Green Guilt

We moved into our new home just a little more than a year ago and I have yet to set up my compost heap.  I grew up with a lovely garden and orchard, begun by my grandparents and continued by my own parents.  Apple, cherry, peach, and pear trees.  Grape vines and a strawberry patch.  Vegetables too many to list.  And the bee hives.  I loved to sit quite close to the bee hives, not too far from the compost pile, and absorb the hum of the bees in the hive and feel the breath of wind as they flew home at the end of the day.  It was where I felt most alive.  

The compost never smelled bad.  All that decomposition was in balance and my father made sure to turn it regularly and add leaves to keep it from getting too wet with kitchen scraps.  A good compost piles smells warm and comforting and is full of all kinds of great creeping things and teeny microbes. 

Before we put the "For Sale" sign on that home. I made sure to dismantle the compost heap.  People in the market for a new house don't necessarily want to see a pile of decomposing vegetation.  It actually hurt me to through all the rich soil into a bag and put it in the trash, but I consoled myself with the promise to the earth to begin one at our new house.  

To date I have not begun to compost.  This new yard is tiny compared to the Eden of our last home.  There is one tree, a giant brick patio, and just a small path of green around the edges, in the shadow of the fence.  There is no out-of-the-way corner to stick a compost heap in.

So I throw away my kitchen scraps and I take my garden waste to the municipal compost center.  There is no end to the guilt I feel for the amount of waste we make and I imagine, as I throw away another tea bag and apple core, the landfill growing ever larger.  But it’s not just the greenhouse gases produced by my kitchen waste; it is the waste from packaging, even when I recycle.  It’s the oil used to transport the food I buy from South America to my convenient grocery store.  It’s the waste of a too large meal that doesn’t get eaten at all.

So, forgive me good green earth, for my sin of neglect and laziness.  I will, I promise, work harder this coming season to grow more of my own food, use all of it, and build a compost pile.  I will use all the gifts I’ve been given and “live simply so that others may simply live.”

Ellyn Siftar