Four Drunkard's Paths

Here’s another holiday I’ll bet you didn’t know about: National Learn About Composting Day. Kitchen and garden waste accounts for between a fifth and a third of what we send to the landfill, while much of it could be enriching our gardens instead. Composting requires three basic ingredients: browns (like dead leaves, twigs and small branches), greens (grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds) and water. Having an equal amount of greens and browns and adequate water is important for compost development. Brown materials provide carbon for your compost, green materials provide nitrogen, and water provides moisture to help break down the organic matter. What SHOULDN’T go into the compost pile is just as important: dairy products, fats, meat or bones, cat litter or dog poop, diseased plants, anything treated with pesticides or herbicides, or leaves and twigs from a black walnut tree.