Stacked like ivory towers in my garden are old tires painted white. Inside these vertical columns quietly grow red, white and sweet potatoes that have been reaching for the sky all summer long. How did I come across the idea to do this, you might ask? I first read about this technique for growing Tater Tires in a book called The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen. I was doubly excited for the chance to recycle something old, like tires,  and to grow something new, like potatoes. I had never tried growing potatoes before so when I read about this technique I immediately went on a mission to find the tires.

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Do any of you know that person who can grow anything, anywhere with little to no effort? My Mom is one of those people. She can pick a sprig of who-knows-what off the parking lot of the Home Depot, stick it in some dirt at home and the next thing you know, there’s a tree! Really.

I, on the other hand, have not been that successful of a farmer (except for all the cacti I have, which are hard to kill).  As a kid we always had a garden. Didn’t matter where, my Mom always planted one where ever we lived and it always thrived.

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When I was growing up, I remember my mom would always make the comment that a little dirt was good for you. She would usually say this when something would hit the floor for a few seconds, say a hot dog in the backyard or when my brother would put some dirt in between my sandwich when my back was turned and I came crying to her. She always said, “We came from the ground and that we would go back to the ground so the ground would make us stronger.” She also survived the Great Depression, living in a tent in the Dust Bowl of Arizona after her mother died, so I don’t doubt her. This got me thinking about dirt and how it’s made, which made me think about composting, and how I used to be afraid to compost.

Composting always seemed like something in which you would need a degree in biotechnology to understand. What type of container to use? What types of scraps are allowed? What about paper stuff? Grass clippings? All the questions I had in my head was making me more afraid of the whole process in general. Then I found a little book that changed everything.

Simply titled Composting - An Easy Household Guide by Nicky Scott, this book opened the world of dirt making wide open for me. With super easy directions, it explains how to start composting and why it’s so important for the planet. Here is what I have learned in the most basic of terms.

First, get a container for your kitchen. Make it as easy as possible to collect the scraps. I bought this metal bin that I painted the word “compost” on. It has a lid that is easy to remove with one hand and is heavy enough to keep the smells in. I always put a plastic bag inside so that I can easily carry the contents to my outside bin, but I don’t include the plastic bag in with the compost scraps, of course.

What sort of stuff can you compost? That’s easy. There are two categories. Greens and Browns. Greens are anything from veggie and fruit peelings, garden waste like fresh grass clippings, coffee grounds and egg shells. Browns are things that are brown or dry like cardboard, dried twigs, paper, shredded bills, junk mail (minus the plastic window of envelopes), even lint from your dryer. The mixture of these two things create an environment that is perfect for our microbial friends to come in and set up house and begin their magic. I’m not going to get into the whole nitrogen-carbon thing. Heck, I’ll let someone like Alton Brown tell you about that, but you should be able to get the general idea just from this little tutorial.

What type of Compost Bin to use? The choices are many and varied from large outdoor bins to apartment style, self contained Bokashi systems (used in Korean apartments). If you have a yard you could go with something like I have which is made of sturdy plastic. It also has vents and two doors at the bottom to collect the dirt. You can even make a simple box out of wooden pallets and a board on top for a lid.

Just make sure you secure the lid so that night time critters can’t forage inside. This is also why you don’t want to compost any meat or bones or things that will attract them, let alone how it would start to smell. Your neighbors would not be happy.

You want to make sure that air is circulating inside and that it is placed in a sunny area so that heat will begin generating to give the worms and bugs a warm place to chow down. There are also tumbler style units that are off the ground and even ones where you add special worms that eat everything, but if you use the plastic bin or wooden box types keep them on the dirt so that the bugs can make their way inside.

Let me preface this next statement by saying that “quick” is a relative term. To get the quickest results you need to layer the browns and greens and keep it moist but not soggy. What I do is add cardboard like toilet paper tubes and paper towel tubes (and even paper towels) to my kitchen bin as I go so that when I make a deposit in the big bin outside I am already mixing in the browns and greens. As for water, when it looks dry I just add some.

Composting is seriously easy and helps reduce waste in landfills. It has been estimated that each household’s waste has about two-thirds of compost-able trash! Also, this reduces the nasty carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and gives back to the earth what we have taken away. Plus, the excitement you will feel when you get that first shovel-full of homemade compost cannot be described.