Composting and your teenage son

Do you have teenage boys?  Is it their responsibility to take out the trash?  What is your success rate in having that happen with or without grumbling?  Uh huh.  There is a better way.  Make less trash by composting!  Less trash equals less grumbling.  Composting can eliminate about 1/3 of your household trash.  That amounts to 1/3 less teenage son grumbling.  You’ll also gain numerous gardening advantages that you can read about here. 

It’s really not hard.  Here’s our set up.  First, you’ll need a compost  bin. It can be purchased or homemade.  Here’s what our compost tumbler looks like.

I purchased our tumbler at one of those large warehouse stores.  Lovey was very kind to work till dark one evening putting it together.  It had a lot of pieces.  It was compared to an IKEA “put together”.  Have you ever put together something from IKEA?  I’m not not always sure it’s worth the savings.  But any who… the lid lifts up to put in your composting materials. The pin on the right side slides out so you can tumble the contents.  No more pitch fork turning by the mother.  Tumbling is fun.  At least that’s what you will tell your chilies.

“ What do you put in your compost bin?”, you ask.  Why, kitchen scraps, of course!  Lovey’s morning banana peel, DR’s strawberry hulls, onion scraps from the meatloaf, my morning coffee grounds and filter, yard clippings and leaves! 

This pitcher sits on our kitchen counter and makes it convenient to toss kitchen scraps into.

I also like it because it’s not see through.  It’s not always pretty in there.  Does it smell?  No.  Not unless you leave it for days and days.  Consistent dumping of the kitchen scraps is what we have a “compost runner” for.  This is a good job for young chilies.  Because taking out trash, in any of its forms, is not in my job description.  One more tip.  I always put a paper towel or coffee filter in the bottom of the pitcher as this makes it easy for everything to slide out.

 

And all this is free!  So get composting already!

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Want to compost more stuff?  Here’s an interesting list of things that can be composted:

dryer lint, cardboard egg cartons, newspaper, sawdust, paper towels, shredded documents, 100% cotton fabrics, freshwater aquarium water, nail clippings, feathers, human and pet hair, vacuum bag contents, pencil shavings and facial tissues.

Strange and interesting.

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