Composting: Not a Ladies Hobby

In the Garden

In the garden, so many wonderful things to grow: flowers and herbs and tomatoes and one feels the connections to their kitchen, to the earth, to the divine order of life and seasons.

(And, isn't this a great picture of a little backyard garden? So pretty!)
A Cottage Garden By Beverlynation (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")

And, then, this woman, mistakenly decides she will try out composting. What's so hard about all that? A few coffee grounds, the snips and peels of fresh fruit and vegetables and leftover herbs. It should be a sweet and easy accomplishment.

But: 
NO! NOT! NOT! NOT AT ALL!

Okay, I don't want to discourage any of you more capable folks out there, but composting for me was a complete disaster.

After months of collecting, mixing, etc. etc., OMG this stuff smells and the smell stays and the smell STINKS B.A.D.

The more you collect, the more you have to turn it. The more there is, the heavier it gets. The heavier it gets, the harder it is to turn it. It gets flies in it and when it rains it gets even heavier and then it starts to stink and stink and then it gets even stinkier.

I understand that there ARE some nice EXPENSIVE easy (yeah!) systems that will do this for you, possibly in a much more civilized fashion, etc.

But at least for the daintier do-it-yourself-er, at least with the double pails with the holes in it system (that seemed soooo easy and soooo simple on youtube) NO NO NO NO NO!

I do understand, I could add more things to this to reduce the smell -STINK- but the thing is I cannot get far enough away from it as it is. And it is already more than I can manually stir, it is so heavy. 
And when it stinks (STINKS!), it permeates the air, your hands, the ground.

Oh ICK!

I will buy my fertilizer from the local nursery. Thank you very much. There are just some things this girl is not cut out for.

But best of luck and hat's off to you if your adventures thus went better than mine.

 English: Claes Oldenburg "Clothespin" in Center Square, Philadelphia. Dedicated before 1978, no visible copyright notice, so public domain.

17 May 2012  by Smallbones

Courtesy of Wikimedia.org / http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clothespin_Philly_2.JPG

Holding Clothespin Over Nose.

-bbffair