COMPOSTING !!!

OK, so I get a little excited because I think composting is kind of awesome... The idea that what once came from the earth is going back, and how a banana peel and Baker's bag can turn into fine dark dirt in a matter of weeks. It's good for keeping all that organic biodegradable waste out of landfills where stuck most likely in a plastic bag surrounded by tons of people's trash it would otherwise never really decompose. But also it's extremely good for your garden, lawn, and other plants, and you save money by never needing to buy fertilizer or potting soil.

Anyway... as there are many 'how to's and lengthy descriptions of how and why you should compost on the internet, I thought I'd just write out from experience what has worked for us. Collectively, we have a home compost bin in a house with a garden and lawn setting, and our newest experiment, an apartment compost tub which in its first few days is doing very well.

So the idea of compost is a sort of special chemical balance of things that produce the right environment for objects to degrade, break down, dissolve, turn into dirt. For this you need some air, dampness (water), and a mix of "green" and "brown" waste most ideally a half and half mix with some brown on top. I'll explain that in a minute.

Browns
As you can see from this picture of this awesome Sun Chips bag, it is laying on top of what looks like lawn clippings, leaves, and shredded paper. These items, along with coffee filters, cardboard, cornstalks, cotton fabric or string, dryer lint, tea bags, wood peices, and anything else that is relatable to these objects are your "browns". It can be tedious to chop everything up when you get a lot of waste going, but the smaller the peices the faster they disappear. I put all my paper and what my cheap shredder can take, into it and dump that out on top of the compost pile when the can is full. I never cut up the tea bags and they decompose fine. The wood and cornstalks took a while, over a month, because I did not cut or chop them up at all... I got a little impatient and lazy... but with a little mixing they got there.

Greens
Your coffee grounds when they are wet, egg shells, fruit and vegetables, weeds (ones that are not seeding if you can catch them), hair (not in clumps though, because yeah... it would get gross. But if you pet sheds or you pull a few strands off your back before heading out the door it's ok to throw it in your compost container and later in the compost bin/tub), and anything that from the description of these would seem similar and has no recent (a month they say) pesticides on it are your "greens".


Mixing and Tending
We keep a stainless steel container on our kitchen counter and throw our greens and browns, besides yard waste and papers from the shredder, into it throughout the day and dump it when it is full. (The container does not leave food stains or smells behind which is why we opted for metal.) You do not need to make even layers of green and brown like a shepherd's pie even though some people may tell you to start out this way. As long as there is a good half and half-ish amount of brown mixed in with the green and brown covering the pile then you will be fine.

You want to put your pile/bin/tub somewhere it gets sun so the ingredients can get some help heating up to break down. The pile should be warm to sort of hot anyway since decomposition produces energy, and therefore heat. So don't be worried about that.

The more often you "turn" your pile the faster it will decompose (the norm I believe is once a week). The idea is to keep all the ingredients well mixed up and aerated since air is vital in decomposition. If you have any spare brown waste around you want to turn your pile first, pour that on top, then wet your pile.
To turn it you can just get a shovel or pitchfork, whichever works for the space you have, and get under the pile with it and flip it over peice by peice, making sure you get the stuff on the bottom so the weight of the pile isn't left squishing it down where it can't get air. Then it is a good idea to lightly to moderately wet your pile depending on how dry it is. Water is also very important for the process. After you have turned your pile and left some brown on top to control smell and keep in moisture, you can add your new waste by digging holes into the pile, dumping it, and then covering it back up with brown. :)

Some Extra Points

Beans and Potatoes
We learned this the hard way. If you need to toss out old potatoes or raw beans for any reason, crush them up real good, I mean to a powder for the beans and a broken up mush for the potatoes... get the kids in on it, make it fun, or else you will have a sprout invasion. These guys will grow in the middle of the pile in complete darkness and you'll be turning your pile to find more and more baby plants EVERYWHERE. Unless you want that then keep from putting chunks of potato or whole raw beans in your compost.

Also, as the compost does it's thing, the pile will get smaller, so if you think you are producing too much waste when beginning, just give it time. You can use this in your garden as a potting soil or plant food replacer, sprinkled on your lawn or in your flower beds, or put into a tied up t-shirt and dunked in a bucket of water to make "Compost Tea" which all plants LOVE. If you are in an apartment setting or somewhere you can not use the compost or dump the rich dirt, I hope that does not stop you from starting composting, so please ask someone, a neighbor, family member, or friend may have a garden or lawn to use it on and would appreciate the savings. Also if you live in an apartment complex or something similar, ask maintenance if they could use it since you believe in what you are doing and don't want to stop just because you have no place for some extra dirt.

Well there are a few tips, I will probably think of more later, but for now good luck and happy composting!