Do you like to garden, but don’t like paying for potting soil? Be more environmentally friendly, nourish your dirt, and lessen the stink in your trashcan by learning how to compost! Composting is one of the easiest ways to get high quality soil without doing a lot of work.
It’s interesting to think that the waste from your kitchen can turn into nutrients for your soil. Whether you have used coffee grounds, eggshells, carrot tops, or other fruit/vegetable scraps, bury them in your yard to enrich your soil with a plethora of nutrients. Composting is the practice of taking certain kitchen scraps and making them work for your benefit. Some people buy composting bins, in which they can add wood chips, newspapers, or grass clippings, while others like to do it on a smaller scale.
Vermiculture
If you are familiar with the idea of composting, you will probably recognize this word. Vermiculture is the practice of using worms to decompose organic food waste, thereby turning it into nutrient-rich material that benefits the growth of plants. Think of vermiculture as nature’s way of recycling. Instead of sending food scraps down the garbage disposal, where it will end up in a landfill, bury them in the earth to create healthier soil structure.
To start off, get an airtight container to store your kitchen scraps. If you are burying these in the ground, you can add apple cores, banana peels, broccoli stems, wilted leaves, carrot tops, crushed eggshells, citrus peels, melon rinds, or celery butts, among many other fruit/vegetables scraps. Once your container fills up, dig a little hole in the dirt and bury the scraps. Make sure you cover the scraps with dirt and pack it down. Worms will come and work their magic!
After doing this for a couple weeks, you can begin to plant different fruits, vegetables, herbs, or flowers. It is easier for these plants to grow when the soil is replete with nutrients. Just so you are aware, you may get a couple volunteer plants from the scraps you bury in the dirt. Tomatoes, melons, and potatoes are common volunteers!
Composting is a very easy way to benefit the environment. Give back to the earth because it has given us so much!
