I love composting! I love the earthy smell of compost. And I love watching things that I would normally just throw into my garbage can develop into nutrient rich organic matter that my plants just can't get enough of. The worms in my garden love it. Even my cats like scratching in it when I'm not watching, but that's another story altogether.
Benefits of Composting
Composting your compostable wastes helps build soil fertility. Even if you just have a few flower beds or maybe grow your own tomatoes every year, compost will help them grow better. Using compost also prevents you from having to use more chemical fertilizers. And using less chemical fertilizer is always a good thing. The less chemical fertilizers that are being used means less of them being leached into our lakes and streams. That would be the water that we eventually consume.
My compost pile is always working too. I'm constantly burying banana peels, coffee grounds, egg shells and cardboard scraps in my compost pile. I have a pretty simple collection routine whereby I gather my composting materials in old coffee cans (the plastic ones - Reduce, Recycle, Reuse). When one of the coffee cans gets filled up, I take it out to the compost pile and dig a small hole right down in the middle. Then just dump the kitchen scraps in the hole and bury. I turn mine a few times a month to keep it well aerated. It's not a hot compost pile by any stretch of the imagination, but it does break down and I always have extra worms for my spring fishing expeditions to fill the freezer with bluegill. Can you think of a reason not to make your own compost now?
