From Veggie Scraps to Humus: An Ecosystem in your Compost Bin

Living in the northern hemisphere where spring showers bring May flowers and being the first post in said month, I feel it is my duty to discuss an important topic: compost. Compost is the seemingly simple product of a complex mixture of materials. Take a smorgasbord of leaves, grass, kitchen waste, coffee grounds and other organic material, mix them into a pile or in a bin, and a dark, rich soil amendment is the end result. Thus, what many people label as waste becomes something quite useful if you want to grow vegetables, flowering plants or even a healthy lawn. (You do compost, don’t you?) Certainly my bleeding hearts appreciate a top dressing of compost in the spring to keep them vigorous, so much so that I had to split them only two years after planting them. But what does the work of converting a mess of green stuff and brown stuff to a crumbling, desirable end product?

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