Compost Bins

One thing we’ve done to support recycling in our community, in addition to the can, plastic, glass and paper recycling done by our town is to compost our kitchen and office waste – coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit skins and seedless cores, peels, egg shells, shredded white paper – these all go into our compost bins. We constructed these bins using wooden pallets that may have otherwise gone into the landfill. A little chicken wire around the sides to keep varmints out and you have a use for waste and a source of great compost to add to your garden and landscape plants.

Three ingredients very important to composting are adequate moisture, good drainage and heat. Start your compost on bare earth to allow the worms to visit your bins and help aerate. Another aeration helper is to place a think layer of straw or twigs at the bottom. Water occassionally if it seems dry or allow the rain to fall on it. However, you do not want your compost pile to be soggy. Place a covering of plastic sheeting, trash bags or even a wood cover to keep it from getting soaked and to keep the heat in to help cook your compost pile.

What can you compost? A healthy compost pile includes a good mix of carbon-rich ingredients and nitrogen-rich ingredients. Your mix should be 2/3 carbon [brown] materials and 1/3 nitrogen [green] materials. Carbon-rich ingredients include dried leaves, small bits of wood, sawdust, peat moss, wood ash, pine needles, shredded white paper, coffee filters, eggshells, hay and wood ash. nitrogen-rich ingredients include food scraps, lawn clippings, green leaves and clippings. Get your mixture right and you will know why they call it "black gold"!



Our compost station at our Virginia home. Our dog Tucker thinks composting is cool!


Rain Barrels

A rain barrel is a system to collect and store rainwater from your roof that would otherwise be lost to runoff and dirverted to storm drains and streams. It is FREE water and can be used to water your plants, clean up after a day in the garden or wash off your garden tools. We used two 55-gallon plastic barrels and purchased DIY kits from Aquabarrel to construct our rain barrel system.

Instructables is a great site that offers step-by-step instructions on how to do just about anything. We have listed a few green projects from their site that you might find interesting to try:

Make Your Own Energy Meter
Recycle Your Tshirt Into a Tote Bag
Make Your Own Paper Planter Card
Universal Solar Charger
Plant Markers from Mini-Blinds
Make Your Own Greenhouse from Recycled Materials
Barbeque Thai Chicken with beer bottle, can and hay [ok, this one is pretty darned funny - had to include it]

Fun Instructables for the Kids

Make Fun Green Jewelry
Recycled Pizza Box Boomerang
Solar Boat Kit

Do you have your own green DIY projects you would like to share on our website?
Contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to submit your photos and description of your project.