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Caring for Earth

Facts About Composting

Facts About Composting
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 5
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.86

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    commercially-made, peels, fertilizer, mainly, tends, grounds, contents, lawns, works, improve, benefits, daily, access, background, moisture, deal

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Facts About Composting
By Mary Lynn Bushong 		  
1     Summer means lawns to mow. Fall means it's time to rake falling leaves. Piles of grass and piles of leaves. Most of it is thrown away in landfills. Is there a better way to deal with it? Yes! It can be composted.
 
2     Using just a small corner of your yard, you can make your own compost. The leaves and grass clippings can be turned into fertilizer for your own plants. There are many ways to do this, and you can choose which one works best for you.
 
3     The first and most common style of composting is the open pile. This would be the type of compost pile that someone with a large amount of land might use. It is often situated behind a large building, as in a barn's manure pile or in woods with heaps of leaves or grass clippings.
 
4     This is the easiest pile to build, but it has some disadvantages. One is that the pile tends to spread out and can look messy. The other is that bits and pieces of leaves and grass can blow around.
 
5     The next kind of compost pile is the enclosed bin. The bin contents are enclosed by a fence or other kind of wall. The benefits are that they keep everything together, size can be varied, and you have easy access to the contents. The disadvantages are having to work around the enclosing fence and rodents raiding the pile for snacks. A large pile will also take more effort to turn so it all breaks down evenly.

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