Sense of Adventure

As you might imagine, I’ve been mighty dilatory about turning the old compost of late. So today I decided I’d get to it. I’m feeling better, and physical activity helps sharpen my mind. And something sure has to.

Because even without being turned – i.e., aerated – the stuff in the bin smelled mostly like nice, sweet soil, I figured it was time to screen it. Which of course is a somewhat arduous process.

So I was out about that for a while. And being me, I started to suffer doubts. Was I doing this right? Was it all right that the screened stuff – putatively compost itself – was moist when I put it in the finished-product bin? And I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of stuff that seemed mighty compost-y was sticking together in big clumps no matter how I munched it with my gloved hands or whacked it with a hoe. I’ve got too many twigs and branches in there, which show small sign of degrading in less than geological time, and they tend to hold the more dirt-like stuff together.

Then it came to me, like Boethius, to seek consolation in philosophy. After all, if I succeed totally and brilliantly, what do I wind up with? Dirt. Dirt deluxe, to be sure: premium quality dirt. But withal, dirt.

And if I fail utterly, what do I have? Well, dirt. If not such a high-toned variety of dirt.

Indeed, I thought, what are we but dirt rearranged? And in time, no matter what prodigies of plasticization we perform, at shocking expense, under the name “embalming,” we’ll eventually be sorted back into dirt.

At which point I realized philosophy was becoming more depressing than consoling, so I decided to pitch it back in amongst the organic fertilizer. It had served its purpose.

And of course I’m not failing. Indeed, I produced perhaps ten more pounds of nice, crumbly, dark soil-like substance which I can only presume is compost. Which is the point, yes?

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Kids, don’t try this at home!

The purpose of this post is purely to show how utterly easy it is to compost kitchen wastes. If you want to do any kind of landscaping or gardening, or if you’re interested in recycling or self-sufficiency, now you’ll have no excuse not to just get started.

I do not recommend the technique I’m about to describe. I’ll go further: don’t do this. It does not constitute housekeeping best practice. Indeed, it wins the inaugural Bad Housekeeping Seal of Reproval, which I just made up. Just confessing to it’s totally going to blight any hope I’ve had of getting dates, at least until I get thin and rich. Which fortunately are on the agenda for summer.

So. Here’s the awful easy way to start kitchen-waste composting broken into simple steps.

Do Not Do These Things:

1) Toss fruit and vegetable detritus (no meat or fat; there’s controversy over egg shells, but for now I throw ‘em in) and coffee grounds in a plastic grocery bag in the kitchen.

2) When it gets full, starts leaking (ew!), or you just can’t stand it any longer, toss onto the back porch.

3) Begin in Fall, continue over winter.

4) Springtime: suck it up and examine all those containers o’ nastiness. Surprise!

5) You have (some) compost!

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