Compost

Last year, Sam picked up a DVD of PBS Curious George episodes.  The one he happened to grab was all about Curious George going "green".  Sam latched onto the episode about composting and took it upon himself to get us composting.  He oversaw the purchase of the black trash can, he had his dad show him how to drill holes in it, and faithfully drilled until the job was done.  Over the summer he has been helping me to layer food scraps and brown yard waste, and amazingly, we have successfully composted, in town, in a black trash can.   Soon we will empty the completed compost into the garden and see if we can keep those eating the compost alive for the winter!

It has been fascinating, and I really like putting my vegetable and fruit waste here rather than in the trash.  The most fascinating aspect of this has been the discovery of the crazy larva that have come to feast on our compost.  I had never heard of these guys before, but we have really enjoyed learning about them.  They are the larvae of a black soldier fly, and man do they ever like to eat!  Apparently once they become flies, they only live for a few days because they don't have a mouth!  As larvae they eat like crazy!  This picture is a little gross, but it's also a fascinating part of this process.

So if you've been thinking about composting, go for it!  This has been so simple.  I literally layer vegetable and fruit waste with brown dried leave, weeds and grass.  You can even put coffee grounds in there which help balance out and control odors.  I have tried to mix the compost, but I haven't been as faithful to do that as I would have liked.  If you get a trash can with a lid that doesn't pop off, (like ours does) you cal literally just roll it a few times per week.