No-Effort Composting
Composting doesn’t have to be hard. I have composted for 30 years, and here the simplest, lowest work way to do it in a city yard.
Buy the biggest composter that you can afford and have space for. In composting size matters. The bigger the diameter of your composting chamber, the faster your material will compost.
A purchased composter will likely be made from nylon or plastic and have a perforated bottom. These are designed to be rodent resistant. Get some zap straps / zip ties and secure the base tightly to the body of the composter and secure any hatches in the sides or base closed. This will help prevent rodents from getting in to your composter, which is the reason most people are afraid of composting all the materials they can.
Put everything that will rot into your composter – meat, coffee grounds, citrus, cooked food, food-soiled paper, animal manure, everthing. Don’t turn it, stir it or aerate it. If it gets dry (which slows it down), put some water in it. If it smells, put some dry plant matter like leaves or paper on top of the pile.
Hate cleaning smelly compost buckets? Me too. I buy paper compost bags and then just throw the whole bag in the composter. You can buy plain paper ones that will line your compost bin, or wax lined ones that you can used without a bin.
Don’t worry about your composter getting full. It will rot and the pile will reduce on its own. I’ve lived in my home for 15 years and have had to empty my composter once. If yours does get too full, it’s probably too dry or you haven’t been putting your leftover food in it as well as leaves. If you fix that and wait a few weeks, it will shrink down again. If it is truly getting full, getting a second composter will allow you to give the first one more time to shrink. It will also let the first composter ‘finish’ so you can use the soil.
Other benefits of composting are:
- You are preventing methane (a very powerful greenhouse gas) from entering the atmosphere.
- Your garbage will no longer be smelly
- You will have some nice soil to put on your garden.
- The Goddess will know you walk your talk when you say the Earth is sacred.
And doesn’t that feel good?
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