John Krabacher In all honesty, I am a novice home gardener, but I have (since I was a teenager) been a concerned proponent for the environment. Seeing, all the waste we western humans create, and just to do nothing just irks me to no end. There must be a way to recycle or make wasteful situations into useful advantages for the world of gardening. Garden blogger Amy Grant writes in her blog Gardeningknowhow.com “The Pros and Cons of Composting” dated December 18, 2018 “Composing is one of the most beneficial things you can do in the garden, and the reasons to compost are many.” She does state later, we should not feel guilty if you do not want to compost. I know when I use to hear, people tell me about composting, my eyes would roll up to the sky, I would think of how much trouble it is to compost. But is it too much trouble? The first time I heard of composting was from my “hippie” friend Gary from the 70’s, I know showing my age. He was into gardening and saving our great environment for all living beings. I might have smirked a little at age of 17. However, as I got older and realized he was not too far off in his beliefs. I got married and my wife started a pile of food waste in the corner of the back yard. First in big green containers then on the ground. I am older now and I understand the benefits and realize even the fact of using composting end of food products as fertilizer. Now I am deep into gardening and composting. In the United Sates we dump, in the landfills, 40 percent of our food waste. “Why should we be concerned about this waste?” According to Amy Grant and many scientists “waste to landfills fill up space for years, but landfills produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is twenty times more destructive than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Methane can remain in the atmosphere for up to 15 years and has serious implications with relation to global warming and climate change.” If we repurpose waste can it help reducing the global warming thought?
This can also be a great way to get renewed soil. If renewed soil, stated in a previous blog, the soil has a big impact and a direct relationship to the climate change. It seems with these two factors humans can change the climate in a way never really thought of before. We can each have a part in healing an environmental hurt. Many people might think composting has negative effects. Two unfounded concerns are it stinks, and it just does not look pretty. That can be true if you put meat with the compost. Rotten meat does smell and attract pests. It is best to throw meat in a trash can use compost pile to vegetables and green matter layered with paper and cardboard, it will hold down the odor. My wife and I have been doing backyard composting for years and there is no odor. In the community garden there is a compost mountain it also has no odor. Also next complaint it looks unsightly. We used to have a small green container in our backyard which is ventilated and hides a small pile. There are many containers on the markets for instance the roll around composter rolled daily can amazingly compost fast or can be DYI also be bought or sometimes free containers at a local extension service. Once a compost pile area is established it can become a great place to put in grass clippings and green waste such as leaves. I agree, with Amy Grant in saying, there are some downside but with the small inconvenience of scraping off our plates or collecting vegetable peelings into a compost bin, it just might be worthwhile for the future of a good garden soil and heal the earth surely outweigh the inconvenience.
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