EarthDay2016: Happy Earth Day!!!

So last year I put together a blog for Earth Day, and I would like to continue the Earth Day Blog tradition, because this is a pretty important day in my book. I mean without our earth, no other holidays would matter because we wouldn’t be here right?

So this year, instead of giving you tips on how to help the planet today, I am going to just focus on Composting. With the up coming moving date to our new house, my fiancé and I have been having many discussions about what we are going to be able to add to our house and garden, and one thing that we both agreed on was a compost pile. Growing up my parents had an open compost pile, which made it much easier to find additional soil for our huge garden.  So now we have decided on an open compost for the new house. We are going to use a tarp probably to help dampen them smell for the neighbors, but personally I never minded the smell.

Here is how we are making our open compost pile:

Materials:

• 7 lengths of 2 x 6 wood, each cut to 3'. Your lumberyard will make the cuts for you. Get exterior, rough, unplanned wood. The wood does not need to be treated with preservatives - untreated lumber will last many years. 


• Four lengths of 2 x 2 wood (or 4 x 4 ), each cut to 3' lengths.


• Galvanized common nails, 2 3/4" long. 28 nails. 

Putting it together:

• Sharpen one end of each 2 x 2 to act as stakes. This will keep your bin in place.

• Set stakes in place and drive them down into the ground with a sledge or heavy hammer.

• Nail the 3' boards to the 2 x 2's. Leave space between the boards to help aerate the pile. Pre-drilling the nail holes will make nailing easier and prevent the wood from splitting. This is where you can get creative and make your bin taller, or more air space) Make sure you keep the front low, so only nail one board on in the front so that you can easily dump into, scoop out of, and turn your pile as you need.

• Check your stakes, and drive them down to secure everything. 

What can you put in a compost pile? (From: http://www.plantea.com/compost-materials.htm )

Paper napkins 


Freezer-burned vegetables 


Burlap coffee bags


Pet hair 


Potash rock 


Post-it notes 


Freezer-burned fruit 


Wood chips


Bee droppings 


Lint from behind refrigerator 


Hay 
Popcorn (unpopped, 'Old Maids,' too) 


Freezer-burned fish 


Old spices 


Pine needles 


Leaves 
Matches (paper or wood) 

Seaweed and kelp 


Hops 


Chicken manure 


Leather dust 


Old, dried up and faded herbs 


Bird cage cleanings 


Paper towels 


Brewery wastes 


Grass clippings 


Hoof and horn meal 


Molasses residue 


Potato peelings 


Unpaid bills 


Gin trash (wastes from cotton plants) 


Weeds 


Rabbit manure 


Hair clippings from the barber 


Stale bread 


Coffee grounds 


Wood ashes 


Sawdust 


Tea bags and grounds 


Shredded newspapers 


Egg shells 


Cow manure 


Alfalfa 


Winter rye 


Grapefruit rinds 


Pea vines 


Houseplant trimmings 


Old pasta 


Grape wastes 


Garden soil 


Powdered/ground phosphate rock 


Corncobs (takes a long time to decompose) 


Jell-o (gelatin)


Blood meal 


Winery wastes 


Spanish moss 


Limestone 


Fish meal


Aquarium plants 


Beet wastes 


Sunday comics 


Harbor mud 


Felt waste 


Wheat straw 


Peat moss 


Kleenex tissues 


Milk (in small amounts)


Soy milk 


Tree bark 


Starfish (dead ones!) 


Melted ice cream 


Flower petals 


Pumpkin seeds 


Q-tips (cotton swabs: cardboard, not plastic sticks) 


Expired flower arrangements 


Elmer's glue 


BBQ'd fish skin 


Citrus wastes 


Stale potato chips 


Rhubarb stems


Old leather gardening gloves 


Tobacco wastes 


Bird guano 


Hog manure 


Dried jellyfish 


Wheat bran 


Guinea pig cage cleanings 


Nut shells 


Cattail reeds 


Clover 


Granite dust 


Moldy cheese 


Greensand 


Straw 


Shredded cardboard 


Dolomite lime


Cover crops


Quail eggs (OK, I needed a 'Q' word)


Rapeseed meal 


Bat guano 


Fish scraps 


Tea bags (black and herbal) 


Apple cores 


Electric razor trimmings 


Kitchen wastes 


Outdated yogurt 


Toenail clippings 


Shrimp shells 


Crab shells 


Lobster shells 


Pie crust 


Leather wallets 


Onion skins 


Bagasse (sugar cane residue) 


Watermelon rinds 


Date pits 


Goat manure 


Olive pits 


Peanut shells 


Burned oatmeal (sorry, Mom) 


Lint from clothes dryer


Bread crusts 


Cooked rice 


River mud


Tofu (it's only soybeans, man!) 


Wine gone bad (what a waste!) 


Banana peels 
 


Chocolate cookies 


Wooden toothpicks 


Moss from last year's hanging baskets 

Stale breakfast cereal 


Pickles 


'Dust bunnies' from under the bed 


Pencil shavings 


Wool socks 


Artichoke leaves 


Leather watch bands 


Fruit salad 


Tossed salad (now THERE's tossing it!) 


Brown paper bags 


Soggy Cheerios 


Theater tickets 


Lees from making wine 


Burned toast 


Feathers 
and Animal fur 


Horse manure 


Vacuum cleaner bag contents 


Coconut hull fiber 


Old or outdated seeds 


Macaroni and cheese 


Liquid from canned vegetables 


Liquid from canned fruit 


Old beer 


Wedding bouquets 


Greeting card envelopes 


Snow 


Dead bees and flies 


Horse hair 


Peanut butter sandwiches 


Dirt from soles of shoes, boots 


Fish bones 
Ivory soap scraps 


Spoiled canned fruits and vegetables 


Produce trimmings from grocery store 
 

For some other ideas as to what you can do for earth day, check out The International Business Times 2015 Earth Day activities.