Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to give you some tips on composting. Now composting is one of the most natural things that you can do, and before we had formal gardens, plants would compost themselves. The leaves fall off, they drop onto the ground, they break down over the winter, make nice lush soil and give the plant all the nutrients it needs for the next year. So now we rake up leaves and we clean up our gardens and we cut down the greens each fall. Because we want our gardens to be nice and tidy. So what happens is they don't get any of the natural compost they used to get. So we end up buying all these artificial fertilizers and any type of bone mill and all these things we really don't need 'cause in the end all you need is lush soil for your plants. So an easy tip for composting is to always mix everything up, whether you have leaves, grass clippings, vegetables, fruit, any type of plants, always mix it up. And if everything stinks and your compost really doesn't smell good, add some newspaper or some dried leaves or anything dry, some branches give it more air. Shake it up, cut some pieces of paper, shred some paper and then put it in with your compost. So you give it more air and dry it out. And if your compost is so dry it's not doing anything and it's just staid, dried leaves then add some more organic material like some grass clippings or even some water, because you don't want your compost to be too dry either. Because if it's too dry then it will never decompose, it'll just sit there, and the nature it rains. So you want to add a little bit of water to your compost if it's really, really dry and not breaking down. You want to make sure and only put natural materials in your compost and any type of fruit or vegetables and you don't want to put any dairy or meat in there or anything that could go bad and have an animal could eat it. You don't want to put any bodily fluids in your compost, that's my rule too. So I don't put any bone mill, I don't put any meat or I don't put any milk into my compost because that way it stays really safe. And an easy trick to know when it's ready is the black gold, so when your compost is the consistency of soil, and it's black and it looks very organic and it just falls apart, it's not all clumpy, then you know that's it's ready to use, and you could put it right into containers or right over your flowerbeds or build new flowerbeds up, that's an easy way to know that your compost is ready, and if you have a bin you can use anything for a compost bin. If you use a regular garbage can just make sure and shake it up periodically, don't let it just stand. And those tips really make it easy to compost and you can do it at home.
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