Friday, March 2, 2012

A Few Words About Compost and Seeds


A garden was the primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, 
luckily sinned himself out of it.  ~Charles Lamb, 1830


Hello fellow thrifty gardeners. Recently, I took a work related field trip to our county’s newest recycling center and I just had to share my experience with my like minded, earthly friendly and frugal gardening acquaintances.

I have visited several landfills and other waste disposal centers in this state; however, I was truly impressed with this particular location. The center accepts all types of recyclable wastes such as standard household materials, electronics, hazardous chemicals, fluorescent bulbs, clothing, appliances, yard debris, etc. The building itself is cavernous, but extremely well maintained. 

But what really excited me was the large, free compost pile.  Yes, free compost my friends!  A frugal gardener’s favorite word. You simply have to provide proof of your county residency and bring your own containers and shovels and load the containers yourself.  Best of all, there is no limit to the amount you can take for residential purposes only.

In the future, I plan on creating my own homemade compost system when the hubby and I move to the countryside, but until then, I plan on utilizing this extremely valuable resource for potting, mulch and fertilizer in my garden this year. 

Please, check with your local county and townships to see if free compost, mulch or topsoil is available.  You will not regret it.

Taa….taa… for now.

Angela

P.S.  Attention Fellow Seed Collectors: Locally the home improvement stores, garden centers, and Dollar stores have begun to place garden seeds out on display.  Most have seeds selling from 10 to 50 cents a pack.  From experience I can tell you they sell very fast so you might want to take advantage of this right away.

10 comments:

  1. How great to have free compost from the county. You can get leaf mulch from ours, not sure of the price...or not. We seem to have enough leaves (according to my husband). We have two compost tumblers and a worm bin...but with an acre and a half, I could always use more!

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  2. Hi Angela,
    Welcome to the world of blogging! We have some very good free compost at our dump, too. I have my own compost, but it's not always enough. I am going to need to spend less money on gardening this summer. I'll have to check more of your tips.

    I couldn't find a way to follow your blog, but added it to my sidebar.

    Thanks for your comment on my last post.

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  3. I don't know if our county offers compost or not, but with two horses we end up with a lot of compost to work with. The difficulty is getting it broken down fully before tree roots and weeds try to get their share.

    The photo in your header looks like vegetable gardening nirvana.

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  4. It sounds like you have access to nice regular supply. Yes, I love that vegetable garden.

    Angela

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  5. Here in Evanston, Illinois, the city used to run a terrific municipal composting operation. It provided free compost to anyone who showed up with a shovel and a container. Sadly, some neighbors complained about the smell, and the program was shut down. Darn yuppies.

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  6. Lucky you! We don't have anything like this in our city or county. The county used to sell mulch cheaply but now sells it to a firm in Alabama that uses it for something and our county makes more money. I wish a composter would open up here as I can never make enough at home. It's such great stuff too!@

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  7. That's too bad, Tina. Maybe at some point somebody will step in the fill the void by offering some to everyday people. I just visited your blog (which I've added to my blog roll) and I saw your daffodils. I never planted any bulbs but some just popped up in my backyard and they've been coming back ever since.

    Angela

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  8. We too have a local sewage landfill where the waste gets reprocessed into usable compost. A fellow Master Gardener friend swears by it, but I have never tried it as you have to take it by the truckload. At the farm and nursery, they make the compost and I am lucky enough to get as much as I need for free. Free is good. Thrifty is good. The image you showed looks like really good compost too.

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  9. Hi Angela, thank you so much for taking time to stop by my blog. We have a recycling area that give us free compost too. It is so nice to finally see these things going on throughout the country.

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  10. Angela - so glad you came by to visit me or I would not have found your blog. Frugal tips - now that I can use. Great idea about local free compost etc. I'm looking forward to following you as we stir up some dirt. Have a nice day.

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