So many of my students come to me with stress about their compost. There's a lot of misunderstanding about what compost is and how to do it "right." 

However, I have a strict no-stress policy in my garden and in my course. We don't garden to increase the stress in our lives, right!? 

There's no need to stress because compost is a natural process that is constantly happening all around us. It is nature's way of recycling nutrients. 

But we don't need to worry about that because compost happens. 

You can't really stop it from happening, unless you throw things in the trash.

It actually hurts me to see anything organic thrown away. Did you know that almost half of the trash in the landfill is organic? What a waste of nutrients! Plus it causes all kinds of problems, from methane gas to toxic leachates. 

One of the greatest things about gardening is recycling all those nutrients right in our yard. 

And you can compost ANYTHING organic... even those "forbidden" items like meat, bones, hair, eggshells, etc.  Are you kidding me? Do you think nature doesn't have a plan for dealing with stuff like that? 

In nature there is no waste. There is no "throwing away." Because everything is connected. 

There are actually many ways to do it, from simply digging it into your garden bed to creating a "hot" compost pile. Hot compost can be great, but it is far from the only way of doing it. 

There's not really a right or wrong way......