Another aspect of recycling is natural composting, and if you grow anything at all, this is something that you should do. Not only does it keep things out of landfills, it helps to enrich your soil so that you get better nutrition out of what you grow and eat.

You can start out as simply as piling up kitchen scraps in a corner of your yard, but optimally, you should turn the pile to distribute the heat better. It will also attract rodents and other critters and rain will wash all the nutrients into the ground.

Your best bet for easy natural composting is to buy a Compost Tumbler. I tried the large garden one but did not have any luck with it. The lady at the company tried so hard to help me with it, giving me extra time and extra accessories, but it just didn’t work. She said that was only the second time in her 20 year career there that she couldn’t help someone be successful with it.

I had to send that one back (a major feat in itself) and I got the back porch tumbler instead. With that one, I have had major success and it is super easy. It’s almost like a bottomless pit where I can constantly throw in scraps and maybe once a year take out the finished natural compost.

Here’s a list of what can go into a natural compost pile:

Vegetable scraps, kitchen scraps, fruit scraps, used paper towels if no chemicals are on them, egg shells, leaves, grass clippings, plant prunings, dead flowers, straw or hay, coffee grounds, and tea bags. If any items are large, cutting them into smaller pieces will make it easier to decompose. Citrus peels will need to be cut into small pieces because they take a long time to break down otherwise.

Do not compost meat, bones, fatty substances (like cheese) or fish scraps (they will attract pests), perennial weeds (they can be spread with the compost) or diseased plants. Do not include pet manure in compost that will be used on food crops.

Banana peels, peach peels and orange rinds may contain pesticide residue, and are best kept out of the compost unless they are organic. Black walnut leaves should not be composted. Sawdust may be added to the compost, but should be mixed or scattered thinly to avoid clumping. Be sure sawdust is clean, with no machine oil or chain oil residues from cutting equipment.

With the Back Porch compost tumbler you can do winter composting, or at least keep adding things in. This is not possible with any other type of composting. However, the additions won’t actually decompose until the weather warms up.

You don’t have to worry about the ratio of nitrogen (green things) to carbon (brown things) with it either. If it starts to smell like ammonia, just add some brown leaves in to balance it.

Another thing you won’t need is a compost pail to keep in your kitchen to hold scraps until you have enough to take outside. My fancy schmancy compost pail is a quart size yogurt container. When they get too yucky, just rinse them out, recycle them and start with a clean one.

Here’s another good tip. If you have those pesky fruit flies in your kitchen, here’s a way to get rid of them. Just put a large zip lock type plastic bag over the yogurt container with the side of it hanging over the kitchen counter a bit.

They will fly under the edge of the bag into the container and you can just pull the edges of the bag together to trap them and take them outside. Put the scraps into the composter and shake the bag to release the fruit flies. Simple and easy and you save yourself a lot of money over buying the catalog items to take care of both problems.

Natural composting made a huge difference in both my flower gardens and my vegetable gardens. In my opinion, it is well worth taking the time to recycle kitchen scraps into black gold for your yard.

Ecycling

If you have e-waste (electronics) to get rid of, be sure to check out www.earth911.com or www.ecyclingcentral.com to see what companies in your area might take them. Please don’t just trash them as they contain many toxic substances that will contaminate groundwater and the environment.