Homemade Compost

We started collecting our food scraps about 1 1/2 years ago. We threw all of our fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, tea and coffee leaves and sometimes a paper towel or two into our compost bin in the backyard. Sometimes we put in discarded plant material (but not weeds), leaves and grass. We never stirred it, mixed it, or did anything else to it like you are supposed to if you are a master composter. In fact, as the winter progressed and our bin got fuller and fuller, I was beginning to wonder if we might need to get with the program and do it the right way. I just wasn't seeing any evidence of the black gold we were supposed to harvest.

So I was surprised and relieved when Tom took down the sides of the bin, dug beneath the top layers, and pulled out some lovely compost (do the words 'lovely' and 'compost' go together?). The picture above shows the compost beneath the current top layers, and the picture below shows it on its way down to our lasagna gardens.

Now that I know that this works - particularly when using the dump-and-leave technique - I am re-energized and re-committed to our food scrap recycling process. It's nice to know we aren't dumping our food and plant waste into our water system, but instead are using it in our yard. I love it when it all comes together like this!