Composting.. the way we do it!

15 years ago I read this book about composting. It was

around that time that a bylaw was passed in our village that forbid the burning of leaves. Our yard is surrounded by Oak and birch trees... and in the fall their leaves fill our yard. For years, we burned them in our ditch, or in our burn barrel in the back yard. Once the bylaw came into effect, and there was no "leaf pickup" day... we had to do something.

Our back yard compost was born. The book was amazing.. and I loved all the information, and I became (over the years) an expert on composting. When the green bin system came into our community, I was thrilled that the neighbourhood would now be composting as well, but sad that I might lose my back yard one.

There was no worry about that, since our green bin held about 3 bags full of leaves, and our yard produced 30 bags of leaves. I have continued with my backyard compost as well as my greenbin compost as there is enough wastage for both. I have two sections to my backyard compost, and one is "aging" while I fill the other one. The section on the left has been sitting for a year.. while the taller narrower side is all the greens and veggies from this summer.

Here's how it goes in my house. Anything that grows (grass clipping, veggie peelings, tea bags, coffee grounds, etc) go in my back yard compost, along with all the gardening waste. Table scraps, limps and WEEDS... go into my green bin. I usually have a nice big bowl for the back yard compost but I usually lose one a year to some tragedy and this year... it was a raccoon attack on my purple bowl. Last year, my lime green bowl was sitting too close to a BBQ.. and it melted!!! The year before, my wonderful orange bowl sat outside too long in the winter and the bottom cracked!

This weekend just past.... Terry dug up one half of my compost.. the aging side.. and he top dressed my veggie garden as well as all my flower beds.

What a gift for my gardens... and it was very gratifying to see that big pile of garden waste turn into something so wonderful!!

After all that shovelling, Terry took a well rested stretch on the floor and became a great novelty with Stephanie and Seans cats... they were enthralled with the fact that Terry was on the floor