JULY! Rotting garden scraps!

Wow! Welcome back, me! After a short hiatus (oops!) I'm back with monthly goals! This month: start and maintain a compost pile! What better way to stink up the kitchen! Just kidding- if you actually keep up with this, it makes your kitchen LESS stinky because you don't have old food scraps sitting and decomposing in your trash can. Also helps reduce household waste by about 30% AND might motivate you to start your own garden! For those of you who have been wanting to start a compost pile, now's your chance! If you're like me and you've composted old lunches in your locker and been doing science experiments with vegetables in your fridge, this will be easy! *Added bonus: not only will you be reducing landfill waste but your housemates/partner will be amazed that you now happily clean out the fridge!
What you need:
1- An area outside: can be a dirt area in your yard, a large tupperware bin or trash can too if you think you don't have the dirt space.
2- Some dirt
3-A container inside to temporarily hold compost items (I like to keep a tiny trash can under the sink)
I should say that I am NOT a composting expert, here's a link to help you get started: http://www.composting101.com/
Note: there is a LOT of information online which can be pretty scientific-don't be scared! I'm keeping mine simple. There are also many many different ways to compost-including worm bins. These are special plastic boxes full of worms that eat your food scraps and produce ultra rich compost. Supposedly these can be kept indoors, which is nice if you live in an extreme climate. However, the worms are picky. My friend Thais has one and she couldn't put our corn cobs in there because they had butter on them. Apparently they don't like onions either and will crawl out of their box if you put something in there that they don't like. BUT, they do produce some might fine compost and are fun to show off at parties.

If you already have a compost pile, think about re-examining your trash: are you 1st REDUCing your trash (buy in bulk, buy at local farmers markets, bring your own bags & containers), 2nd REUSing (reuse containers instead of buying tupperware, reusing ziploc bags, etc.) and RECYCLing? I know I do most things in the opposite order (reducing last) and should work on that...

Let me know how it goes for you! Thanks to my mom and Pete for building me a square foot bed to put my compost in and for motivating me to get started on this!