompose over time to form into a nice rich soil you get to add to your garden. One complete cycle.

As to what to put in a compost bin, I never thought beyond kitchen waste until our dryer needed work and we found it was stopped up with lint. After researching, I found you can compost dryer lint. I would have never thought of composting lint or vacuum cleaner bag contents. These are just a couple of the 163 things you can compost listed on Marion Owen's Web site, PlanTea - some of which I just don't want to think about, but others I'll try to remember.

I have two compost bins now, one of which I have been adding to and the other I'm leaving alone to make compost. Depending on which method you choose it could take from 3 months to 2 years to make compost. In a bin like mine, (it is the easiest, you never turn), it takes from six months to two years to turn into compost. Then there are the turning bins that take about three-six months to make compost. Last but not least, you could just make a pile of compost; it's not as neat, but it's not as expensive.