Closer and Closer

Back in November I built myself a 3'x3' chicken wire compost bin for the backyard. Since then I've been quite obsessive about composting almost everything I can. It's been a great learning experience as well as a money saver. We've noticed a significant decrease in the amount of trash we put out each week, and it's helped us focus on becoming better recyclers.

Yesterday, I decided to break open up my pile and see how things were going. Three things that surprised me were:

- egg cartons break down faster than I had imagined
- orange peels break down into indecipherable goodness, but never seem to loose that wonderful citrus-y smell
- the bio-degradable bag from the local organic place isn't very bio-degradable (shame!)

I was amazed by all the little critters living inside my pile; lots of earthworms, sow bugs, pill bugs etc. Everyone doing their part to help speed along the process. It was exciting and educational. I shoveled out a few pounds of finished compost to spread around the garden, the rest was mixed up and put it into a new plastic bin, left to do it's thing.











So far our garden has been a lot of fun! There's nothing better than plucking a ripe little tomato off the vine and popping it into your mouth! Fresh, organic produce, grown by YOU! It's amazing.