MaryAnne Spinner, Chicago Master Gardener

If you've consulted your Astrological Gardening Calendar lately, then you know that this is the Year of the Compost Bin. The Chicago Home Composting Program is a new project dedicated to encouraging Chicago residents to make compost for healthy soil and a greener Chicago. It is managed by the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, in partnership with the University of Illinois Extension, the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation, the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Department of Environment, the Chicago Public Schools, and is funded in part by a Mayor Daley Neighborhood Recycling Grant. With all those heavy hitters behind it, the program is guaranteed to help us find and compost every last carrot top in the city.

There are several excellent reasons to make compost, and they bear repeating. Composting saves us money by replacing store-bought soil conditioners. It helps our garden and house plants grow by improving the fertility of the soil. It saves water by helping the soil hold moisture, and by reducing water runoff. And composting benefits the environment by recycling valuable organic resources, by reducing air and water pollution from refuse trucks and runoff, and by extending the life of our landfills.

One corner of our backyard has sheltered a compost bin for several years. I can tell you from happy experience that the quality of our garden has increased significantly since we started tossing all of our end-of-season annuals, autumn leaves, potato peelings, and assorted produce past its prime into the mix. Recently, we added a second bin, purchased at discount from the Chicago Home Composting Program. We have introduced the two bins to each other, and are eagerly awaiting the fruits (and vegetables) of their union.

Perhaps you, too, have been composting for a while. Maybe you have even become a Master Composter, and know all about thermophilic bacteria and worm castings. But there are a number of ancillary benefits to composting that you may have never read about. Following are some more reasons to get that pile heating up.

1. Compost helps relieve your guilt. Go on, take the challenge: dig through your refrigerator vegetable bins. Find any fuzzy cucumbers? Some desiccated carrots? Perhaps a neglected lemon and a brace of slimy scallions? In the old days B.C. (before compost), you'd hide the moldy mushrooms under the cabbage rather than admit you over-bought or spaced out. Throw them in your compost bin, and you've done a good deed.

2. Compost relieves corporate guilt. Did you know that Starbucks gives away bags of used coffee grounds for use in your garden? Good for plants like rhododendrons and azaleas, but too much acid for the rest. So throw those grounds right into your compost bin. Really nice of Starbucks, and almost makes up for the $3 lattes.

3. Compost bins beautify your landscape. Looking for a new design element for your garden? Our new compost bin is cute and round, sort of R2D2 meets Darth Vader on the dark side.

4. Compost helps you entertain your neighbors. In a move both economical and practical, my spouse cuts my waist-length hair with a few practiced straight-across snips. After reading that human hair is fine for composting–some individuals even take bags of hair home from their barbers–we decided to add a few locks to our bin. We changed the venue of my quarterly haircuts to the alley behind our house, so that we could easily sweep up and bag the trimmings. There you'll find us every few months, me standing straight as a statue, spouse on his knees behind me with scissors, neighbors peering anxiously out their kitchen windows.

5. Compost bins cut down on weeds. No weeds will grow in that dark space under your compost bin. Not a big deal on that little patch of ground, you say? Well, let's posit that one three-foot square parcel can sustain four large burdock plants. Fun fact: a single burdock plant is capable of producing 18,000 seeds in one summer. You do the math.

6. Revenge of the Big People. Watch Mister Squirrel in front of your compost bin, thumping his tail in frustration because he can't penetrate its tough plastic exterior. Almost makes up for the loss of last year's tomato crop to squirrel bites.

7. Teach a man to fish. Grow one zinnia, and its seeds will feed one bird for a day. Turn zinnia plants into compost that enrich your soil, and next year the worms will feed dozens of birds all summer. Remember: if you build it, they will come.

8. Composting reduces noise pollution. Put down your 1,000 decibel leaf blower, find the rake collecting cobwebs in your gardening closet, and toss your autumn leaves into the compost bin. Your neighbors will sleep better on Sunday mornings without that infernal noise.

9. Composting helps save the planet. Well, you knew that one already, but repetition bolsters memory, much like compost bolsters soil. Be a compost-bin hugger! Save the tea bags! Compost happens!

10. Compost produces endorphin rushes. You will feel great about composting. You will be very, very pleased with yourself. You will be joyful. Ommmmmmm. And you won't have to run a marathon.

For more information on composting, see http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/homecomposting/ or call the Rotline at 773/265-9587.

If you have a composting or general gardening question, email the Extension's Electronic Plant Clinic at rwolford@uiuc.edu and our Master Gardeners will be glad to assist you.