Yesterday, I posted a little bit about compost and how to gather it...today is about how to actually do it.

Pretty much anything biodegradable will eventually biodegrade, no matter what you do to it....it's a fact. Composting methods described in most gardening books are designed to hasten that process to allow you, the gardener in need of compost, to use your organic fertilizer sooner than later. Add a comment

Compost. It's a valuable commodity for organic gardeners...and best of all it's free.

I often stand in amazement at how God designed the world to work when I ponder little things, like compost for example. Fresh stuff that is grown in your garden or mine produces scraps and leftovers, that can then be used to feed the garden again as compost. Trees make leaves that fall in the autumn time, which then biodegrade and feed the tree by providing good things for the ground around it. It's really amazing to think about.

Of course, what do modern folks do? rake leaves and get rid of them....well not me anyway...I rake leaves, put them in plastic bags, water them lightly, and stick them in the barn until spring, at which time they are partly decomposed and make great mulch. This works better if you can leave them in the sunshine all winter, but some neighbors are not into the whole organic thing. My friend Dale takes other people's leaves left in bags at the street corner for use in his garden the following spring, which I'd do if I didn't have a tree and if my kids didn't love raking so much. :-)

Kitchen scraps are another great source of future compost. I save all of my veggie peelings, cores, etc....everything but meat...and we add that to one of the compost bins every other day.

The kids are so used to this idea of compost and biodegradable things, that the other day, they were eating watermelon with some guests over, and my youngest went into the kitchen, grabbed the compost bucket, opened it (ew) and said, everyone throw your rinds in here to feed our garden!

For years, I used a regular bucket for my kitchen scraps but one year someone got me this one in the picture, which has a filter, and doesn't smell (unless opened), and it works wonders too.

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One of the best ways to save extra money on the grocery bill is to grow your own groceries, but getting started with a garden can be challenging and intimidating. If it's not done properly, a garden can potentially cost you more than you actually save. Many gardening books on the market today contain costly suggestions. Most of the time, gardening books aren't directed towards busy mothers with young children either, and it shows! That's where my new ebook, Momma's Guide to Growing Your Groceries comes in!

For Mother's Day this year, My mom in law gave me a book she found at a garage sale or something to that effect, called "Tips for the Lazy Gardener" by one Linda Tilgner. Thus far the book has been pretty good, and an easy read--it's more or less a collection of tips and tricks for those who want to work smarter and not just harder.

In the process of reading this handy little book, I laughed at the fact that most of the stuff in this book I already practice at least in part (does this mean I'm a lazy gardener? LOL)...I guess that

1. great minds think alike and
2. mother's tend to come up with ideas that get the job done easiest with the best or acceptable results.

I did especially enjoy the information she had on composting. As i posted earlier, I have a problem coming up with enough compost in just my wee little spinning composter (which seemed bigger when I bought it!!!). I can't add more compostable materials to it while it is "cooking" and it seems to me whenever I have built framed compost pile, the compost seeps into the ground below the composter itself....at least the best compost, and then the grass and other weeds grow taller and faster than anywhere esle in the yard...sigh...and then I break my weed whacker when I go around the composter and it gets tangled in the chicken wire, but it is just too noxious to bend over and hand trim near that area, even with aerobic composting going on.

Well...enter Linda Tilgner's idea...or one that she quoted actually from a gardening friend. Use some old tomato cages or (in my case) some old wire fencing, and build some cylinders, and plant them in different parts of the garden, and use those as recepticals for compostable materials. As they decompose, the compost forms on the bottom IN THE GARDEN BED (HURRAY), fertilizing as it goes. When it rains, you get some compost tea in the garden. your compost collectors are right there where you need them too. And when my spinning composter compost is done, I can just pitchfork some more compsot into the spinner from one of the recepticals I have around. For the record I put two of them in the garden...they are about 3 ft in diameter and about 4 ft high, and contain grass clippings, pulled weeds, spent plants, and kitchen scraps. I have vining plants growing over them so as to cover it up a little bit. In the winter, I plan to spread as much of the decomosed matter around the tops of the beds as possible.

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One of the best ways to save extra money on the grocery bill is to grow your own groceries, but getting started with a garden can be challenging and intimidating. If it's not done properly, a garden can potentially cost you more than you actually save. Many gardening books on the market today contain costly suggestions. Most of the time, gardening books aren't directed towards busy mothers with young children either, and it shows! That's where my new ebook, Momma's Guide to Growing Your Groceries comes in!