For the Love of Compost

I love compost. I love the idea of composting, I love chopping up vegetables and putting all the veggie scraps into my compost bucket under the sink, I love watching my compost pile grow and, this year, I really loved sifting through my year-old compost, shoveling two wheel barrow’s full and spreading it on my garden beds (picture above.) I generate very little garbage waste because I compost almost all of my food scraps except for meat.

To me, composting is the most simple, basic step you can take to become more sustainable. It requires a small bit of yard space, a bucket to keep under your sink to add food scraps to, a shovel, and some dirt. Lawn clippings are good to add too. It's amazing to watch the food scraps turn into nutrient-rich compost, and it's even more exciting when after a year you get to recycle all that wonderful compost back into your garden. I live on the south side of Saratoga near the State Park, so my soils are all sand. This means in order for me to grow anything besides moss I need to add compost. It was a great feeling last week to be able to spread the compost I'd been "creating" since I moved into my house over a year ago. In addition to food scraps and lawn clippings, I also add the ashes from my wood stove. I heat my house in-part with wood so the compost is a great way to "recycle" the ashes while helping to "close the loop" on my resource useage.

There is something incredibly satisfying and logical to me about composting. I lived in apartments for four years in Saratoga during which time I didn't have the space to compost nor would my landlord allow it. I always felt it such a waste when I would throw out food scraps.

Some day it would be wonderful if Saratoga Springs or the County could implement a city-wide kitchen composting program. The idea was raised at last night's Sustainable Saratoga task force meeting, and is a great one. However, implementing such a program presents many challenges. As folks mentioned last night, there are cities such as Seattle, WA and Halifax who have such programs. Someday we may be at the point of implementing a program like this. In the meantime, starting your own compost pile in your backyard, or creating a shared neighborhood compost is an excellent alternative. As with most things, education is key to implementing anything new.

Below are some links to composting sites (thanks to my Sustainable Saratoga friends Celeste and Joanne for this info)

http://earth911.com/news/2010/04/26/the-next-wave-in-composting/
http://gardening.wsu.edu/stewardship/compost/yardcomp/yard3.htm

or search “Backyard Composting” on the web for all the details on starting your own.

There are lots of other resources around on composting, which I hope others will share, and, some folks living in the community who are real experts in composting (Master Composters - similar to the Master Gardener's program.) The more info the better.

(And, here's a link to an article I wrote for the Saratoga Scene on composting
http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2009/07/08/entertainment/scene/doc4a54ce900456e659458051.txt)

I hope some folks will get inspired.