Composting Workshop

I got an announcement for a composting workshop sponsored by Somerset County on September 15th. There are two sessions, 10:00 to 11:30 and 6:30 to 8:00 at the 4H Center in Bridgewater, and you must register by the 8th, this Tuesday. There is a $40 admission fee to either session, which includes a compost bin and literature. Here is a link: http://www.co.somerset.nj.us/spotlight.html

I am still trying to decide whether to attend. The cost of a compost bin is $35, so if you need one the workshop is a bargain, but I don't need a compost bin. My husband composts our kitchen waste in his vegetable garden, which has a fence that keeps animals out, so we don't really need a bin. We already successfully compost everything we can think of.

But if you don't compost, you should consider it. Composting saves landfill space, and it saves fossil fuels that the trash and recycling trucks would have to use to haul our organic waste away. It enriches the soil, and it actually reduces greenhouse gases. Doesn't that at least make you want to try composting? I have been used to composting since I was 12, when my parents decided that the soil in our new garden needed improving. I knew composting made sense and was good for the environment, but I never knew that it would become fashionable: recently I learned that Julia Roberts composts.

Here at our house we actually practice several types of composting. The first is kitchen waste, the obvious thing to compost. We also compost leaves in the fall, the easiest thing to compost. The leaves almost all decay in a year (oak leaves may last a little longer), and you don't need to worry about keeping the animals out of them.

We compost garden waste in three piles. The first year, we make a pile of weeds, clippings and flowers we dead-headed. The second year, we make another beside it and ignore the first pile. The third year we make a third pile, but by then the first pile is composted and ready to use. By the end of the third year it should be empty and ready for the next year's garden waste. We keep rotating the three spots.

We also have a couple of piles of sticks and branches that fall from trees. These take longer to decay, so they need to be separated from other compost piles. We also throw in wine corks. Christmas trees can go in this pile.

You don't have to do all these types of composting all at once. Try one kind and see how easy it is. When you get confidence, then try another kind. I think the secret of composting is in organisms that are found in the ground, that break down the organic matter. This is nature's way of handling waste; just let nature do it.