I am a country girl. I was raised up in the country side. My favorite memory of country side is my mom’s vegetable garden with chickens, pigs and rabbits she raised, and our table filled with yummy dishes with fresh vegetables and eggs.
Maybe because I am a country girl, one of my dream is having my own vegetable garden. Not just an ordinary one, but the special one with the compost I would have produced myself. So, I always dreamed of and craved for having a compost bin or compost bins.
In this February, I bought a tall plastic bin and my husband drilled holes on the side and the bottom with a 3/8″-drill bit. (We were afraid that 1/2″ is big enough for a mouse to snuggle in, so we used 3/8″.) We raised up the bin with 2 x 4 scraps to allow the air to circulate from the bottom, and placed the bin close to the kitchen. Since it was winter time, I didn’t have to worry about the possible smell or bugs.
To make good compost, I put one third green(nitrogen) and two third brown(carbon) and made alternating layers of those with some water and organic soil to accelerate the composting process. My favorite ingredient was coffee ground waste. I asked my friend to save some for me and when I had chances to buy a Starbucks coffee, I always asked theirs.
These are the list of greens and browns I put.
Green:
Waste of vegetable and fruit
Coffee ground waste and used tea(with a tea bag)
Brown:
Egg shell
Coffee filter
Kitchen towel and napkin
Black and white newspaper
Brown leaves
We are family with 3 boys( 2 teenager and a 11-years old boy. Imagine how much they eat), and by composting kitchen waste, I surely can say that I reduced some landfill waste.
Today, we made one more compost bin with the metal posts and the plastic mesh. Right now we have leaves from the last fall, which we gathered from the flower and shrub bed. When the ingredients in the plastic bin are matured, I will dump them into this bin. This way my open compost bin won’t attract any wild animals including mice, I think.
When we raked leaves, we found the sprouts of the maple tree. They looked so weak, tender and cute, but they were strong enough to break through the pile of heavy leaves. What an amazing power of the nature!
These are some “beatiful weed 
“, violet in my yard. They are all over the grass area and beds.
P.S. This is the website where I learned about the composting. I hope that you could have good information over there.
Happy composting!
