Rethinking Lifestyle

This weekend, I put in some sweat equity in my garden, and was rewarded with a large pile of ‘black gold’ – compost, about a yard of it. What’s more, it was free!

Free, I hear you ask, yes free!

My black gold came from vegetable peelings and trimmings, weeds, leaves (some of which were collected from neighbours yards), grass-clippings, and vegetable plants from the end of the season.

I am not very accomplished at creating compost, and other projects, the weather, back injuries, and time have meant I have dedicated very little time to doing it ‘right’. I haven’t paid much attention to the materials going in, or whether it was dry or wet. I haven’t measured the temperature, and it hasn’t had much turning. In fact over the past 2 years, the pile has had very little attention from me at all.

Despite my ineptitude, the microbes have done their job, and I have this fantastic pile of rich, dark, healthy smelling material to use in my garden.

All it required was space round the back of our garage – we just piled the organic material on, and the microbes just did their thing. We collected all our kitchen waste over winter, in convenient compostable bags, and froze it in a garbage can outside, then transported it to the pile in spring.

Why did we do this?

• We like free stuff.
• We are too lazy to take our garden waste to the landfill.
• It’s easier to pile it up behind our garage than it is to bag it up and leave it at the Kerbside.
• And there is a certain pride in having made it myself.

Why don’t you try it?