As you may know, from my last post in the belonging series, I had a rough start to the year (complex grief and subsequent mental health decline). Lately though, I can feel the wind at my back again.
During this trying time I, mostly unintentionally, expanded my composting practice at home to include three different methods. For years I’ve simply relied on my ‘open-pile’ in our side yard—my loyal digester for all food scraps. But in April I was asked to do a worm bin workshop and now I have several hundred (thousands?) of red wigglers living in an unassuming bin next to the dinner table.
Then, our freezer decided to stop working, disrupting my holding pattern for food scraps (I’d freeze them until I had a worthwhile haul to take to the belly of the outdoor heap). After a few weeks of using countertop storage for food scraps, ants waltzed in *sigh*. But, never fear, I remembered I had an old bokashi bin in the garage! I dusted it off and enlisted ‘Effective Microbes’ to help us out.
Now, nearly everything goes into the bokashi bin to ferment (including meat and dairy - yay!) and when it gets full I empty it into the outdoor heap. Meanwhile, if I’m being honest, I’ve been treating the worms kind of like pets that I have to remember to feed. I like giving them things that are really well rotted—a forgotten banana, slimy greens, a finicky peach. I do what I can to not waste food in the first place, but it’s nice to know that whatever slips through the cracks will delight the wormies.
In addition to this trifecta, I’ve been doodling ideas to level up my side yard into a miniature compost operation with maximum function. I want to be capable of properly composting large amounts of seasonal garden waste (and weeds!) which will require better defined zones for storing and processing feedstocks. I also want to expand an elevated platform to house more cylinders for thermophilic / soil-food-web style composting, Johnson-Su bioreactors, and a place to store mature finished compost. Oh, and while we’re dreaming big, the cylinders should most definitely have automated irrigation! I’ll need to buy a machete too, because what better way to break down all the large vegetation than by the thrill of wielding a sharp primitive tool?!
And just like that, I’ve forgotten all my problems.
From the particular aroma of the bokashi bin (admittedly, not for everyone) and the grounding presence of earthworms, to the dependable bustle of my outdoor heap and the uplift of my imagination—composting has been a steady source of comfort to me.
It’s not only the tactile and living nature of composting that soothes me. It’s the fact that, here, death is not mourned, but celebrated. What a relief it is to visit a microcosm that unapologetically accepts and reveres messiness — where rejection and festering wounds are not hidden behind layers of shame, but welcomed and quickly reshaped. Through the ever-evolving and forgiving dynamic of decomposition, mistakes are transformed and regrets are resolved.
Am I romanticizing the goings on of a compost pile? Surely. But a spiritual practice without romanticization is just a heartless habit. And I know composting to be so much more.
In the coming weeks I will be sharing tales of a handful of different compost piles I’ve visited and / or taken part in creating this year. Some of the insights will be technical, while others will be from the felt experience of having built or witnessed the thing.
Thank you for being here, do send me your composting questions and curiosities :)
🤎 With Love,
Andie
PS: I just learned substack has a “scan for AI text” feature! Im not sure how it works (prob AI itself ha) or what it will say but to self report: I inquired with Gemini about comma placements in two of my sentences in this piece, so I’d say 99.8% written and edited by me. It’s a strange time as a writer / creator and even consultant in the age of emerging AI technologies. At one point I wanted to describe the worms as ‘quietly working’ but decided not to because that word choice felt ‘so AI’ :-/ I’m definitely still figuring out my relatinoship with the robots (LLMs) and aim to be transparent about when and how I use these tools. <3
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