The Worsted Witch » Compost This

Compost This

January 25, 2006 at 2:05 pm · Filed under Activism, Environmentalism, Life, My Illos

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going to eat some worms ...

When you’ve lived in apartments all your life, gardening, like discovering a weathered piece of the Dead Sea Scrolls (or moving to Crete for that matter), is something that happens to other people. My thumb is nowhere close to green. Even if I miraculously discovered some latent aptitude for raising plant life, however, there still remains the matter of Chekhov, Destroyer of Worlds, Nipper of Ankles, and Expert Worrier of Furniture Upholstry. (Years ago, a former roommate mollycoddled a hapless pot of rosemary by our kitchen window, but greatly underestimated the tenacity and resolution of one small cat. Can you imagine the unspeakable carnage if I grew indoor tomatoes? GAH.)

Still, being vegetarian, I often wonder if I can keep my carrot-tops and assorted vegetable trimmings from landfill-entombment by composting my dinner scraps. This automatic, bug- and worm-free composter, which only needs 10 watts to power up, is pretty goshdarn sweet. I wasn’t exaggerating, however, when I said my kitchen was unbearably small. It is, as George Orwell, might say, doubleplusunbig. In other words: No. Room. At. The. Inn. Even. For. You. Baby. Jesus.

Researching composting for apartment dwellers also unearthed (hur, hur) something called vermicomposting, which doesn’t take up much space. One problem: it involves worms. Lots of tiny, slimy, wriggly, redworms. And (I say this in all earnestness) if you think I’m letting anything remotely spindly or squelchy sublease my apartment, you’ve got another thing coming. Suffice to say, I’m not the kind of girl who will KNIT WORMS FOR FUN AND FANTASY. (Dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into?)

I e-mailed my municipal recycling coordinator for information on community composting programs in my neighborhood, so we’ll see how that pans out. (I’m not holding my breath, so nebulous is my faith in humankind.) How I’ll go about applying any quantity of fertilizer is also uncharted here-be-dragons territory. Maybe I’ll end up, like Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, begging my landlord for “a bit of earth,” far from feline machinations. Or BETTER YET maybe I’ll just pelt clods of it at impatient drivers who don’t seem to care if they run me over. Yeah, how do you like them apples now, you jerks?

Permalink