Worm Food

In celebration of Earth Day, first observed 38 years ago today, I submit my photo entitled “Worm Food,” three meals worth of organic refuse headed for the composed heap and photographed specifically for this day’s posting. Growing up as the child of parents who lived through the Depression, I have always had the “use and re-use” mentality. It has taken longer for my husband to come to the table. He was forced to change earlier this year when our county (Westchester) mandated (rather than suggested) recycling and threatened to mark trespassers’ garbage with big yellow stickers. Here’s the difference focused recycling has made in our home: in one week’s time, we now have less than one full-bag of trash.

Each year I freshen my (very) small garden with compost from last year’s pile, but I have yet to become a “power” composter … generating the kind of rot that creates an exothermic process with enough heat to steam in the winter. (See yesterday’s post on Symplocarpus foetidus, “skunk cabbage,” for a somewhat related story.) And for sure, I will never become as good as the Megapodes (mound-building birds) found in eastern Indonesia, New Guinea, and Australia. These fowl-sized birds incubate their eggs in nests nestled within huge compost heaps. To keep the incubation temperatures exact, the birds add and remove leaves from the pile. But I will keep on trying.

Follow these links for exhaustive information on Earth Day and composting. And to learn about another “Banner Day” occurring in 1970, visit Kate’s blog from yesterday.