02 Jan New Year’s Resolution: Start Composting

Yesterday, we woke up feeling a little bit like compost ourselves, actually: dumpy and sluggish and all heaped together with fermenting material. Composting is one of those things we keep putting off, but for 2013, we’re determined to make it happen. We were inspired to do so during a recent visit to a nearby landfill.

Romantic! We drove to Miramar Greenery, where people drop off their yard trimmings to be recycled and also pick up mulch, compost and wood chips. RB had recently given the guava tree a significant trim, so we went there on a clear, sunny Saturday to dispose of the cut branches.

RB performs a well needed groom of the Feijoa sellowiana tree.

Even if you are donating greens, drive up on the scales.

Entrance was fast and free. Having watched many sitcom scenes that take place in dumps (usually involving a lost heirloom), C was surprised by how…neat the whole place was. It was kind of bucolic, actually: winding roads, green hills, a colorful tractor.

After we ankled our green waste, we drove the truck (borrowed from our neighbor) to the composting side of the property that amazed us with its simple, organic splendor. Here you’ll find a mountain of compost in its early stage — at which you can still identify the vegetables therein — surrounded by heaps of finished compost that has been processed for 10 weeks and screened to half an inch. It’s sold for $12 per cubic yard. Local restaurants contribute many of the food scraps inside the compost heap, via a commercial food waste recycling program.

Maybe it was all the excess oxygen, but C couldn’t contain her excitement.

The compost made us giddy. Oh, the aroma! The scent is rich, sweet and green, like a vegetal musk.

Now it’s up to RB to build us a fine-looking compost bin, so we can get this decomposition party started.