Why Compost and How to Do it Easily!

Composting is an excellent activity for the environment, your wallet, and your mind!

Why Compost

Composting saves you money because you won't have to buy as much garden soil or compost for your garden. It's loaded with a ton of beneficial bacteria which will act as fertilizer to your garden so that you get the biggest bang for your buck. It also allows you to take out the kitchen trash less often, so you end up saving money on trash bags. Plus, the kitchen trash doesn't smell nearly as bad!

Mindfulness is something we all try to work on, so that we are more aware of the present moment. Any time you do something that causes you to slow down and reconnect with yourself and nature, you are working on your mindfulness. I find that bringing my food scraps outside and putting them into the compost bin causes me to slow down and think about the circular aspect of growing food, eating food, and composting food to then feed to my vegetable garden.

The environment benefits when you compost because all of your food scraps break down naturally and it produces beneficial soil instead of being tossed in the garbage. Let's break this down even further. Pun intended ;) We don't often think about what happens to our trash after it goes to the landfill. The EPA estimates that food scraps and other organic material (which can be composted) makes up the majority of the landfill at 20-30%. Food scraps in the landfill are covered in tons of pounds of other trash and break down anaerobically (without oxygen) to produce methane gas, which is about 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The methane gas produced in landfills from our food scraps directly contributes to global warming.

How to Easily Compost

There are many methods to composting, but I am going to explain how to do it using a plastic bin you can get at the dollar store. Yes, it's plastic and plastic is not a good material to use for anything, but I figure if it makes it easy enough to compost and therefore reduce our negative impact on the environment, then that one piece of plastic is alright for now.

1. Buy a plastic bin from the dollar store. Be sure to get a lid!

1. Drill many holes in each side for aeration. Do not drill holes in the top or the bottom, because holes in the top will mean too much water from rain getting in and holes in the bottom means your compost will fall out.

2. Fill the bin 2/3 with "brown" material: shredded paper, cardboard, dead plants from your yard, old grass clippings, coffee grounds, tissue paper, hair from your hairbrush, etc.

3. Add a shovel full or two of garden soil, dirt, or old compost. This will add beneficial bacteria to get the process started.

1. Fill the bin 1/3 with "green" material: food scraps except meat or dairy products and fresh plant clippings. I like to store my food scraps in an old container or reused Ziplock bag in the freezer and then take those containers out to the compost once a week. This prevents any under-the-sink- or on-the-counter compost bins from stinking or attracting bugs.

2. Mix the brown material, dirt/soil, and green material. Close the lid. Repeat once a week when you add your food scraps.

1. Allow the bin to sit and bake in the sun for a month or two and you'll have awesome compost, or continuously add to the bin to keep making compost. I like to have two bins: one that I let sit and fully decompose so that I can add it to my garden, and one that I continuously add to. Once the compost bin that I let sit is done composting and I have used it in my garden, it becomes the one that I continuously add to and the other bin that I was continuously adding to will sit for a month or two and fully compost.

Composting is something that is cheap, simple, easy to do, and benefits our wallets, minds, and the environment! Comment below or message me if you have any questions!