Now that spring is finally here in West Michigan, it is time to get off the Internet, turn off the TV, and put away the books. After riding my bike, one of my favorite nice weather pastimes is gardening. It’s the ultimate DIY project: what could be cooler than growing your own food? At the same time, it makes eating organic affordable and helps us to reconnect with the earth.

Gardening has been discussed elsewhere on GRSCREAMER.COM, so I want to talk a bit about one of my favorite parts about gardening: composting. Composting is not only essential to successful gardening, it is one of the critical aspects of successful plant growth. The composting process takes place wherever plants (and animals) die and it is a process by which organic material breaks down and fertilizes the soil. Compost is one of the building blocks of good soil.

So, you might be saying to yourself “but I don’t garden, why do I care about composting?” As it turns out, composting is a great way to get rid of a lot of your kitchen garbage. All vegetable cuttings (such as ends of carrots, stems from greens, apple cores, etc) can be placed in a compost pile, thus keeping them from going to a landfill. The less waste we generate the better, the less we have to spend on trash tags, the less we spend the less we have to work, etc, etc. The way I see it, we have a responsibility to live simply and sustainably (in a truly sustainable manner, not in the “drive a Prius” or “use ethanol” kind of way). Compost is a way of bringing sustainability to how you eat and what you throw away.

So, maybe that brief bit piqued your interest in composting—great! It’s really easy to do. All you need to do is find a corner of your backyard and start making plans for your pile (Even if you can’t compost in your yard, there are other options such as worm composting that you can do inside, head to the library for more information). If you rent, in my experience your landlord likely won’t care (they just want your money anyway), but you might want to ask first. It helps to pick a location that gets some sunlight. There are a number of options for starting your pile, you can just pile it free form in your yard (I have done that) or make a container. Good containers are pallets on three sides (get them behind businesses) or chicken wire.

Once you have your compost area setup, you will need to start filling it up. It is good to start with a layer of organic material such as leaves (check parks if you don’t have trees in your yard) or grass clippings. Next, you will want to start adding food scraps to the compost pile. All vegetable and fruit waste is fine, but don’t add animal products (and you really shouldn’t be eating those anyways). You can also compost coffee grounds and coffee filters and tea bags. Aside from animal products, oily and packaged/processed foods typically don’t decompose well (again, it is probably best to avoid those anyway). I have always kept a bucket under the sink and bring the food scraps out every few days. Just add all the food scraps to the compost and stir it occasionally (every few days) using a pitchfork or shovel. Adding shredded newspapers occasionally helps as well. After a little while, you should see worms and other critters in your compost, and in a few months you should have rich compost (it will have a black color and a rich, earthy smell [which you will eventually grow to love]).

Everywhere I have lived, the compost piles have functioned like this. We have always just thrown our food scraps in with the occasional newspaper shreddings and waited as the pile decomposed. Even when I was involved with Food Not Bombs or cooked at a collective house, we would throw massive amounts of food scraps in the compost and not think twice about it. As it turns out, there are a number ways to make your compost pile work more effectively, ranging from paying attention to Carbon and Nitrogen ratios to making sure that it is “hot” (a “hot” pile will break down quicker and make compost faster). There are tons of books written on compost—and while it may sound nerdy—it’s really pretty fun and interesting to learn about. Moreover, it’s one of those things that you can never know everything about, making it a great hobby.

If you decide to make a compost pile but don’t garden yourself, you can give away your finished compost to one of the community gardens in Grand Rapids. Most would be quite happy to receive your compost. Alternatively, you could ask them about getting space for your own garden—and making use of your own compost! Getting involved with a community garden is a great way to move composting beyond being an individual action. Individual actions are great—especially in a world that teaches us to embrace a lifestyle based on destruction and exploitation—but when individual actions are part of a social process of transformation, we begin to take steps towards liberation.