Holistic Living RN

My husband and I started composting more than 3 years ago, and we have loved being able to put our food waste to good use.  Composting has been used by people throughout history, and only recently did people start throwing food waste in the trash {once a reliable trash service became available}. Composting puts vital nutrients back into the soil from the parts of plants and food that we don’t eat {like stems or the peels of bananas}. By composting, we are putting those nutrients back into the soil for future plants to use and not wasting the plant’s hard work.

So what is composting? It is putting the plant waste in a bin that is turned over occasionally to facilitate the breakdown of plant parts into dirt. What plants can be used? The answer is all, unless it is pest or disease ridden. Then throw it away in the trash. You don’t want to propagate that into your dirt.

What else can be composted? 1. Paper. Only use paper without color printing. The color chemicals are not good for us to eat. 2. Kelp. Kelp adds marine nutrients that are healthy for soil {and thereby plants}.3. Urine can also be added. Urine is a good source of nitrogen, and can facilitate the breakdown of the plant material.

What should not be composted? Meat or dairy of any kind. Period. It will make your compost bin rancid. Egg shells are ok, and actually add vital calcium back into the soil but rinse them out first.

To make saving food scraps easier, we have a medium sized glass jar on the counter that we can put food waste directly in. I’ve found this helps us save more. Without it,  we were being lazy and throwing the food waste in the trash. At the end of the day {or sometimes a couple days} I go and dump it into the large compost bin outside, and rotate it to mix the contents. We have had such great success with the dirt from the compost bin that I have begged my hubby for another, so that there is no lag time between batches. The dirt from our compost bin always seems to grow the sweetest veges in record time. We don’t use any conventional pesticides or growth mediums. Just compost.

I always encourage people to only compost organic plant material, as when the plant is broken down, the pesticides used on non-organic plants will be concentrated in the compost.

Composting sounds easy, yes? Now you can start this at home and have awesome veges or awesome decorative plants.