Friday, July 23rd- Compost Gone Wild

There are four ways to reduce your trash:     

1. Reduce your consumption
2. Recycle
3. Reuse or repurpose
4. Compost

Okay, so composting is a way to repurpose but, I think people forget about composting as a way to repurpose and reduce trash.  Even Quinn thinks that it is an ancient technique used only by people long ago and us- the Arnetts.  So to get a better perspective on this ancient art Quinn and I take on composting with guest star, Quinn’s 4-year-old brother, Drake.  Composting simply put is nothing more than plant material that has decomposed naturally.   Everyday billions of people send organic plant material to landfills via their trash cans.  This is really unnecessary and shameful in my opinion and I bet you will feel the same way once you realize how easy it is to compost.     

Quinn, Drake and I set out for our compost adventure bright and early to get a step ahead of the heat.  Our journey begins at the Compost Outpost an outside learning area at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens.  On-line this self guided tour looks informative and interactive.  We arrive and park and the air is still comfortable and we look across the street to see the entrance sign.     

Quinn and Guest Star, Drake

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Quinn immediately says”There is no way I am going in there!” so his brother echoes “Me either!” So there I stand with two boys and an over grown dark composting adventure almost debunked.  I respond “Oh, come on brave guys there is a path right there we can do this.” I escort them to the path to find that this Compost Outpost has seen better days.   There are a dozen different composting methods on display which are very well labeled but are infested with spider webs.      

Into the Wild World of Compost

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Composting started out with farmers and every day folk taking kitchen leftovers, yard waste and brush and throwing it into a huge pile on the back forty.  If you did not grow up in the south the back forty means the forty acres in the back that the family was currently farming or in the 1980′s when I moved to Texas it meant the back acre that dad did not feel like mowing.  This pile of organic material naturally started to decompose with sun and rain.  After several months the inside of this pile turned dark brown and was then put around the vegetable gardens or flower beds as natural fertilizer and the process continued.   

Open Pile- the original

 

 Today composting is exactly the same but most of us do not have the “back forty” so clever entrepreneurs have invented compact and cooler looking composting gadgets.For $129.99 to $399 you too can have one of these trendy composters.      

Bio Orb Garden Gourmet

 

Garden Gourmet

 

Twin Dual Tumbler

 What these tidy composters do for people of the modern age is keep the vegetable scraps, yard clippings, coffee grounds, egg shells and dead cut flowers neatly contained while they decompose.  These contraptions also help keep out the critters.  At our house we use something very close to the open pile method. It is the two open pile method surrounded by left over brick from our house construction.  This allows us to rotate the compost from one side to the other helping the material get air and water more evenly.  Quinn refers to our compost method as the way we feed our wild pets.  Quinn and I envision it going something like this:      

• Drake takes out the compost right after dinner.
• The wild animals: raccoons, squirrels, foxes, skunks and opossums line up on the other side of the fence until the sun goes down.
• One keeps a look-out to make sure the lights have gone out in the kitchen.
• The skunk gives the thumbs up and the raccoon brings up the rear in the night vision goggles.
• The party goes on for hours and they polish off an entire watermelon, seriously, right down to rind.

This makes Quinn and I very happy knowing that we are helping our suburban wildlife on their quest for gourmet eats.  However, if you have ever seen the movie Over the Hedge you know someone or may even be one of the many that fear wild animals scouting your yard for any reason including dinner so these high functioning and affordable gadgets maybe for you.     Can this really be all there is to composting?  Has our family been doing it right for years?  We must be missing something.  Next we ask the professional and the seasoned master composters for tricks of the composting trade.  Join us for Composting goes professional or at least more professional next week. 

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