The worms will love it!

Pretty, isn't it?? OK, well maybe not. But the worms will love it. And so will my garden. I'm determined to master composting this year. I have a lot of dead leaves, plants and flowers from my garden that I know would make good compost that can be used to enrich the soil of my garden. Plus all those vegetables peels, coffee grinds, tea bags and egg shells from my kitchen. This type of recycling may not produce beautiful products like those found in the Reclaimed to Fame market on 1000 Markets but it's a very helpful way of recycling all those nutrients that are thrown away from our kitchens and yards each day.



Last year I started throwing my coffee grinds into the garden. But this year I wanted to do it right. But when I went to check out compost bins, I found that they are between $100 to $250 and even more. That wasn't what I had in mind.

So here's my homemade effort. I've punched in at least 200 holes all over the garbage can, bigger ones on the top and bottom. I hope that's going to be enough to give it good ventilation. I've done some research on composting and there are three main things needed to have a good compost bin - air, water and food.



To give the compost heap air, I'll need to make sure the pile doesn't get too wet so it all mashes down. I'll have to roll the garbage can around to break it all up so it will have enough air. And make sure that it's a little wet, but not too wet. It it gets too wet, I'll have to add more dry materials to it. There are two types of "food" for the compost bin - brown and green. Brown is all those dead leaves, dead plants, straw and sawdust. Green is green weeds, coffee grinds, tea bags and all those vegetable and fruit scraps from the kitchen. It has to be a pretty even combination of the two.



So hopefully in a couple of months, I'll have some rich, black compost full of nutrients for my garden. I've added some photos of a few of the flowers that have already appeared here in New Jersey - daffodils and crocus. Next year they should be even more beautiful from all the good soil they'll have from my compost bin!