FURNITURE AS ART
Designer’s unique pieces on exhibit
Compost is the stuff of great gardens, the stuff that fuels dinnerplate-size heads of broccoli and traffic-stopping dahlias.
Compost is also good for trees, shrubs and lawns, making plants happier by keeping the soil around their roots moister and more nutritionally balanced.
The odd thing is that compost is also something that gardeners sometimes skimp on. Most of us have more than enough materials to create all the compost our hearts and plants could desire. After all, compost is essentially what’s left when organic materials — anything that is or was living — decomposes.
Bags and bags of fallen leaves sitting at curbs and along driveways make this wastage all the more evident this time of year.
And what about garbage bags filled with old plants cleared from the garden, houseplants and grass clippings?
There’s no reason to relegate them to burial in plastic bags in a landfill. They’re fine for compost.
Going a step further into the world of “garbage”: vegetable trimmings, leftover food past its prime, even used paper plates can be turned into compost. Those plates were once living trees. Snicker if you will, but even old clothes, if made of cotton, wool or other natural materials, can be composted.
A few roadblocks — besides that old bugbear, habit — keep people from composting.
One is the perception that composting is less convenient or more work than bagging up trash. Not really, if you keep a small container by the kitchen sink and dump its contents once daily on your compost pile; if you rake leaves into an out-of-the-way pile or beneath trees and shrubs; and if you just dump anything else compostable as it becomes available on your compost pile.
Some people fear that a compost pile will attract animals or smell bad.
Putting out fresh foods will attract animals, but that can be averted by composting with an animal-proof bin. Or get composting started indoors in a larger bucket by sprinkling a mix of sawdust and soil over each meal’s kitchen trimmings and plate scrapings.