Our house has a huge backyard with many large trees.  Last fall (which was our first fall here) we couldn’t keep up with all the leaves falling down.  And we only had a mulcher lawnmower, which is not good for the large, thick leaves that we have.

We also have a spot in our lawn that we call “The Crop Circle”.  It’s a large, round spot where the previous owners put their fiberglass pool. Now with that pool gone, we have a just a large, round spot of dirt where even weeds won’t grow.  Our garden has a hard time supporting weeds in it, as well as the tomato and the green pepper plants that we attempted to grow this summer.  Really, we had a tough time with it, not that either of us are expert gardeners.

But this spring I got a new lawnmower that can either mulch or bag the clippings.  As we are doing our fall cleanup and watching the leaves cover our lawn, I start to get depressed on having to rake an entire afternoon, and filling fives bags of leaves every Saturday.  Then an idea hits me that can solve both the dead dirt and the leave problems, without much work on our part.

Composting is quick and easy.  Just put all your yard waste in a pile and let nature take it’s course.  Perhaps starting a compost pile at the beginning of October isn’t optimal, but it’s going to be a warm fall, I think.  A little research shows that grass and leaves by themselves don’t make good compost, but together they are the perfect combination for composting.   I also threw on our tomato and pepper plants on the pile.  An article on the paper also suggested putting an inch or so of dirt on top of the pile and I decided that it wouldn’t hurt.  Gina and I are also eating more fruits and vegatables lately, so there is another source of good material.

But I don’t understand the idea of composting bins.  I just leave our pile in our garden.  I figure that if it attracts worms and bugs as a nice, warm place to stay for the winter, than that’s a good thing.

Here is a good guide for composting that I found.  I figure that if it doesn’t work (doesn’t break down, doesn’t make the dirt more condusive for growth) it’s not like I’ve done a lot of work anyway.