Composting Commences

So, I finally got my composter put together! Many thanks to the helpful folks at Glover Park Hardware and Achla, who took pity on me after I confessed that the assembly directions, uh, composted, and the bolts and screws that came with the composter? Migrated. Now that I've assembled it (I am woman, hear me roar) I have been gleefully saving our kitchen scraps and tossing them into the tumbler, and I've collected some leaves from the fall (good strategy to leave them around the back patio, eh?) and some dryer lint. We sure have plenty of that. I seem to have an excess of green stuff (nitrogen rich materials) though and not enough brown stuff (leaves). There is some kind of crazy web of white mold or who knows what organism growing in there. But it doesn't smell (good sign! no anaerobic bad organisms pleeease) and it's a huge barrel made of recycled plastic so we won't be nourishing any local rodents.

Lucky for me, it's International Composting Week (thanks, Chewswise!) and local President of DC Urban Gardeners and Slow Cook blogger Ed Bruske has an amazing video series he put together on composting basics. I slapped the first video up below to get you started. I am so thrilled that CBoy is taking a rockin' nap because I just got a whole bunch of ideas about how to help my compost balance (I can compost shredded junk mail/newspapers and cardboard boxes to keep the brown factor up) from watching the whole series. What can I say...Ed's soothing chitter chat about compost was kind of addicting. Ed notes that 25% of the stuff we send to the landfill is food waste from our kitchens. So composting is a great step. Next up? He's convinced me that I may actually have space for worms (my kids are gonna love this). Vermicomposter for Mother's Day, anyone?!

Happy Composting, readers! (And for those of you who are all, this is way too much effort -- first, it's not so much work, and second? If you have indoor space go worms!) I know the soil in *my* community garden needs some black gold...may it not be too late for my languishing peas and arugula! If you have any tips for a neophyte composter (that don't involve any land space - I can't compost in a corner of my yard like my parents used to) or any great worm facts, let me know!



*Photo courtesy of sxc (which, fyi, is a great source for free photos) and Bomania.
Read more!