Composting is simply common sense

 

by Affiliate Shirley Huhn with assistance from Lucy Slinger, FSPA

Composting is the ultimate in recycling. Fruit and vegetable scraps, spent flowers, weeds, leaves, manure and soil are the makings of rich humus to enhance any soil, soil that can be used to grow the fruits, vegetables, beautiful flowers that in turn will end up making new compost.

I have been composting for a long time in my backyard. It wasn’t until I started buying local apples by the bushels for the Villa kitchen that I got the idea to compost waste from the Villa. Sisters spent much time peeling mountains of apples producing great bags of peelings. It seemed such a shame not to do something with them. It took me a while to warm to the idea of being able to handle all these peelings in my backyard compost. When I did start taking them home the pile grew and my comfort zone expanded. Soon I was lugging all the fruit and vegetable scraps from the Villa kitchen to my backyard. I would load up my trunk . . . my car smelled wonderful . . . take them home, add the new peelings and turn the pile. It was deeply satisfying watching the transformation into humus. I was proud of my compost pile and what I was doing to help the environment. As in so many things, the rewards were far greater than the effort.

As the Ecospirituality Committee started dreaming, planning and finally getting an organic garden underway, we decided to create a compost pile at the Villa. Instead of hauling all the peelings home, we put them out on the pile to become humus for the gardens. Now there is a tractor and bucket that turn the pile, raked leaves that enrich the pile and mountains of pulled weeds and grass clippings that green the pile.

Composting turns waste into a valuable resource. It prevents kitchen scraps and yard waste from ending up in the landfills. It saves water by not sending these things down the garbage disposal. It adds rich, organic matter to the soil. It actually helps reduce global warming by stashing the CO2 and methane gases released when organic waste breaks down in landfills.

We will continue composting. Last winter the snow got too deep so the pile couldn’t be reached, but we started again early in the spring. The compost pile is community in action because it takes many hands to make it work. Kitchen staff is careful to save everything that can be used in the pile. Villa maintenance employees take the heavy pails of scraps out and help turn the pile with the garden tractor and bucket. Sister gardeners pull and save all the weeds and plant materials that go into the pile. In turn these hard-working gardeners incorporate the decomposed organic matter back into the garden. So the cycle is continuous.

We invite you also to join in learning how to “simply let it rot” or follow the wonderful example of Sister DeSales Curti who uses vermaculture, worms in a storage tub, to compost in her apartment. The Villa gardeners would welcome the results of your composting adventures to add to the garden's fertility. Need help to get started? Check the Internet or contact Sister Lucy Slinger, the FSPA ecological advocate.