DIY Life

Compost is more than just veggie peelings and leaves. Yes, it's now fairly common knowledge that tons of household items can be used as an ingredient for "black gold." Shredded junk mail is an everyday addition in many homes, for example. Ditto used tissues, wilted flower arrangements and spent tea bags.

Recently, I got to wondering what other, more unusual things people are composting. Things that might be overlooked, even by green-minded people like myself. I came up with the following short list of 20 surprising -- and sometimes downright gross -- items that can be composted. Enjoy!

1. Gum
2. Latex condoms
3. Old wool or cotton socks

Your front yard doesn't have to be perfectly manicured or professionally landscaped to look good. It is, however, your public face -- of sorts. Plus, your neighbors are forced to look at whatever you put out there!

Be a good neighbor: banish the following items from your front yard.

1. Plastic foliage. I'm talking anything you got from a craft store. Like this, for example. Plastic ivy. Faux dried sunflowers. Silk chrysanthemums. Plastic wreaths. Fake autumn leaves strung into streamers. Shudder.

Plastic flowers are tacky in the garden. They're unnecessary. After all, you have Mother Nature at your disposal! Why choose fake flowers? Finally, they evoke the cemetery. Enough said.

Summer vacation keeps rolling along. How long until your kids go back to school? Are they spending too much time lounging on the couch? Here are a bunch of summer projects to trick your kids away from their air-conditioned sanctuary and out into the great outdoors of, er, your backyard.

Okay, okay. So the backyard is not the great outdoors. True. But the main thing is to get the kiddos out in the fresh air, learning about nature, and learning about the noble pursuit of maintaining a garden.

Getting their hands dirty
1. Ask them to help with the weeding. Pay them a small amount of pocket money for their time.

At my house, we really try our best to live in an environmentally friendly way, for our health and the Earth's. We eat local, fresh food as much as we can, we never use chemicals on our lawn or plants, we don't clean the house with chemicals, and we have quite the raging compost pile.

It seems that we got a bit overzealous with the composting, in fact. Last fall, after carving a stunning Jack-o-lantern, we responsibly dumped the innards of the pumpkin into our composter.

Throughout the autumn, we had several pumpkins displayed on our walkway and stoop. When it was time to put up the Christmas decorations, we plopped the pumpkins in the composter. Follow me after the break; I'm going somewhere with this...

Here at DIY Life, Earth-friendly ideas are always a popular topic. So, when we heard that our sister site Green Daily is running a fantastic giveaway from Gardener's Supply Company, we couldn't wait to tell our readers about it!

One lucky reader will win a complete composting kit, featuring more than US $300 in supplies. The centerpiece of the prize is the Earthmaker Composter (a $225 value), but there are also plenty of accessories in the package, including a nifty odor-busting crock in which you can collect your kitchen scraps before putting them in the compost bin.

To learn more, and enter, please visit the giveaway post at Green Daily and follow the instructions: all you have to do is leave a comment telling them what you would compost if you were the winner. If you've never commented before, the system will require you to confirm the comment with a legitimate email address. Good luck!

If you don't win, a few great DIY composting ideas may come in handy. Check out the following posts:

• Bethany's Start your own worm composting bin
• Create a compost pile in your back yard, also by Bethany
• Francesca's Make a compost bin from shipping pallets
• Anna's 163 items to add to your compost

Don't have anything lined up for Mother's Day yet? Feel bad 'cause your tight budget won't stretch to that mega-bunch of roses? Well, here's a suggestion: if your mom's into gardening, run out this weekend and pick up a yard-related gift. Wrap it up nice and pretty and give her that, alone, or pair it with a nice little box of chocolates or a few fresh flowers. She'll love it...and it won't break the bank!

Here are my top ten budget Mother's Day gift ideas for gardening moms. All of my suggestions are $20 or less--making them perfect for kids, grandkids, or big kids on a budget! Although it may be too late to have these items shipped, your local stores carry variations of nearly all of these items. Oh, and if you're open to slightly pricier ideas, check out last week's gift ideas post!

1. LL Bean Go-Anywhere Flexible Tote, $16.50
This soft, yet very sturdy, LLBean tote comes in a range of fabulous colors, including perfect-for-Mother's-Day bright pink. Also available in more practical hues, like dark green. Use it for anything outdoors-related: mix soil in it, haul tools or clippings in it, etc. This 11-gallon tote is built to last: it is UV-resistant and has reinforced handles.

City dwellers and those who want to compost year-round can still compost food items, however. You just need some little critters to help the process along. I'm talking about composting with worms.

Worms? Really?

When you provide worms with an appropriate home, they'll work their way through your food scraps and create a dark, rich, moist material that your garden will love. I'll talk more about what types of worms to use and how to build a home for them after the break.

Spring has finally arrived and preparations for the spring planting season have begun. While you're cleaning out your flower beds or preparing your vegetable garden this year, why not commit a few hours to creating a compost pile in your backyard?

Why compost?

Some experts estimate that food waste accounts for 20 to 30 percent of garbage in landfills. Each time you scrape your plate into the wastebasket or garbage disposal, you're throwing valuable nutrients away, nutrients your outdoor plants need.

Composting creates a dark brown, crumbly material. Your garden loves compost for several reason -- it's full of food your plants desire, it's chemical-free, and helps the soil retain moisture. Though it can take years for soil to rebuild lost nutrients on its own, amending the soil with compost speeds up that process.

Get started on your own compost bin after the break.

Each week, Diane Rixon brings you Avant Yard, a look at all your lawn and garden could be. Diane shows you how to give life to everything inside your fence. We promise that your yard will be the greener "other side" and the neighbor's envy to boot. Alright, we don't really promise, but you get the idea.

Is there a dead tree in your yard? Let it live on -- repurpose it! Here are a bunch of suggestions, with an emphasis on projects that are both easy and inexpensive.

LEAVE IT ALONE
1. Leave it standing. If it's not a danger to people or structures on your property, of course. Let it be a home for birds, bugs and assorted critters.
2. Leave it standing and turn it into yard art -- hang colored bottles from the branches or string it with colored lights that change with the season.

CUT IT UP
3. Use planks for fencing.
4. Build a big brush pile, which is a fantastic refuge for wildlife.
5. Use it for garden mulch. You will need to hire a mulching machine or mulching service for this, however.

In our continuing attempts to keep things out of the landfill, my husband and I have decided to up our efforts to compost. At the moment, we have a wonderful dog who eats many food items that we would otherwise throw in the garbage. For all the items that Jake doesn't eat, there are many more that we can compost.

To see all the items that you can and should be composting , check out this article on hgtv.com. Marion Owen is a master gardener who has put together a list of 163 materials to add to your compost bin. Here are the first 10 items that Ms. Owen says can be added to your compost bin:

• paper napkins
• freezer burned veggies
• pet hair
• potash rock
• post-it notes
• freezer burned fruit
• wood chips
• lint from behind the fridge
• hay
• popcorn

Every garden my family ever grew was given the benefit of pig and cow manure. The soil loves it, and so do the plants. Honestly, my dog Jake would be digging and scratching up a storm if I had the audacity to throw food in a compost bin without even consulting him first. Now all I have to do is remember that almost anything I touch can be put in the compost bin. Anything to keep my plants happy.

If you don't happen to have a compost bin yet, Francesca tells you how to build one using shipping pallets.

[via: curbly.com]

One third of all household waste is organic. That means that a significant portion of the garbage in most homes could have been composted. If you have the space and a garden that would benefit from rich top soil, consider building a compost bin in your yard.

This compost bin is a simple DIY project constructed from old shipping pallets. You can find recycled wooden pallets at a furniture, office, or hardware store. Most places that ship large items use these pallets and they are happy to give them away.