Compost to Share

I used to have a compost pile in my backyard. We just dumped grass clippings, dead leaves, and any other organic waste together and waited for it to eventually decompose into humus—a crumbly black mixture, rich in nutrients, which could then be added to our soil as fertilizer. Or at least that was the plan. We didn’t know that you also had to add water and aerate the mixture regularly with a pitch fork. We were good at dumping yard waste on the pile. Along with grass clippings, weeds, and dead leaves, we would drag fallen tree branches onto the pile. This prevented us from mixing the compost, delaying the decomposition process by years. If we had shredded the wood into small pieces before adding it to the pile, we would have been able to use our yard scraps as fertilizer. Instead, our waste was wasted—we moved away from that house before our compost was usable.

Recently, I saw a post on Facebook that said: “Compost to Share.” What a generous offer! Someone had gone through the trouble of collecting all their organic waste, processing it into small pieces, watering it, mixing it for aeration, waiting for it to turn into useful humus, and now they were willing to share it with others.

We all have plenty of debris from our life experiences that can be composted and shared. Most rough situations we go through --our failures, poor choices, ignorance, carelessness—can turn us into useful humans. Just dumping it all into a big stinky pile is not enough. We have to process it, shred it, water it, mix it, and wait for it to turn into useful humus. Then this compost—these lessons in life--can fertilize our own growth…and maybe even help others.