Compost the crap out of those leftovers!

   Ahhh composting. There's nothing greater than the feeling of taking all those leftover veggies, fruits, and coffee grounds and "recycling" them back into nature.  Not only is composting great for your gardens and lawns, but it's great on the wallet too! Between recycling and composting I'm not even so sure we need to be paying for garbage removal every week (But oh wait, there's those pesky little diapers which I'm not keeping in my house any longer than I have to. And NO, cloth diapers or biodegradable insert ones are NOT for me. That's a discussion for some other time)

   But anyways, composting is beyond easy and it's FREE! No need to pay for organic mulch for that veggie garden of yours every summer when you can make your own bonafide compost instead! And you don't need a big space or a big yard to benefit from composting either. We have an acre of land and a compost pile in the back that started with grass clippings from the lawn a few years back. It's not particularly pretty and we don't have a fancy bin for it, but it does the trick. You can buy great compost bins out there that help you churn over the matter inside or even plastic bins you can use to conceal all the trimmings. It's all up to you. But what matters most is what you put in it! So quit being trashy! As in don't throw everything away. Here are a few tips, but mind you I am no expert in composting, I'm still a green thumb in training.

To start out there are a few basic you need to know: Compost contains either nitrogen (grass clippings, leaves, vegetable and fruit scraps, etc) or carbon ( dried leaves, bark, eggshells, coffee filters etc), materials.

1.) Start out with a base of straw or twigs on the bottom of your pile to generate air flow.
2.) Add materials in layers alternating dry (twigs, bark,sawdust) and wet (grass clippings, vegetable, fruit scraps)
3.) Keep compost moist (we just wait for it to rain)
4.) Every few weeks turn pile with a pitchfork (Husband does this every time he adds new grass clippings)
5.) Note: Meat, Fish, etc should not be placed in a compost pile as this will attract animals

Here are just a few things you can compost ( read about 75 things you didn't know you could compost here) and also check out this website for a more in-depth tutorial on composting :

Coffee Grounds/Filter
Vegetable Scraps
Fruit Scraps
Eggshells
Leaves
Grass clippings
Newspaper
Cardboard
Flowers/Plants (not treated with pesticides)
Weeds (that have not grown seeds)



Picture of the compost my brother has in D.C. ( even small spaces have room for a compost) Thanks Bro!

Picture of my compost in my background (picture to come...it's dark out as I write this :