Then I tried it for myself and realized that it really could be as simple as throwing your food scraps and grass clippings into a pile and waiting for it to rot.

Why is composting so great? Well, for starters, it is a great way to recycle and reduce waste. It is also full of nutrients that your plants need to grow, it improves the consistency of soil and makes is easier to work with, and it provides a happy home for microorganisms who will break down your bolted lettuce into sweet, crumbly compost so you can grow…even more lettuce!

At first I just piled everything up in a corner of the backyard, but my dog Moby kept getting into it and so I decided to build a bin. Here is my take of a design that I found in Organic Gardening Magazine. Here are the instructions to build one yourself.

A few dos and don’ts of composting:

DON”T put the following in your compost

Meat Products (unless you want the rot to attract maggots, and then by all means, go ahead)
Dairy Products
Dog or cat poo (potential pathogen contamination)
Diseased plants
Paper (except newspaper)

DO put in the following:

Kitchen Scraps like veggies and bread
Chicken Manure
Newspaper
Grass Clippings
Leaves
Weeds, spent garden plants, etc.

Add some water, turn the pile every month or so to aerate it, and voila- in a few months you will have homemade brown gold of your very own.