Sustainability Tip: Compost

Every year families throw shocking amounts of food in the trash.  It's amazing how wasteful this country really is!  Much of that food can be recycled in other ways.  The biggest source of recyclable foods are fruits and vegetables, coffee grounds, egg shells, dry leaves, and grass clippings.  Okay, so some families don't actually collect their grass clippings and just let them break down on the grass.  There are fewer and fewer lawn mowers with huge bags attached, but cut grass is great for compost.

All you need for a compost pile is a place where you can let the compost decompose, something that shouldn't be a terribly smelly and gross process.  I've seen tons of ways to do this.  Some people choose to use a compost bin or composter.  Others choose to simply use an old trash barrel.  I've also seen compost heaps that are made up of simple wood and tarps.  They're not hard to make, and just about any family can manage one.  In truth, all you really need is a tarp below to keep the compost from mixing with the soil beneath it, making it easier to transport off and away when it's being used, and a tarp above to keep in moisture.  Of course, on this I've heard mixed reviews as well.  Keeping the compost heap directly on moist ground can attract worms and help the process along, but in Texas, that will mean endless watering of the compost heap through much of the year, so better to keep the moisture in and let the soil below get a bit dry.  Walls on the sides are helpful, but not 100% necessary in my experience.  Another useful tool is a pitchfork or some other tool to turn it.  I've seen some mixed instructions on whether to turn or not turn compost, but there are some composters, like this one, that allow for rotation without so much as opening the bin.  These make composting easy and convenient, especially if you plan to create and use a lot of compost in any given year.

What goes into compost?  Well, the easy answer is a little bit of everything.  Compost is a mix of "green" or living material, and "brown", or dried material.  A good compost heap should be at least 60-75% brown material, as that's what's best going to help the process along.  Too much green has a nasty tendency to rot.  In truth, you can compost without any green material at all!  Nature does it all the time!  However, it does kind of defeat the purpose of composting to recycle foods if you're not going to add any fruits and veggies to the mix.  It also helps to add a healthy portion of good potting soil to introduce the micro-organisms that help the process along.  Worms are only a benefit here as well.  If you find a few worms while gardening, as much as they'll be a benefit to your garden, gardens will always attract more worms.  Grab some of those wiggly ones and toss them in the area you've set aside for a compost bin!  You'll be glad you did!

 So, we're looking at making a majority of this compost heap this mysterious "brown" matter.  What constitutes "brown material" anyways?  For the most part, this is just a bit of logic, dried, brown plants will be your biggest source of brown material.  Chipped twigs or wood (much like mulch) makes excellent compost.  Dried pine needles are great as well, but can be over done.  (As a hint here, think about that live Christmas tree you just toss out every year...Silo Christmas Tree Farm recycles theirs...you could compost and recycle yours too!)  The biggest source of brown matter in any compost heap tends to be autumn leaves, which can be stored up and added all year round.  Dried plant vines, such as tomato plants, or dried stalks from sunflowers and corn are also wonderful sources of brown matter.  In a pinch you can also use newspaper, cardboard (well shredded), and even printer paper, as long as it's not colored or contains colored ink.  That means many old bills, collection notices, letters, and fliers can also be composted.  If you've got a back yard fire pit or a wood burning stove, small quantities of wood ash can be thrown in to the mix too!

What about this green matter?  While I'd love to tell you it's just as logical, it's really not.  The most common source of green matter is found in your kitchen.  Fruits and vegetables make up a majority of green matter.  Pasta, tea bags, and coffee grounds can also be used as green matters.  Dead house plants and dried up flower arrangements are wonderful sources of green matter.  Though it's not green (at least not usually!) animal manure and bird droppings compost as green matter too!  Have a caged pet?  In most cases, the entire waste of their cage can be cleaned out and dumped in the compost bin, waste, shavings, paper, and all!  Even the extra food bits that are dropped all over the cage can be composted.  It's not just furry animals either.  Rats, rabbits, Guinea pigs, and mice are commonly thought of in household pets, bird droppings can also be counted as green matter.  Typically cats and ferrets are not counted in this mix because of the litter they use, and I've read that cat droppings, dog droppings, and ferret droppings should not be composted anyway.  Grass clippings, egg shells, peanut (or other nut) shells, animal and human hair (in small quantities) and nail clippings can also be tossed right in that compost pile!  With all of that, there's an endless amount of green matter around any household.  See why maintaining the balance between green and brown is so hard?

Depending on the contents of the compost, turning regularly may be necessary, and it will change the decomposition time of the compost.  A compost composed of mostly dried leaves, for example, can break down in as little as two or three weeks!  A compost heavily composed of stockier brown matter, like twigs and wood, will obviously take longer.  Whole trees eventually compost themselves in nature, but that can take tens of years to happen, which is why smaller pieces leads to quicker composting time.

The "care and feeding" of your compost heap is also quite simple.  First and foremost, make sure your compost stays moist.  You don't want it good and wet, but thoroughly moist.  Compost allowed to stay too wet can rot or mold.  Turning compost can help spread out the micro-organisms that break down the biodegradable material, which is especially advantageous if you keep adding to your compost pile throughout the year.  Aside from those two things, in my experience, keeping a compost is fairly simple.

One note on composting, anything chemically treated is not a good idea to compost, nor is anything that will seed.  Chemicals from the materials added to the compost bin will transfer to the compost, and then will be brought to whatever you use your compost for.  Would you really want commercial grade pesticides or gasoline fumes tainting whatever food you were growing in your garden?  It certainly wouldn't be something pleasant to add to household plants.  As for anything that will seed, that's a problem when using the compost, especially with weeds.  Seeds from weeds, hay, or grass will likely take root, not something you want in your vegetable garden as it will mean more weeding and work for you.  The same goes with composting pumpkin seeds, peanuts, or any other nut, as nuts are seeds.  However roasted seeds don't seem to present this problem, and should (I won't swear to it!) be safe to use.  Meats should not go into a compost heap as they will rot instead of providing healthy compost, and if you choose to use dairy at all, limited amounts are suggested, usually best in the form of cheese or yogurt instead of straight milk.

So, now that you know how to make compost, what are you going to do with it?  There's any number of possibilities.  Obviously, if you garden, this could be a valuable source of healthy soil and nutrients for your own garden, plant or vegetable.  Compost makes a wonderful addition to potting soil for indoor and outdoor potted plants and container gardens.  I've heard straight compost can be used as a substitute for potting soil, but I haven't tried it myself.  I even knew one person who used to sprinkle it across her lawn instead of Miracle Gro or some other similar chemical fertilizer.  Compost can also be a wonderful resource for a small kitchen garden or herb garden.  As being surrounded by plants can help improve your whole household's mood, provide cleaner, purer air, and create a sense of beauty in your home, many families are finding more reasons to surround themselves with living plants, which means compost can always be useful!  And if you can't use it, there's sure to be someone else who can!  Compost may be a strange gift, but a friend who gardens may truly appreciate it, or you can always look into selling it.  Though this tactic is most often used by big composting industries, like farms, small quantities may be sold to a local home gardener in your own community, and it's always worth a try.  If nothing else, you've reduced the total waste in landfills, and have a good amount of healthy dirt to spread over the green areas around your own home.

Finally, I've known a number of families that wonder what to keep their compostable materials in until they bring it from their kitchen to their compost bin or heap.  In our house, we're simply using one of those plastic coffee canisters.  My aunt over at Craft Attic Resources and Sorting Through Life's Lessons uses (or at least used to use) a plastic bin with a zip-lock freezer bag to hold everything until it went out.  I think those are both wonderful, low-cost ways to start a kitchen compost bucket in your own home!  All it takes is some items around your house and a little creativity.  Or, if you're one of those people who prefers the look or convenience of a store-bought item, there are plenty of kitchen compost keepers on the market.  These can range in price from low-cost to expensive, but tend to have a nice enough appearance that they can be kept out on the counter top instead of hidden beneath the sink.

And if you're really interested in just what can go into your compost, here's a neat link I found as I was researching compostable items that I may not have known about for this very article.  It's called 163 Things You Can Compost!

The Land

I was out for a walk on our land today.  It's only a small plot, an acre.  It doesn't take long to travel the whole of it.  It's a peaceful walk.  The sun decided to come out after all.  It was beautiful, well, as beautiful as a regularly mowed back yard can be.

My inspiration was to take photos of our land.  At first it was to document a "before and after" portrait of our yard, perhaps with little photos of all the progress as we went.  A part of me knew that, just like with children, this yard would change so much, and I wanted to remember where it had all started.  I wanted to have record of what we've done, all our hard work.  I wanted to be able to look back and appreciate everything we had worked so hard to achieve.  In some places there is massive overgrowth.  In others there is fresh death of pulled weeds and recently cut grass.  It was a mixture of pleasure and sadness.

The land needs some serious work.  There are heavy ruts in the ground from where some vehicle rolled through.  The butterfly garden is overgrown with weeds.  The north-east corner has a raspberry bush that is struggling to hold on under the suffocation of overgrowth.  The mesquite tree has nearly been cleared free of the weeds that are surrounding it and the holly by it's base can begin to grow freely.  The crab apple tree is flourishing.  The vegetable garden is overrun by mature asparagus, wild sunflowers, and dandelions.  The seeds blew through the air like flecks of snow.  The baby tree growing at the stump of the old peach tree is nearly buried with weeds and overgrowth.  The wildflower garden is beautiful, but is starting to become not much more than grass.  We have a lot of work to do if we wish to make this land happy again, but we can do it.  We may not get to all the planting we would like this year, but the land will be ready.  We'll be prepared.

Strangely, the overgrowth and abundance has not only been with weeds.  Everything is growing with an incredible vibrancy.  Trees that were dying have started to return, though some did choose to give up their lives rather than continue on.  The plum tree, which rarely bore fruit, is now full of little green plums.  The ground beneath it is coated with those that have fallen.  It feels like the land is truly alive, not just living enough to get by, but growing bountifully.  A little bit of love seems to go a very long way, even with the neglect this land has suffered with lack of maintenance.

It won't be long before this land is transformed.  Perhaps those who have seen it before won't even recognize it by the time we're through.  It will be vibrant and bright.  Now I just need to get the motivation to get out there and do it!

Taming the Jungle

Yesterday we finally got something done for the land.  The large bed of weeds that had overgrown between the mesquite tree and the crab apple tree has finally been cut back.  The small holy bushes can finally be seen.  We found ivy climbing and suffocating some of the weeds.  We're doing what we can to cut back the small forest of weeds and maintain our land.  There's still a long way to go, but progress is being made towards a healthier environment for our local plant life.

A part of me wishes we didn't have to weed our garden spaces.  It's not that I'm lazy and don't like the work of maintaining our land.  In truth, I was somewhat ambivalent about it when I worked for the landscaping company years back, but I think that was a combination of the summer heat and not feeling inspired to maintain another person's land.  However, it's a very different story.  I love the land we live on, and I love the act of maintaining it.  I just wish we didn't have to uproot the plants that willingly chose this land as their home.  It seems somehow unfair to me.  Nature allowed these plants to take root and flourish, so who am I to say that they aren't welcome?  And for what?  Because they're not pretty enough?  Because they're in the way of what I want to grow?  Because they're unpleasant, often spiny or causing some sort of skin reaction?  I wish that the yard could flourish just the way it wanted to, without our influence, to grow wild as nature intended it to be.

In the realm of productive gardens, that's just not the way things work.  We need to cultivate certain plants for a variety of reasons.  In the case of food bearing plants, we hope to support our small household with those plants.  When it comes to flowers and other elements of beauty or shade, they have their own practicality.  Sunflowers and other plants provide seeds, vital to feeding the local birds and squirrels.  Trees provide shade, offering a pleasant and needed escape from the summer's brutal heat.  Even mowing the lawn helps reduce the ticks and snakes that could be potentially harmful to our family, both human and animal.  I suppose these things aren't necessary for life, but they do improve the quality of the land around us.

So yesterday our mission was to cut back that grove of weeds.  Wild bushes, milkweed, and spiny dandelion all had taken root.  We pulled them out and cut them back, though we didn't dig up the roots as I suppose we should some day go back to do.  I know ignoring the roots only invites them to return.  We will get to that when the time is right, but for now our mission was to cut back all the unwanted growth to try and make way for that which we wanted to survive.

It felt good to work with the earth again.  I wasn't exactly digging my hands into the soil, nor was I able to bury my feet into the soft soil.  To be honest, the crumbling mulch bed beneath it all would have likely felt quite unpleasant under my feet.  Even without those happy feelings, I was able to feel like I was taking my part to care for the earth again.  As I cut further and further in I felt like an adventurer looking for a new discovery.  First I found the base of the mesquite tree.  Next I came across the holy bushes.  We even found what looks like a baby holy bush growing in the field of all that chaos.  Next I started to dig out the ivy.  There were two caterpillars hidden in all of that mess.  One was a large, fuzzy yellow one.  The other was about half the size, but the same fuzzy yellow, like a little brother.  They were both relocated to the crab apple tree where they should have plenty to eat so they may grow.  Perhaps the butterfly garden would have been smarter, but we didn't think of that.

On a sad note, there seems to be a lot of death around.  There's a dead tree in the back lot.  There's a tree that seems to be dead in the front lot.  The base of a dead cactus marks the entry way to the drive.  There's a stump of a dead peach tree on the side of the house.  Even the mesquite tree seems to be ready to release it's hold on life to be put to some other purpose.  However, even with so much death, there is life.  The cactus has regrown with a new vibrance, both from babies dropped off from the original plant, and sprouting up from the dead roots.  The peach tree seems to have growth around it's base as well.  Though the mesquite tree was dying, a plentiful number of weeds grew in the soft shade it provides.  From death there seems to be new beginnings, which gives me hope that this land will soon blossom into something vibrant and plentiful.

As I stood in that patch of weeds, debating which direction to cut away next, having visions of the wild and vibrant possibilities that section of land held, I felt connected again.  I felt like I was taking action to improve the land around me, not only in appearance, but on many other levels as well.  The land is destined to be beautiful with both garden harvest and vibrant flowers.  The soil will be improved as we compost what we can to give back vital nutrients to the earth.  The plants will do their part to cleanse the air making oxygen that is so vital to our bodies survival.  The air will smell fresh, sweet, and fragrant from the bounty of flowers.  Our carbon footprint will be altered by our reduced need for groceries from outside the home.  In general, we will be living more at peace with the land.  Everything will come to balance.  I think I'm finally finding happiness in this land.  There is no longer any doubt.  I am where I belong.

Shade and Container Gardening

One of the things I most wanted to do this year was start a small vegetable garden.  I was willing to go with a container garden, since I knew we would be moving and didn't know what the conditions would be like.  I had looked into ideas for hanging tomato plants to make the most out of balconies, what kinds of containers I could get my hands on, and even looking into various supply places that offer rack type systems for urban gardening.  I had it all figured out in my mind once we realized what apartment complex we were intending to move into.  I would make use of every inch of that space, if possible, with money saving plants.  Better still, the greenery would help to beautify my apartment, keep nosy neighbors from being able to get too great of a view in the house, and otherwise improve my living conditions.

Here's where my brilliant plan went wrong.  We happened to get a North facing apartment.  What did this mean for my gardening?  While there are plenty of plants that enjoy growing in full shade, fruits and vegetables aren't in that number.  While there are some vegetables, like greens (lettuce, broccoli, and that kind of thing) and root vegetables (potatoes, etc) are happy to grow in the shade, they need at least some sun every day to grow at all.  Well, there goes that idea!  Now if I want a vegetable garden, I'm going to have to employ the use of grow lamps so that I can get anything to grow!  So much for sustainable living!  I wonder if my yield in vegetables would justify the expense of electricity for the grow lamps...

I'm learning day by day that this sustainable living stuff is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, especially if you don't live in the ideal conditions for it.  I've heard wonderful stories about rooftop container gardens, sustainable gardens in back yards, and so much more, but as fate would have it, I don't have the conditions for any of those things.

I guess I'm going to have to wait until we can own our own land or move to somewhere more ideal for gardening for that to happen.  It's sad that one of my sustainable living dreams is so easily knocked down because of the situation we have to be in, or at least we have to be more creative about it.  I guess at this time I need to stop and focus on other things, like living a more healthy lifestyle, producing less waste, and being as environmentally aware as possible in other respects.