Biodegradable Coffins

Well, if eco-friendly is the way you want to leave this world, your options have just gotten greener. The Natural Burial Company now offers biodegradable coffins so that you can basically compost yourself once you're gone. As part of a larger trend toward "natural" burials, which require no formaldehyde embalming, cement vaults, chemical lawn treatments or laminated caskets, biodegradable coffins are more eco-friendly than cremation which still requires the burning of fossil fuels. Cost options range from $100 for a basic cardboard box to over $3,000 for a handcrafted, hand-painted model. You can also choose from natural-fiber shrouds to fair-trade bamboo caskets lined with unbleached cotton. Most of these eco-friendly burial products come from overseas, but the idea is catching on in the USA.

From CNN.com

I love composting!

I am happy to announce that my first "batch" of compost has finished decomposing and was added to my garden this weekend. The coffee grounds from Starbucks did wonders for getting rid of the fruit flies (it really worked!) and speeding up the composting process. The coffee grounds also neutralized the smell. Every composter should go to their local coffee shop to pick up a bag of coffee grounds!

I've also been trying to find a better way to collect food items to add to the compost. So far, the best method has been using a large yogurt container with a lid. You keep it in the kitchen and just add all the peelings and such to the container while preparing meals. The fact that you can seal the container after adding contents means no smells or yuckiness. Then, at the end of the day, you just take the container to the garden and empty it into the compost. Remember to add a shovel-full of dirt on top to cover up the new additions. Every once in a while, use a long stick or shovel to give the compost a good stir. It will help add air so that the compost works faster.

Composting is a lot of fun and it reduces the amount of garbage that we produce by a lot. I hope every gardener and environmentally aware person starts one.

Cheers!

Building a Compost

I've been trying to be more environmentally friendly lately, and I've started a compost in a very big and tall bucket. I started dropping fruit peelings, plant cuttings, leaves, and dirt in, and the compost is slowly growing. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I drop quite so much fruity things in there, there are A LOT of fruit flies. They rise like a rapidly spreading cloud when I lift the lid to the compost and I have to bat at them with my stirring stick to ward them off. I read that it was important to stir the compost once in a while to add air to the mixture and combine the "ingredients". I've got to do something about those fruit flies, though. It seems very unsanitary and it's very annoying to have them zipping around me as I work on my very colourful and disgusting pile of muck. I like to think that it will all become wonderful, rich, and nutritious soil for my plants one day, so I put up with it all. Building a compost reminds me of my childhood when I used to create imaginary soups and meals with collections of flowers, dirt and other things from all around me. I think I added worms and bugs if I found them too.

Today I picked up a bag of used coffee grinds from Starbucks. Coffee grinds are supposed to be a good source of slow-releasing nitrogen for plants, thus making used coffee grinds a good fertilizer for the garden and a great addition to a compost. Coffee grinds also help balance the pH of the soil. The coffee grinds look like very dark coloured dirt. It definitely LOOKS like it would make good soil, and it smells of coffee, which isn't so bad. I'm going to collect a bag every once in a while and add it to my compost. Here's to hoping that fruit flies hate coffee.