Waste Not, Want Not and Other Old Sayings that Helped Me Compost.

Hi, I’m Cher – Michelle’s guest blogger for today. I grew up in the country, and my family never raked leaves unless we wanted a pile to jump in. In 1993, I purchased a home on a residential street in North College Hill and after watching my neighbors dutifully rake all their fall leaves, I followed suit. 

But raking wasn’t the only problem. At the time, North College Hill had a pay as you throw waste program. There was no extra charge to recycle, but you had to purchase stickers for every garbage can you put to the curb. I was house-poor, but knew I couldn’t put leaves in the recycling bin. So I called the thriftiest person I knew, my grandfather (“Peepaw”), for advice. 

Gordon Maham "Peepaw" with a giant turnip

Peepaw’s favorite saying was “a penny saved is a penny earned.” He was a smart man and an avid gardener and told me to just make a pile in my backyard where the leaves can decompose instead of paying to throw them away. He said in a couple of years I could dig up the compost to use in my garden, which went right along with another of his favorite sayings, “waste not, want not.” 

I got right to work wheelbarrowing all my leaves to an appropriate place in my back yard, because Peepaw said, “when a task is once begun never leave it till it’s done” (I always hated that saying). I could have turned , watered, and balanced my carbon rich leaves with some nitrogen rich material to speed up the decomposition process. But I remembered my Peepaw always saying “let’s simplify more,” so I just left my pile alone to do its thing in its own time.

A couple of years later, I removed overgrown bushes that had been planted decades ago.  The soil was almost completely clay, so I mixed wheelbarrows full of my leaf mold compost. It added nutrients, improved the soil’s structure, and increased water retention before I planted some beautiful flowers and hostas.

 

I saved thousands of pennies by avoiding landfill costs and not having to buy top soil or compost, produced no waste, and best of all, it was really simple. 

Can you think of any other old time saying that relates to composting?

“Be a Peaceful Planet Person” -Gordon Maham