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So if we're not going to use chemical fertilizers, what are we going to use? After all, you can't keep using the same soil year after year and not use up the all the good stuff the plants need eventually. The answer is simpler than any of companies that make those chemicals want you to realize, and they want to keep it a secret so you keep buying all that stuff you don't really need. But I'm going to let you in on it (actually, I kind of did already when you saw the title of this page, but let's pretend you didn't see that), it's called compost. Compost is another way of saying "super dirt" really. It's stuff you can add to any soil to add back the vitamins and minerals that the plants need to grow. It doesn't hurt the bugs and there's more than one way to do it.We're going to stick to the two most common methods here.

Composting in a pile or barrel is nothing new. It involves taking biodegradable materials (meaning they break down), and adding them to a pile or bin. The recipie for great compost has lots of ingredients that everyone has; newspaper, leaves, vegtable peels and coffee grounds. You have to pay attention to how much of each type of thing you put into your compost, but if you think you might be interested in making compost in your backyard, there's lots of good videos and articles on the web. Organic Gardening Magazine has a website with lots of great articles, including this one on making your own compost, and if you want to try building a compost bin, they have articles on that too. You can find an easy one here on the Organic Gardening website.

The other type of composting I want to tell you about is called vermicomposting.Vermicomposting uses worms, usually red wigglers, to produce compost. The process is actually pretty simple. A container, usually called a worm bin is used to house the worms in some starter ingredients, often plain old dirt. The worms are then fed a lot of the same scraps we talked about earlier. The worms eat the ingredients and produce casings which are very high in nutrients. The casings mix with that plain old stff you started them in and presto, you have "super dirt" (no wand or magic words required). I have to admit, this is my favorite. I use vermicomposting myself. Although it's not really fast (it takes about 4-6 weeks to get vermicompost), it's odor free, doesn't take much space, and it's kind of cool to have worms making my compost for me. If you want to find out more about vermicomposting, theres a lot of information out there, but here's a few to get you started. This is the where I bought my worms from. They don't pay me or anything (actually, I don't think they know who I am), but there's a lot of good information here and the owner is really great about answering all kinds of worm related questions. Gardenweb also has a nice little forum where they discuss vermicomposting. You do have to research a little bit before you get started with vermicomposting, but lets face it, telling people you play with worms is a real conversation starter.