Adventures in composting - Part I
Over the weekend I took my yearly spring trip to the local nursery for our garden goodies. But this year was different; it is officially the beginning of my venture into composting. I bought myself a backyard compost, and I'm very excited.I have been wanting to do this for a while, but procrastination being what it is I put it off and put it off. But now I am putting it off no more. So now that we have it we had to put it together, easy enough. Find the perfect place for it, easy enough, we have the perfect spot for it along the backside of the house. But I hit a roadblock; the informative booklet that came with my composter says that I need a two or three inch layer at the bottom of dried twigs. Oh really I don't have that many dried twigs. Hmmm.
So the story goes, we cleaned up the backyard and put together all the dry leaves, twigs and clippings we could find. We put all our compost ready discards in a plastic container to save for the arrival of those twigs. And now I wait for twigs...
My husband is going to stop by his mom's house today and see if we can "borrow" some twigs. But what if she has no twigs. Plan "C" we start knocking on neighbor's doors. I'm starting that pile today one way or another!
To be continued...
Got any tips for me? If you are a compost expert, please I need all the help I can get.
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About this blog
Roxanne Kotzman is a Daily News Photo Department veteran of nine years. When she and longtime friend Stacy Long
discovered their love all of all things environmentally responsible, they launched Happy Monkey Planet and jumped head-first into the vibrant eco-community.
Wow, so much to learn! But initially the idea is a pretty simple one: Let's change the world through information, education and action.
Rox & Stacy are a lot like you: ecologically minded but sometimes just plain overwhelmed when charged with the task of making a far-reaching difference in the environment. They have jobs, families, homes, lives and pets.
But what if doing better was a simple as a light-bulb change, a reusable canvas grocery bag, recycling that soda can or a cold-water wash?
These eco-chicks just hope to have a little fun, learn a little more, share a lot of information and maybe make the planet a happier, greener, cleaner place.
You will be stunned at how little actual trash is left after recycling and composting...my parents are the compost pros!
We started composting about 6 months ago and I still can't believe how much less garbage we put in our trash cans! We use to take about 3 bags from the house to the garbage cans every week and now we only take 1 or 2.
I don't really have any "advice" as we started the old fashioned way: set aside a small plot of dirt in the backyard and just add stuff to it, turning it all over every couple of weeks. We're getting ready to plant our summer garden and can't wait to add the wonderful looking compost to our tomato plants!
I'm curious what you're using to put your composting 'fodder' in before you take it outside. We've currently got a giant ziplock bag we keep next to the sink but if you forget to sip it things can get kinda stinky in the kitchen. :-)
We have an old plastic container with a lid that we are using. We just dump the stuff in there close the lid and set it aside. BTW our pile is in progress:)