Composting 102

Sumer is OVER! 

Fall leaves are falling, we are harvesting the last few tomato’s, peppers and beets.  High season gardening may be over but, some chores carry on all year long like... composting.  It’s a easy ongoing way to provide mulch and build/replace much needed nutrients to your soil.

For Free…that’s right free.

My favorite word!

    We’ve all had composting 101.

Using grass clippings, leaves, small branches, garden debris etc. are second nature.  Most of us look at green material from the yard or garden and see compost or worm food not yard/barn debris.

102 is one step further, the items some don’t think of composting….

This summer I’ve been pretty dedicated to building the compost up. I’ve been rereading books, blogs and online articles, and realized I was missing out on a lot of “food” for the bins.  We all know to add garden debris, leaves etc but what about the composting material from inside..but not limited to the kitchen? 

It’s amazing how little household trash we have when I’m watchful.

• Newspaper, what is not used for the bird cage is shredded and composted..along with the paper when I clean the bird cage
• any household paper, toilet paper rolls & paper towel rolls (if you use them)
• packaging boxes,remove shipping tape and tear them up first
• Mail, everything is put through the shredder and tossed in
• fabric scraps and thread trimmings from the sewing room
• wool and cotton yarn scraps from weaving in ends.
• dryer lint
• dirt and debris swept from the floor
• vacuum cleaner debris----watch out for the Barbie shoes & Legos
• cotton fabric scraps…cut up rags that no longer do their job…
• those strings we trim off frayed towel edges (before we hem them)
• old work shirts & cotton garments, those that have no work left in them..just be sure and cut the buttons off first.
• The tired dirt from house plants..I used to toss it in the flower beds but now add it to the compost.  Even worn out soil helps and, comes back to a purposeful life in the compost.
• old baskets past their prime
• dryer lint

In other words just about anything not plastic, metal or heavy wood.

Right now I have the standard 13 gal. kitchen trash can. I’d made comment I was ready to switch it out to 2 smaller, one for compost the other for kitchen.  Mr.Fix-It as asked me not to for a while..instead of daily, he’s enjoying the bi-weekly trash hauling.

Are there things you compost I’ve missed?

Add to the comments please

Off playing for the day

Katie

Technorati Tags: Katidids,composting