Green Living

The no-sweat way to turn kitchen waste into black gold

My friend Bill is a composter extraordinaire. He has no less than four steaming heaps of decomposing kitchen scraps working at any given time, generating enough fertile output to produce a cornucopia of vegetables throughout the growing season.

Me, I’d always been totally intimidated by the thought of overseeing something that had to “cook.” I mean, Bill’s a chemist: He understands the complex alchemy for building a pile of waste that can heat itself up to 140 degrees or more.

“No need to make it so difficult,” Bill assured me. High heating isn’t a prerequisite for successful composting. In fact, he told me, all it takes to turn garbage into compost is time. You can dump your kitchen scraps—coffee grounds, eggshells, onion skins, banana peels—on the ground, for that matter. If you want to keep it tidy, encircle the pile with chicken wire secured by metal posts or bamboo sticks. Toss in leaves, soil, and lawn clippings, give the pile a turn every so often and, Bill promises, within a matter of months, you can have a nutrient-packed garden additive that ensures prize tomatoes in August.

What’s more, by reusing your kitchen and yard trimmings, you’re reducing the amount of waste you send down the disposal or to the landfill.

For full details on composting successfully, read Organic Gardening for Dummies (Wiley), by Ann Whitman and The Editors of the National Gardening Association.

compost, gardening, organic, trash

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