Originally, I wanted to try vermiculture, or composting with a special variety of worms. I learned about it while at an organic, roof-top garden restaurant in Chicago and was immediately interested. Yet, I never got around to buying the "worm hotel" and getting started.
Then a couple months ago while researching for a magazine story on recycling, I learned the City of Fargo sells Earth Machine composters for just $40. Now I had no excuse!
Gavin and I picked up a composter and talked Jason into setting it up for us. I explained to the kids how we could now throw out all of our veggie and fruit waste, along with some paper and leaves, in the composter. Instead of filling a landfill, it would make rich dirt for our gardens. They were intrigued.
I also explained that it would be their job to dump the compost from the kitchen bucket every day or two. They were so excited!
As we started out, the only trouble I ran into was what to do with our compost as it built up in the kitchen. I didn't like the idea of dumping a bowl several times a day, but I REALLY didn't like the idea of buying an expensive filtered bucket to keep several days worth on our counter. Gross.
Then, I just happened to read a reader's tip in Organic Gardening magazine. The woman explained that her family kept a big cup in the freezer and collected their compost scraps in there. The cold kept the scraps from smelling, actually helped them break down faster in the composter, and allowed them to collect a few days at a time. Ingenious! I tossed an empty ice cream pail in the freezer and called it good.
Next week we're trading our mid-sized city garbage can for the small size. Composting is said to reduce your waste by 30 percent and we're going to give ourselves a little more motivation to make that happen.
Here's to composting!
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