Watching kitchen scraps turn slowly into compost for fertilizing our garden is–truth be told–the best part of gardening. I have four home made trashcan-composters tucked next to our garage, and I love to check on how they are doing.  Once in a while I tip them over, turn over their contents to mix in some fresh air, and then fill them up again adding some more carbon– last year’s leaves, torn corrugated cardboard, news print, reused paper bags.

This spring I re-drilled the ga-zillion holes I’d made years ago in the cans to make them larger.  The holes are now 1 1/4″ so I hope the air circulation will be much better and the stuff less likely to get stinky.

Now I want to see if the compost can attract more earthworms. I might try setting the cans a few inches into the ground and hope that some worms will meander over, start digesting  food scraps and leave behind their famous “garden gold.”  I can dream.

If you haven’t started a compost area in your yard, patio, balcony, or in your house, there are many resources on the Web to help you.  I took the idea of drilling holes in inexpensive trash cans from a suggestion printed  in Fine Gardening, the beautiful magazine published here in Massachusetts.  I don’t have the exact reference, but I recommend the magazine as a great resource.