It’s February and what’s the first thing that I am thinking about when I think about the organic garden that we will be building this year? My compost. I just bought one of those kitchen compost bins and I have an outdoor 80 gallon tumbler composter on its way, and all that I can think about is how I am going to feed our tasty plants some amazing, organic food all while saving space in the garbage can and landfills! About half of what we throw away into our trashcans can actually be composted; which means our landfills are being needlessly filled with trash that we could have used to create beautiful organic gardens to feed our population. I have begun to feel guilty now, after learning those statistics. I have now been trying to be much more mindful of my waste these days, and now I am trying to teach my family to be mindful of theirs too. It’s not an easy job, changing my habits of how I throw things away. I sometimes find, an hour after I threw something out, that I suddenly remember “Oh! That was supposed to go in the compost bin instead of the trash can!”
Most of us know that compost is food for our plants but do you actually know how easy it is to make compost? It’s as easy as a couple key ingredients that you have most likely (just like me) been throwing to the curb or even the recycle, every week.
The most common compostable items are:
- Green Items: fruits, veggies, and grass clippings
- Brown Items: dead leaves, wood chips, bark, mulch, hay/straw, top soil
Items that should be AVOIDED in your compost:
- Meat/Bones
- Cat/Dog waste
- Dairy products
- Fats/Oils/Grease/Lard
- Coal/Charcoal
- Anything treated with pesticides!
I was so excited to learn as much as I can about composting, so I was completely surprised when I found out that there is a whole list of things that can be composted and I didn’t even know it!
25 Things You Didn’t Know
That You Could Compost (at least I didn’t)
- Coffee grounds, filters, and teabags.
- Paper towels, paper napkins, shredded paper/bills, paper bags, etc.
- Plain cooked rice and pasta
- Cardboard boxes, cardboard pizza boxes, cereal boxes, paper towel/toilet paper rolls, etc. all ripped into smaller pieces.
- Stale bread, stale crackers, stale cereal, pizza crusts, stale pretzels, etc.
- Wine corks
- Latex condoms, balloons, and gloves (latex only!)
- Old jelly, jam, or preserves
- Egg shells and egg cartons (but not the insides of the eggs!)
- Old hair from your hair brush, the dogs hair brush, your electric razor, etc.
- Nail clippings
- 100% cotton balls, Q-tips (not the plastic kind), cotton fabric (torn in smaller strips), or wool fabric.
- Dryer lint
- Pencil shavings
- All that nasty stuff you just vacuumed up!
- Newspapers
- Receipts
- Ashes from fireplaces, BBQ grills, and outdoor fire pits
- Fish food, dog food, and cat food
- Droppings and bedding from rabbits/hamsters/gerbils etc.
- The crumbs off of your counter top!
- Used tissues that you blow your nose on
- Toothpicks
- Fur from dog/cat brush and feathers from birds.
- Old loofahs and washcloths (cut into little pieces)
Composting is as easy as 1-2-3-4
- Line the bottom of your compost pile or composter with 4-8 inches of coarse brown materials.
- Empty out your kitchen compost waste into the compost pile.
- Keep moist (but not TOO moist!)
- Aerate the compost 2-3 times per week by using a shovel or pitch fork and mixing it up.
What kinds of plants are you planning on planting in your gardens this year? Next month, I will go over natural pest control , so stay tuned!
photo credit: hardworkinghippy via photopin cc
photo credit: normanack via photopin cc
Christina Anthis is The Hippy Homemaker.
She is 29 years old and the mother of one miraculous three year old
boy, Silas Thor (also known as Syfy). After going through many health
problems and surgeries, Christina had nowhere else to turn but to a
“hippier” lifestyle, in hopes of finding the answer. She did her
research, read a lot of books, and taught herself the basics to change
her family over to a greener lifestyle. A couple months after making the
switch, and getting rid of all of the chemicals in her cleaning
supplies and beauty products, she noticed that the nerve pains that she
used to suffer from constantly, had diminished so much so, that she was
actually living and enjoying life the way that she used to.
Always one to care for people, animals, and our Mother Earth; Christina has found her calling by writing for her blog, The Hippy Homemaker. On The Hippy Homemaker, she shares her journey to a healthier and more conscious lifestyle for her family, through vegan and vegetarian recipes, healthier and greener ways to clean, non-toxic beauty products that you can make in your own home, and non-toxic cheaper DIY kids crafts.
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This is awesome, I’m also trying to reduce our waste, and trying to compost everything possible, and you named a few I hadn’t thought of here, thank you
Did NOT know that about latex! 
Our city composting program doesn’t take latex (I wish!) and I would be weary of putting it in my backyard composter if I intended to use the compost on my gardens.