What goes into a compost pile?
A good compost pile will contain green materials for nitrogen (fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags), brown materials for carbon (dried leaves, straw, old grass clippings, shredded paper egg cartons, ), water and air.
Our garden club listened to a book all about dirt while eating clementine oranges and apple slices, so we could compost the rinds and cores.
Some of the things we put into our school compost pile included leaves, dryer lint, cotton quilting scraps, and the children's all time favorite...aged horse manure!
The children took turns dumping the items into our fenced off plot near the garden.
Crushed egg shells, collected by Sra. Melara over many months, were also added.
Composting makes us SMILE.
We also got to dig up our buried treasure from the last meeting. There was no change in our radish, a root vegetable. But the banana peel had disappeared!
One lucky guy found a helpful worm!
A plastic bag is NOT good for composting.
A friendly cricket stopped by to check out what we were doing.
The beginning of a tiny green pepper was discovered growing in this white flower.
And finally, we cleared out the large plants from our garden and added them to our compost pile.
Why is composting important?
It reduces the amount of waste we send to the landfill, returns nutrients to the soil, naturally fertilizes, and is a great way to save money for gardeners and farmers.
For more information on composting, visit this webpage from Alberta, Cananda or this one on composting in schools.
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