Wow, Lloyd, that was downright poetic.

Composters are rare around here. I have one neighbor who composts, and he's the only person in this city who I know makes compost. We were talking a few weeks ago, exchanging stories about how our spouses complain about the "junk" we have sitting around (bags of leaves, bales of straw, etc). He said to me "They just don't GET IT". It's true. Either you "get it" or you don't. My friends think I'm nuts, too.
Their loss. And their gardens don't hold a candle to mine. I'm certain that flipping my compost causes me to release endorphins, comparable to a runner's high.

Karen

I don't know.. it just is. Maybe it's the satisfaction we get from watching "trash" be put to good use, but I think it's more than that. I don't know what makes me grin like a maniac when I score a big bag of UCG or a truckload of leaves...or why I feel really disappointed on days when I don't get to turn one of the piles.

It's all a big deal to me and I'm glad to have this forum of people who "get it" because there are so many people around me that I try to talk to about composting who just can't understand the thrill I get from it.

I'll repost what I wrote before

It's the idea of control, and the ability to change one product to another. I like to compare it to cooking, you take several relatively different and seemingly unrelated (both chemically and physically) and put it together, input energy, and you got something marvelous as the end product, whether it be a soup or soil (compost seems to be like a soup mixture anyway). It might be an OCD thing, but for me, the idea of gathering things that other people deem utterly worthless and making them into something that is so invaluable makes it addictive

Personal satisfaction.

Ownership. It's mine. I made it.

Quality time with myself. While working the compost I can choose to think and decisions which have to be made about life or just let my mind ramble or talk to the squirrel picking cones from the spruce which grows next to the fourth bin or simply watch the chickadees and the robins in the woods behind the piles.

Kind of glad my family doesn't get it... If ever they do, they'll realize it wasn't all about composting.

Tiffy - I think you said it best for me. A couple of years ago when I first decided to start composting, I had a lot of fun just putting it together, turning it, watching it turn into compost. I was doing it all myself and was fine with that.

My husband is an obsessive recycler but he didn't "get" the whole composting process and while he was glad I was using the yard and kitchen waste I think he thought I was a little nuts. After he saw the finished compost he started "helping" (grin). He started turning it on his own and would come in and proudly announce that he'd turned the compost. Sometimes I'd be a little miffed because I'd just turned it but sometimes I'd be okay with it because it needed it. Now he waits until I tell him it's time to turn but I do miss that first year when I made the compost "all by myself".

It's the same feeling I get when I open something I've canned and proudly announce "this is from our garden last year".

Val

That's wild. After turning my piles yesterday and adding some material to a fairly fresh one, I kept looking for things to do with the compost in the 35 degree weather. I measured the temps, spread some not completely composted leaves on a new part of garden where I'm amending the soil and then spread Starbucks grounds on them. I found myself stopping and checking out a few things with the compost. Like how seeds are germinating that don't in normal soil because the soil is too cold now. Those will become more compost and not weeds in the garden. Obviously I don't mind putting seeds in compost. Then I started checking out the different tiny life in each pile and comparing them. It's our art. We are creating things. We are creating ecosystems and purposely manipulating nature to create food and protection for our gardens. It's an exhilarating feeling to create anything with success.

Nice responses to this thread!

For me composting is part of gardening, and gardening is by and large pleasurable. Composting is mostly a benign and relaxing activity, occasionally even a little thrilling when finding some really good materials like 2 partially rotted straw bales. Sometimes the mechanics of composting are tedious though, especially lugging around large heavy batches of organic stuff all the time. It is more of a means to an end - to have a beautiful, natural landscape that pleases me and the wildlife - and the end results are more than worth the labor required.

The intense pleasure comes from watching how well things grow with compost! I love how the plants thrive and how rich and lush they look look when they get lots of organic matter. I was amazed at how well an assortment of plants from transplants to seedlings grew this year in a mostly decomposed lasagne bed. I love the beautiful shows of blooms with lots of critters enjoying the pollen and nectar and seeds. Even the poor excuse of a front lawn is looking better topdressed with a little lime and compost each year (although mowing it will probably never be a pleasure ;).

Y'know, terrene, I started mowing with a reel mower this year and it's a ton easier. I used to dread mowing with my gas mower because it's heavy and I bag the grass for composting, which increases the weight a lot. Now, the reel mower and catcher are a lot lighter. I find myself looking outside wondering if the grass is tall enough to collect more clippings for compost rather than looking out and dreading having to mow it as a chore. Of course, I occasionally leave clippings to feed the grass, too. The good thing with the reel mower is that it leaves some clippings in the grass and some make it into the catcher whereas the gas mower's fan action sucks up all the grass clippings.

Well, for those of us who cry when it snows, it's nice to see some bare soil poking through the top of that nice warm compost heap! And it's something to DO in the middle of winter, that feels like I'm gardening, when nothing is growing outside.

I also get a perverse thrill from using what most people would think of as trash (see, "partially rotted straw bales" above, lol!) and turning it into something useful. Although I'm sure my hubby would think I was nuts if I told him I was thinking about calling around to local farms in search of fresh manure to haul home........

It's a composter thing---you either get it or you don't! I rather love the feeling of being the creator of the land filling my raised beds, knowing that without my efforts, none of what is out in my yard would be there. To create enough compost to keep 76' of raised bed full is alot of fun! A challange. A satisfaction beyond belief. Relaxing!

I like knowing that I KNOW what is going in my soil. Knowing that it is good for my garden and seedlings and whatever else I decide to use it for because it CAN be used for everything without the fear of it killing whatever it went on.
It is fun to gather stuff to throw on it and know that I can use it when it is ready to be used and it is FREE! And better then most stuff that can be purchased in a bag!
AND...I MADE IT! How the heck cool is that? or at least help make it anyway!

:) Fran

In Texas I had 15 acres and 6 large compost bins. I had plenty of vegie clippings and a ton of leaves. Composting was soooo easy! Now I've moved back home to Michigan, I miss it! I haven't composting in 3 years and have just made a bin. Of course, before anything went in, we now have 6 inches of snow! My husband just shakes his head as I bag up the vegie cuttings and place them in the freezer. I will have plenty to start the compost in the spring.

I believe that once someone starts, they are hooked for life! Composting is natural....real

Dana

So why aren't you putting the scraps in the new bin? Does it make a difference if they are frozen in the freezer or frozen in your bin?

It helps us become more comfortable with the cycle of life. It's easy to feel at home in the first half of the cycle, flowering and fruiting. It's not so easy to feel at home in the last half of the cycle, dying and rotting, and when techology allowed we started sending it down the drains or in plastic garbage bags to some disgusting place we would rather not think about. Sanitary, but alienating. To find a way to personally embrace the full cycle of life, death, and rebirth, without disgust and even with curiosity and delight, helps me feel more peacefully at home with what is. Primitive cultures held ceremonies that celebrated the death and decay part of the cycle and recognized its inseparability from the other part. Modern times have made it possible for our feelings to become detached from the natural cycle of life, but an echo persists, particularly among those of us who garden.

DW just pointed this out to me, might be interesting from several different aspects.

Lloyd

I like this question. For me, what makes composting pleasurable is very little removed from what makes gardening pleasurable. It has to do with the way this land has taught me everything I know about gardening.

The spring I bought my property was a relatively wet one here (we have far more dry winters than wet), and come summer it was growing a tall crop of weeds. Controlling those weeds - mostly grasses and pigweed - was a necessity. So when the grasses were thick with seeds, I pulled and pulled, tossing them in piles with the seeds facing inward, lots of soil mixed in with the stems leaving large berms of organic matter on top of the heavy native clay.

I did some limited planting elsewhere. Nothing thrived, the soil was poor, the conditions harsh.

Time passed. I continued small efforts to tame the land.

About two years on, those weed berms had partially broken down. And I dug some holes just below the berms. For the very first time, I found I was digging in something which resembled decent soil. Oh my, it was a huge aha! I had the makings of soil, between my organic poor, heavy clay and lots and lots of organic matter, I had the first inkling that I could build a garden here.

The rest is history - 25 years worth. I made more weed berms, but after five years I ran out of weeds. No tragedy there. I began recycling other people's bagged organics - lawn clippings, leaves, whatever I could find. I bought a chipper. By then I had some 300 roses to care for and the chipper made it possible to transform my prunings into wonderful mulch and soil amendment.

The process of soil building accelerated hugely with the acquisition of the chipper, chipping up rose prunings, juniper branches, perennial stalks. That first fall I shredded other people's leaves. Never since. I have become adept at judging the quality of the bagged contents and now gather three to five pickup loads of mostly mowed materials per week during the month and a half when the leaves are being bagged.

A third of my large compost pile is either mature or nearly so. The other two thirds are newly built and now heating up - ranging from 125 to 155 as of today's check. My favorite time of year. Gathering is like a meditation. Building a hot pile to go into winter gives me a way to phase out of the busy spring and summer garden seasons. By winter I dream of compost and worms. Crazy I know, but if anyone will understand, you all will.

But back to why is it pleasurable. I think that compost - in the form of those weed berms - taught me the first thing I ever learned about how to work with the land to create a garden. The land has taught me. The garden has taught me. Composting is such an integral part of the garden for me, that you might as well ask, why is gardening pleasurable. I love the smell and the feel of a rich soil, the beauty and productivity of a garden. It's all just part of the same passion.

Regina, in Reno

I literally fell in love with composting the moment I turned my first pile and steam rose!

But what makes it an enduring love is I think a few things. The more I learn about how to grow my own food, the more independent I feel. When I don't have to make the city trucks stop to pick up scads of leaves I feel like a good citizen because, in a small way, I'm less of a burden. My world view changed - when I see rotten apples on the sidewalk, I see opportunity (when life hands you lemon peels, make compost?). And looking for ways to discretely manage gigantic piles of leaves on our small city lot encourages creativity.

But sometimes I worry - I think my compost pile owns me more than I own it. At work when we had to go around and say something quirky about ourselves, I freely admitted "I carry garbage in pocket" and followed it with a brief sermon of the wonders of compost and why we should all pocket lemon slices from glasses of water at restaurants to feed the compost bin.

At the end of the article that Lloyd linked to above, I noticed it mentioned gardenweb.com.

Hi Joe

Ya, I saw that as well. That's all (rolling eyes) we need is a bunch of demented, obsessed, delusional, hysterical, unhinged, fanatical, fiendish, possessed, over-the-top, leaf stealing, dumpster diving, worm dreaming, leaf-vac murdering, tea making, compost whackos enthusiasts around here!

Hey wait a minute, that sounds familiar!

Lloyd

what westover said.

It's comforting, it's exhilerating, to see death turn into life.

Lloyd - Beg your pardon Sir, but the leaf vac has not been officially murdered yet. It's at the surgeon's workshop as we speak. As for the rest of your description, I plead the 5th (as I'm sure many of us here do). :)

I did have a most wonderful day today and I'm so excited I can't sleep. I asked my vet if she knew of anywhere I could get some manure. She made a quick call and gave me directions. Behind the barn at the horse trainers...OH MY... a windrow taller than me and over 30 feet long of the most beautiful, chocolatey composted horse manure I have ever laid eyes on. The guy came down from the barn and loaded my truck up with as much as it would hold and invited me back ANY time!

When they clean the stalls, the manure mixed with sawdust and shavings, old straw and bits of uneaten hay go into a pile around back with the fallen leaves. Apparently they use a tractor to shift and move the piles and create the windrow. It's practically finished compost all on its own! The guy told me that landscapers come get it and sell it as soil amendment - and I think I have purchased this same stuff at great expense before I knew how pleasurable composting is. Now I can have all of this stuff that I want for free and it's not that far to drive to get it either.

Excuse me while I do a cartwheel, a victory dance and then dab at my drool with a napkin. Oh, the things that make a girl happy.

Ok, so I am an obsessed wacko. I'm trying to plan the rest of my life around constant trips down to the back of that barn. Of course I can't just accept it as compost.. I had to get some of the really fresh stuff too to mix and tinker with it and create my own "brand" of compost - but it's a really nice start!

Unhinged? yep...but insanely pleased with this new "find". Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make some compost tea and feed my worms some scraps.

~Gerri

I'm not entirely sure why composting is so enjoyable. It gets you outside, recycling, and thinking of the next gardening season. But when the dog and I walk past dozens of bags of curb leaves, I just want to find the bags that have been shredded the finest. It affects which day the lawn is cut and encourages one to buy a hatchback car. (Looks like a Honda Fit 5 door, Ford quit making the hatchback Focus).

When I started composting five or six years ago one pile was all that I considered. Now there are seven round mesh bins holding compost or shredded leaves. They just sort of snuck over the fence and took up residence.

It's creating something valuable that money can't buy from something that people would otherwise throw away. I collect kitchen waste from two other households, and I have 4 active bins (made out of 6 biostacks), which is about as many as I can handle now.

I also get that big grin whenever I walk out of Starbux with the big bag of grounds.

I love filling up the bin with one bucket of kitchen waste, a couple buckets of garden waste, and a bucket of mulch, then coming back 2 days later to see the pile down to the same size as before.

I threw this question out there because I actually enjoy building soil and composting more than actual gardening. The Cycle or Circle of Life thing is a religious or spiritual aspect for me. Cue in soundtrack from The Lion King, opening song, Circle of LIfe: "Indiana, Gary Indiana, Indiana, Gary Indianat"

Also, adding organic carbon in soil is also considered one of the few, if not the only carbon negative tool against global warming out there.

I absolutely love working, creating in my gardens. It gives me so much pleasure to see the end result. It is just hard for me to sit, I must be moving ... and now thanks do a dear friend (paddykevin) I have started my first lasagna bed and I don't think I will sit again!
The thrill of going to the farms, Starbucks .... so exciting. I actually stopped on the side of a road and filled buckets of pine needles and leaves. Am I nuts or just loving life.

Because it not only represents a tomorrow the will inevitably be, it shows us how yesterday always was .
It is the cycle of life in a physical form.
ialbtc

All of us that are cooking for Thanksgiving ... As I prepare, I think of all the wonderful greens my lasagna bed will be getting ... and to think I use to just throw it all out!! A wonderful, new way of thinking.

Couldn't resist putting in my 2 cents in here. ;-)

I love making compost. I've been composting for nearly 30 years now. It's a lot like spinning gold out of straw. It keeps organic material out of landfills. I try hard to run my place as a closed system and having a compost area completes the property: kitchen scraps, spent harvest, leaves, grass, even newspapers, etc. stays right here where it can be transformed into rich humus to nourish next year's fruits, flowers and vegetables. (Between composting and recycling, I don't even have to subscribe to trash collection. I REALLY like to see a fat compost pile giving the raspberry to a weekly line of garbage cans up and down the street... :-))

And, let's face it, bottom line there's nothing like the smell of fresh sweet compost on a warm spring day! It smells a lot like -- success. :-)

Kris

I REALLY like to see a fat compost pile giving the raspberry to a weekly line of garbage cans up and down the street

Yup, definitely compost wacko enthusiast. And an apparent movie buff as well! It's downright Apocalyptic.

We should do that, throw in a line from a movie now and then and see if anyone can guess the movie...no googling though, I hate it when she does that.

:)

Lloyd

And let's not forget my keen sense of humus! (*har*)

You've totally got that one in the bag K(Ch)ris ;-) Having an insomniacish night here---oh to be able to go out and play in the garden or compost pile, but its just too blooming cold---OOOOOOOh ooooooooh, heat wave, we're havin a heat wave! its 36 outside right now!

Hope you got some sleep, dlpasti. 36? Downright balmy there. It's 14F right now here. Brrrr. Try counting sheep jumping over a nice warm compost pile.... ;-)

There was a moment this morning when I was turning my compost when I stood and watched the snow falling onto my two steaming compost piles. It was very pleasurable indeed.

kiddo---tried that, was going along great, then that one stupid goat got in line with the sheep and did a head butt thing and sent the compost pile all over the yard, so of course I was unable to do the ZZZZZZZZ's. Who let their goat loose? Apocalypic I say, apocalypic it is!

Well D, I hope you collected the manure from that goat if he left some. It'll be great when you rebuild the pile.

Can't believe it ..... vermicomposting in my basement! Ordered Red Wigglers in December and I cannot believe how they have adapted. All my scraps go to them, I talk like they are my pets....... LOVE what they do and the castings I am receiving. I look forward to putting the castings around all my indoor plants.
Once you start, you can't stop!! lol

I've always loved a new challenge and composting has become that since I found this forum. Still haven't perfected the process and may never as it will change as I find new things to compost and perhaps make mistakes in the amounts. However I know the end result, whatever I use, and however long it takes, is SUCCESS!!! Not too many things in life one can say that about.

I consider that I do a form of vermicomposting even tho I will never bother to keep worms in a bin in my home. All of my healthy, fat, worm pets are now sleeping under the snow and soil in the clay subsoil. As soon as the snow leaves and the soil warms they will create their little nurseries under the sun-warmed stepping stones. Then the entire worm family will help create new soil in my garden as long as I feed them. And I will.

I think it's an experience of plenty. If we have organic excess we are in a good place in the world. Good times. Good compost.

Mainstream media writing about gardening.

This morning, OAT -22C/-8F Windchill -33C/-22F

I think it's just a way of tormenting some of us.

:-(

Lloyd

Here is a link that might be useful: The morality of gardening

Lloyd.....the mortality of gardening.....whoa ... i know there is a zen to it but never saw it expressesd like this..

wanted to exit the site many times but just couldn't till i read all the posts....it held me like a magnet....

help me before i light some incense !!!.....

R

Loyd, this old Tree Hugger sent "The Morality of Gardening" to the Ozark Forum today. I just LOVED it.
Zen, indeed.
Thank you.
Sunny

All I know is that the worm compost I pulled out of my bins last night looked like chocolate cake crumbs and smelled beautiful and felt silky. Positively edible. ~Nomnom!~

put simply...

it's something for nothing.....

R

I have never composted before, but after reading these posts I'm going to start. The things expressed here were so moving and actually beautiful that last night while fixing dinner, instead of sending the veggie peels down the garbage disposal, I put them in a bag and saved them until I can get a compost pile started. I've been reading up on it here and learning a lot. It seems very doable.

I may have to share my composting with my husband because I had him read some of the posts here and he too "got it" and thought it sounded like a natural next step to how we live. We are both recently retired, putting in a veggie container garden for the first time and have plenty of fall leaves and other yard waste to use.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that your words have inspired me to try composting.

Susan

Shebeest - that is sooo cool! I'm glad you wrote and told us 'cause it shows that people are reading this forum all the time and what we write influences people.

It's especially nice that your husband gets it too. Mine didn't at first and often looked at me sideways with "the look". He totally gets it now though :-)

Congratulations and have fun.

Val

Thanks Val! We have a bag in the freezer for food type items and then a bucket under the sink for paper towels, etc., plus something to save the coffee grounds/filters in. We both are catching ourselves when we start to throw something away to see if it's something we can compost. I know there are lots of other things we haven't even considered composting that probably can be.

One thing I was wondering about were peanut shells, I assume they can be? There are a lot of good posts, sort of Composting 101, that I've been reading as I have time that are very informative. We have been recycling plastic, glass, paper for a long time but I realize we have been throwing away so much that could be used and that we will now use. It's a process like everything.

Anyway thanks for the nice words.

Susan

One thing I was wondering about were peanut shells, I assume they can be?

Absolutely. My husband loves peanuts in the shell and can eat a big bag in a couple of days and I have composted the shells. They don't seem to take longer than anything else.

Val

It appeals to my inner my scientist as well as my inner conservationist.

Who wants to waste a good weed???

It smells good.

It's a good good thing that you can get for free. Pleasing my inner miser...

What else can I say?

Oh yeah! It's gardening... um... backwards.

It's gninedrag.