The Mulching Post (as promised!)

It's been several weeks since my recycling post, where I promised to do a post about mulching. Since I know how much you've been anticipating the mulching post, I decided to finally put you out of your misery and give it to you *grin*.

When Chris first approached me with the idea of mulching our food and yard waste, I was not on board with it at all. I didn't know much about it and was afraid that it would stink, or attract animals, or just be really gross in general.

As hard as it is for me to admit this, I'm actually glad that we mulch. The process is really neat.

Here is our set-up:
As you can see, this is a simple $10 plastic trash can in which Chris has drilled holes. We first put grass clippings, cedar mulch (that we took from our flower bed), a few leaves, twigs, and other yard waste in the trash can. With a little water, oxygen, and time, the yard waste began mulching (turning to soil), and it was at that point that we started adding food waste to it as well. We put pretty much any food waste in it except for meat and dairy products. This includes potato peels, egg shells, moldy bread, apples cores, orange peels, banana peels, etc.

Chris stirs it about once a week (sometimes more) and here is what it looks like on the inside:

You can actually see a piece of potato peel (red skinned) in this photo. The waste mulches quickly and doesn't stink at all. In fact, when I open the lid to toss in my apple core or whatever, it smells like fresh dirt.

We are able to use this dirt in our flower bed, to fill in low spots in the yard, or for our garden that Chris is planting this year. It's a great way to keep biodegradable waste out of the landfill and use it for something profitable!