Thursday, November 01, 2007

Compost - the hidden beauty in garbage

In the past few months, a few friends and I have fallen head over heels in love with composting. Our leader in this endeavor is S, who reads books on the subject and then sends us helpful composting links. S has convinced another friend, who doesn't have the time to start her own pile, to collect garbage to add to S's pile. So there are a lot of stinking vegetable handoffs at our weekly Star Trek gatherings.

The husbands and cohabitors of these enthusiastic composters are less than thrilled, however, because now they are often chastised with comments like, "I can't believe you threw away egg shells - they're so good for compost," and "Make sure you scrape all the coffee into the bucket - we need those grounds." One husband even alleged that his wife buys vegetables just so she can put them directly into the compost pile, but this was never substantiated.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Egg shells,crushed, and scattered liberally around the stems of those plants enjoyed by snails, have the effect of persuading the creatures to graze elsewhere. Egg shells are too good for the compost heap!

alexis said...

wow. Composting and Startrek in one post! I don't you could have combined that if you tried.

Anonymous said...

Unless, Alexis, one was composting the dead Tribbles.

I, for one, as a cook who enjoys the bounty of my composting wife/gardener, suport the cause (thought the coffee grounds are a real pain and smelly)

I think I should have used better sentence structure. "My composting wife" sounds like I just committed murder.

stef said...

i refuse to feel bad that I gave our big heavy duty composter to my neighbour. Refuse!

Anonymous said...

Leaf mould is even easier to make than compost. Rake up the leaves that are so freely available in the autumn, place them in black bin bags, tie the bags, then forget about them for 12 months. If the leaves are very dry, sprinkle with water before you tie the bags. Don't pack the leaves too tightly, they break down more readily that way. When you empty the leaves out after twelve months they should be ready to spread as a leaf mulch, improving the quality of the soil. The pile of plastic bags, placed in an unobtrusive part of the garden, also provides hibernation spots for small creatures.