Composting
I am a big fan of making compost. I would say try a lot harder than most people ('professional amateur'). Sure, I could dump food waste in a pile and hope for the best. That's slow and stinky. Instead, I take a very active approach that involves several piles, multiple sources, and constant vigilance. Compost management is serious business.
I get the majority of my "green" compost in the form of used coffee grounds from K.C. Bonker's in Hancock. They generously give me 2-3 buckets of future dirt a week for free. The alternative, which made me sad (and was more expensive), was the grounds were thrown in the trash. We're talking 60 - 80 pounds a week! I also pick up two buckets of veggie scraps a week from Milly's pizza in Hancock. I feed some of this to our chickens, who poop a lot. Their super-charged poop, used chicken litter, and remaining veggie waste are the nitrogen and carbon I need to blend with the coffee grounds. Add it all together, turn it every week or two to get the bacteria going, and voila, three months later I've got healthy loam to dump in the garden. It's quite magical and gives me a lot more excuses to handle worms than a normal lifestyle. Plus, I'm keeping thousands of pounds of food waste out of the landfill where it does nobody any good. Gimme that rotten produce!
