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About a year ago I noticed that a lot of the stuff going into my kitchen trash was vegetable waste. My wife and I are vegetarian. Well I’m mostly vegetarian; I’ll eat the occasional fish and turkey. At home, anyway, we eat vegetarian and most of the waste that was going into the trash was stuff like spinach and kale stems, peels, rinds, old beans, and such. Being fortunate enough to have a yard in Los Angeles, I decided to try composting some of this stuff. I just wanted to see how easy or hard it would be to start it and take care of it.

It turns out it’s really easy. I googled for some ideas for DIY compost systems and found one that you can make from a cylindrical mesh and just dump your kitchen refuse and yard waste in there. Here’s a picture of what mine looks like:

I just took a few feet of mesh from Home Depot, turned it into a cylinder and tied the ends with wires. To make it easier on myself and avoid going to the compost pile every time I have some kitchen waste I found a large ceramic cookie jar that I use as a composting pail. Make sure it has a tight seal to keep fruit flies from taking over your kitchen. I just dump all my kitchen waste in there and when it’s full I take it out to the compost pile.

This system worked fine for a while, but once it started to get full I found it difficult to take the compost out from the bottom because the mesh is too pliable, so I strongly discourage this system. Luckily I stumbled upon an easier way to build a compost pile.

One day we were walking back from the beach and I found 3 large milk-crates dumped on the side of the road. I thought these would be perfect for a composting system. You can see it here:

The cool thing about it is that you can compost in modules. Stick stuff on the top crate until it’s full. When it’s full, swap it with the next down the stack. Every now and then check the bottom crates. If the compost has settled, as it tends to happen if it’s working, then dump some of the compost from the top and fill up the bottom part. That’s what this next picture shows.

It’ll take about a few weeks or so for the initial material to start decomposing. The rate varies depending on temperature, moisture, and type of refuse you feed the compost pile. And the end result is this:

If you google around for resources you’ll find some suggestions about the proportions of different materials to put into the pile. I don’t worry about the proportions too much and just dump all my kitchen waste and when I sweep up leaves, pull out weeds, or prune the bushes I dump that stuff in there too. I also keep the top and sides moist, so I give it a quick watering whenever I remember to water the yard. The compost pile does not smell. If it does, you might not be putting enough “brown” materials like dried leaves, straw, etc. Sweep up some leaves and let them bake in the sun for a day or so, then dump them in the compost pile.

I was surprised that my pile does not attract house flies. My particular compost pile does attract lots of fruit flies. And I’ve also found this particular bug to be plentiful in my pile:

That’s the soldier fly larva. The flies look like the regular house fly on steroids but they don’t seem to bother coming indoors, and I’ve never found them hanging out around the pile except when they’re turning from larva to fly. According to this website, “they render the breeding media less suitable for the production of house flies”. The pile also attracts lots of birds, so they tend to feed on all the fruit flies, soldier fly larvae, and parts of the refuse.

This is nice soil rich in minerals and nutrients that you can redistribute to your garden plants. But that’s not the only benefit. I’ve noticed that I now only need to take the regular trash out once every two to three weeks, though that may vary by family. We’re just a family of two (soon three! yay!), so our waste footprint will be smaller than a larger family. But, all that kitchen refuse is not going to sit in a landfill.

So there you go, you don’t have to buy a fancy compost system or spend too much time building one, just find a few sturdy milk crates and get to composting. Check out some of the resources on the web to learn more about composting.

If you like falafel with a dash of spiciness and a touch of cool cucumber all wrapped up in a crispy, smoky tortilla and you happen to be in the Palo Alto area then drop by Mediterranean Wraps (

425 S California Ave, Palo Alto, CA). Man, that stuff is good! My wife and I used to eat there frequently when we lived in the Bay Area.

If you have a bit of a sweet tooth like I do then buy yourself a halva bar (crispy nutty bar drenched in chocolate) for desert and wash it all down with a nice cold mineral water or, if you’re feeling up to it, a bottle of ginger bear.

I recently got back from a trip to Portland over the holidays. Sarah and I decided to take the 5 up and down because, even though the coast highway is beautiful to travel on, it adds a couple of hours to your trip.

On our way down we stopped at a friend’s new apartment in San Francisco for the night. And we were going to head right back out to the 5, but at the very last minute we decide that a tasty Mediterranean Wrap was worth 20 extra minutes on the road. We hadn’t been back for over 5 years and it’s still as good as it used to be.

It gets really crowded during lunch, so get there early.

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Once you’re out, head over next door to Know Knew Books and find something to read.