I love composting. It is pure satisfaction for anyone remotely interested in growing things, and watching how things can grow, sprout, shoot up, and also decay, die and rot.

When you turn the soil, and see the half-eaten tomato, or ear of corn, or artichoke leaves from a recent dinner, and know that they are slowly decomposing and will be used to aid new plant growth, well … to this gardener, that’s an earthly heaven.

In later posts, I will go into the science of composting a bit more, and discuss the necessity of nitrogen and stuff (I had better go away and do my research first), but here, gentle green reader, allow me to wax lyrical some more about the benefit of worms, tiny mitochondria, bacteria of all types, the humble wood louse, and the glory of recycling urea.

I haven’t yet had the fortune to become a parent, but if all that nurturing and feeding is half as much fun as tending a warm, burbling and hungry heap, then maybe I’m half qualified.

Today, I started digging out the pile of maturated compost and distributing it to borders and flowerbeds and potted trees and plants, that need and appreciate this healthy winter adrenaline shot.

While doing this, I hoped to discover and report here that the bio-degradable drinks bottle, made by Belu, bought in London last august and cut up into little pieces and scattered into this very heap the same month; by now was no more, and that its bio-ness had worked.

But alas, the pieces remain, and will be reburied in the next heap which I’m starting tomorrow. Also, I’m going to be advocating community composting through these posts, here in Jerusalem, and in Tel Aviv, Be’erSheva, Haifa, Holon and Pisgat Ze’ev.

Lets get all our lettuces, cabbages (who else gets sometimes 2 a week in their vegetable box? see the Green Prophet story:Eating Organic at Reasonable Prices), peelings and all manner of stuff all mulchin’ down together.

And if that isn’t happening, let’s ride those personal wormeries!

If you live in an apartment, consider making an indoor compost: