that there is black gold my friends. compost is, by definition, decayed organic material. there are loads of things we deem as trash, throwing away into our ever-expanding landfills, that can be composted into nutrient rich soil additives. if you have a green thumb, you most likely know all about the laundry list of goodness that compost can bring to your growing plants and gardens. but even if you don't garden, even if you live in a studio apartment with no backyard in sight, even then, you can benefit from the wonders of composting.  so not only does compost help our greens grow, it's also an amazing way to minimize your waste on a daily basis.

if you are blessed enough to have a yard, you are also blessed with yard waste. branches, leafs, dead plants... these are all things that can be composted. when composting, we call these dead plants from the yard our browns.  they bring the pile an important source of carbon. to have an efficient compost pile that decays quickly, we need a mix of both browns and greens. our greens are high in nitrogen, our greens consist mainly of our food scraps. you can compost almost any kind of food. when your pile is in the backyard however, you want to avoid meats, cheeses and oils. these things are stinky, and they attract animals... neither of which are cool when composting.  one of the main concerns is stench. everyone has this idea that compost piles are horribly smelly. this just isn't true when you're composting correctly.  if you're composting correctly, a proper pile will smell like dirt and will turn into the black gold you see pictured above in as little as 6 weeks.

how about us urban dwelling folk? we still have plenty of food scraps but nowhere to make a compost pile. worms. worms! worms can eat your food scraps, they can and they will. they are hungry. and ridiculously easy to maintain. the fancy term for letting worms eat your food is vermicomposting. it takes very little space and there's no stink factor here either.  you'll want red wigglers, they're the hungriest. and easily attainable from local garden shops.

so start composting. all the cool kids are doing it.

i've got a lot of yard waste to compost

i want worms to eat my garbage

tell me more about composting