Compost

Composting takes all your organic waste (the parts of produce you throw away or left-over food that went bad) and turns it into fertilizer for your garden. Composting is great! Here's why:

1) It cuts down on your waste (sometimes by half or more!), so you make fewer trips to the dumpster, use fewer plastic garbage bags and put less trash in a landfill.
2) It's good for the earth. You're putting valuable nutrients back into the soil, adding to environmental stability.
3) It's free fertilizer for you and helps your own produce turn out healthy and delicious.
4) It makes us more conscientious. Composting, like recycling, forces us to slow down and think about our impact on the earth and its resources. By carefully separating out what can be reused or composted, we train ourselves to live more thoughtfully and be creative about finding new uses for old things! Once you see that your waste is basically reduced to packaging (after composting and recycling) you might think twice before buying things that are over-packaged.

New to composting? Check out some gardening books from your local library for details on how to start doing it. Even if you don't have a yard for your own compost pile, composting bins are available that you can keep inside or on a porch. Sometimes the local waste authority sells these used at discounted rates.

Tip - Starbucks gives away free used coffee grounds everyday that are great for gardens and a great way to recycle. So stop by and ask us to make you a bag of "grounds for your garden."

Warning - don't use meat products in the compost pile. It's generally only safe to use waste from herbivores (cow manure, etc.) to fertilize produce that people will eat. But using meat or bones from herbivores can be risky (plus this attracts other animals). Another great reason to eat vegetarian!