Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Green Karny: Composting...Day 1


I hadn't planned on this being our first post...buuuuut I'm so tickled about this that I decided to jump right in.

Today is our first day of composting! We're very excited about this because we just hate waste. Now that we buy organic produce, which costs a bit more than conventionally grown produce, it just kills me to throw any of it out...like the potato skins or banana peels...that could be composted for our yard.

Our journey to this day seems like it's taken forever...actually about 3 years. It was 3 years ago when, with the best of intentions, we purchased a compost bin. We had NO idea what we were doing...just threw in some of this & that from our salads & yard...which would have been fine. However, we were kinda overwhelmed as to how to go about this whole thing...looked at a website....then quickly lost interest & laziness set in...& it was on our to do list, really...but it always got pushed to the bottlom of the list...so there the bin sat...& sat...& sat.

Fast forward to the present...I watched Oprah's Earth Day show. Sophie Uliano (Author of Gorgeously Green) was on talking about the things anyone can do to be more green. One of the things was to compost. I had seen composting mentioned on one of the upcoming show previews so I made sure to tune in for it. It really didn't look as difficult as I "Right on!", I thought. "We can do this!" BTW, the Earth Day show was super & it re-inspired me to commit to being more green.

Ok, so I had to get Sophie Uliano's book, Gorgeously Green: 8 Simple Steps to an Earth-Friendly Life. I mean seriously, SIMPLE & EARTH-FRIENDLY is in the title...I couldn't go wrong! Witin a week of that show I was off to get the book. So now I'm reading it & absolutely LOVE it! If you haven't taken a peek at it...DO. http://www.gorgeouslygreen.com/

Back to the composting....We decided that we needed a container to put under the sink to gather up our scraps. Rather than go buy a new container, we went to one of our favorite thrift stores & found this old enamelware pot with lid. It fits nicely under our sink. Perfect! Now I'm hoping it won't smell too bad...not sure how to fix that at this point...I'm thinking that we'll just make a few trips out to our bin every day...which will really help with that laziness problem...plus I need the exercise. Besides, it's not like we have a big yard to walk across.

So that's where we are at on day one of our composting. Stay tuned to see how it goes. Who knows, maybe you'll be inspired to compost too. Trust me...if we can do this, anyone could do this. OH, & Tony is building raised beds for a veggie patch today. Come on back to see the finished project & more on Karny Life.

Have a beautiful day!