“Sweetie, you threw away your apple core again! And [gasp!] there’s a banana peel in the trash!” My long-suffering husband had once again run afoul of the compost fanatic in our household—me.
As my family can attest, I’m pretty rabid about recycling. Plus, I love to garden. Add those together and it’s no surprise that we have a compost pile. In fact, until recently I had a worm bin in the pantry. It was so convenient to dump my kitchen trimmings in with the wrigglers and let them convert wilted lettuce and carrot peelings into worm castings. (Pete did not like having worms in the kitchen but he was incredibly patient with my enthusiasm.)
Not only am I keeping plant waste out of the landfill, recent research from Colorado State University’s soil lab concluded that homemade compost is the best soil amendment. They tested 40 commercially bagged products on the market, and homemade compost surpassed all of them. Plus, it’s free!