You may even share the sentiment of my daughter Millie, who at the age of three looked at the orange peels in the compost bucket in our kitchen and asked doubtfully, "Are those orange peels really going to turn into dirt?"
Incredibly, they do. All those kitchen scraps can be combined with the debris from your lawn and garden, and in time you'll have rich composted material to add to your garden.
When we decided to start composting, my husband contributed his skills by building this bin for me:
After a bit of searching he was able to find old pallets to use. So we have the bonus of using recycled materials for our bin to recycle all our kitchen and yard waste! It has two separate sides so that we can have an "old" pile that is decomposing, and a "new" pile that we can add to. We are lazy composters in that we really don't put a lot of effort into turning the piles. With enough time things seem to break down well enough to be put to use in the garden.
By composting we are able to reduce the amount of waste that leaves our household. All the things that go into the compost pile are being re-used to benefit the soil in our garden. Not only do we save money by putting out less garbage on our curb each week, but our backyard compost is essentially a free way to provide nutrients to our garden.
I'm still learning about this whole composting business, so I just checked out The Complete Compost Gardening Guide
from the library, and I'm finding it to be very helpful. Thanks to my sister for recommending it a while back.
This book goes far beyond the basics, and gives a whole variety of composting strategies. So if you are feeling challenged about where you might put a compost pile, or maybe you just don't have much space, the book will help you think outside the "pile" and find a solution that works for your situation.
Composting works for me!
