<pclass="lede">A Heath Springs almanac for turning kitchen scraps, autumn leaves, and old stories into next spring's soil.</p>
</header>
<p>Well now, bless your heart for stopping by. Pull up a chair — I’ll put the kettle on. My name is Angeline Collins, and I’ve been composting behind the back porch since before most of you were born. What I want to share isn’t fancy. It’s the same thing my mother taught me, and her mother before her: <em>waste is just a story that hasn’t finished being useful yet.</em></p>
<divclass="pull">"A good compost pile is a quilt — every scrap matters, and the warmth comes from how you fold them together."</div>
<h2>The Three-Bin Method (the one my daddy used)</h2>
<p>You don’t need a tumbler that costs more than my first car. Three wooden pallets stood on end, wired together, divided into thirds. That’s it. Here’s how it works:</p>
<tr><td>1 — Active</td><td>Add fresh scraps, turn weekly</td><td>2–3 weeks of filling</td></tr>
<tr><td>2 — Curing</td><td>Let it rest, stop adding</td><td>3 months</td></tr>
<tr><td>3 — Ready</td><td>Scoop the black gold for the garden</td><td>Use as needed</td></tr>
</table>
<p>The trick is <strong>turning</strong>. Every Sunday after church, I’d take my pitchfork and move bin 1 into bin 2. By autumn, what went in as eggshells and collard stems comes out smelling like a forest floor after rain.</p>
<h2>What to throw in (and what not to)</h2>
<p>Think of it like making a pot of soup — you need the right balance. Too much of one thing and the whole pot turns sour.</p>
<li><strong>Browns</strong> (carbon): dried leaves, shredded newspaper, sawdust, straw from the chicken coop.</li>
<li><strong>Never</strong>: meat, dairy, or greasy bones — they attract the wrong kind of critters and make the pile smell something terrible.</li>
</ul>
<h2>The quilt metaphor</h2>
<p>Every fall, after I’ve turned the garden under, I layer leaves over the sleeping beds like patchwork. By February, the earthworms have done most of the work. Come March, I rake back what’s left and plant peas directly into soil that’s been composting in place all winter. My grandmother called this <em>the lazy woman’s quilt</em>, and I’ve never been ashamed of a bit of lazy in my old age.</p>
<h2>A small confession</h2>
<p>I lost my reading glasses last week. Found them in the compost bin — on my nose the whole time, I suspect. That’s the trouble with getting old, dear. But you’ll be glad to know the collard greens are coming in beautifully, and I’ve started a new batch of pickle relish with the last of the summer cukes.</p>
