No-Waste Composting: Small-Space Waste Recycling Indoors and Out by Michelle Balz

I've been cold composting for nearly two decades. I've read many books in which they mention composting & nearly all of them seem pretty adamant about hot composting. It always made me feel like I was doing something wrong even though I had loads of compost each year to apply to my rows each autumn. It was only until more recently I finally felt free. There is nothing wrong with how I compost. It simply takes longer. Mother Nature will do the work. She always does. Humans seem to have this need to over complicate everything.

If you like to make it complicated, then you want this book. If you want to hide your compost due to neighbors complaints, then you want this book. If you want to DIY your own pet waste "septic system", you want this book.

When you come right down to it, you don't really need this book. With that said, it's not a bad book or a worthless book. In fact, it's a very good book. But truly, if you put your food scraps & leaf litter in a pile on the ground & continue to add organics to it, you will eventually get compost. That's pretty much how I do it. However, I live on a small farm. I don't have any tractors though. It's human power all the way.

Everything gets dumped on one compost pile for the year. I don't even turn it. The pile is too big, it's too flipping hot outside & I already have more work than I can handle. Come autumn, I remove the outside bits that are not composted & start a new compost pile. What is composted goes onto my rows which I then cover for the winter.

Compost is pure gold. My method means I always have two compost piles chilling. Not cooking. Well, sometimes they get hot depending on what has been dumped on them. Compost slows come winter, but as I said, Mother Nature does her thing. She's got this down pat. Just don't put your compost against your house or fence or in a wet low lying area & you should be good to go. Food scraps, lawn clippings (you don't use lawn chemicals do you??? I really hope you don't), leaves, straw, hay, etc.

This awesome little book provides several projects for different composting methods. You can even set up to compost inside your home. There really are some great projects including worm bins. I'm thinking of incorporating the pet waste septic for my cats waste. I currently have a dedicated cat waste pile. I use Okocat kitty litter so it breaks down as well. The thing is, the cat waste pile just gets bigger & bigger. I'm not too sure what to do with it. The pile is 11+ years old now! A note to my fellow crazy cat households, this book only discusses dog waste. For feline waste, composting is not recommended. My thoughts on the pet septic project however, seems viable (to me). No mention that I recall for feline waste in the pet septic. After you read it, you can decide for yourself.

If you are afraid of what is safe to compost, this book will help you out. If you are just afraid in general, this book will ease most of your concerns. The author recommends against composting meat scraps & similar but if you have a hot pile & a tractor, for example, you can compost anything. There is a farm who even composts their animals after they pass. Crazy, but it works for them. Note that it can & often does attract rodents, so there are legitimate concerns about adding these types of tidbits to your pile.

There are also some really attractive projects that I never heard of like the African Keyhole Garden. This is basically a raised bed with a small compost area inside it. Another nifty idea comes from the Viking era called a Hugelkulture Bed. This method uses trees as it's base (not live trees). Some composting methods are a lot more work than others, but they all have their usefulness depending on ones situation & goals.

Simply put this book is great for the beginner composter. Even if you are experienced, there is probably something in here you didn't know. I love beginner books as they often provide fresh ideas &/or refresh me on things I forgot.

When you come right down to it, every single one of us should be composting, no matter where we live.

Herbal Houseplants: Grow beautiful herbs - indoors! by Susan Betz

I recently read My Houseplant Changed My Life. While I'm not new to houseplants, I had nearly given up on them. The book gave me new inspiration & led me to add more houseplants to my home. I anticipated something along the same vein with this book on growing herbal houseplants. Growing herbs indoors is not even remotely new to me. In my years of experience, I have found that it's just not worth the effort. They require too much light to truly thrive. They also seem to suffer more bug issues than their outdoor counterparts. I had hoped that this book would have fresh tips & advice on how to keep herbs happy indoors. To be fair, the author provides recommendations to what type of growing condition an herb will like & even some of the health problems the indoor herb plant may encounter. The problem is that none of this was the least bit inspiring. Plus, many need constant fertilizing to stay healthy. When grown outdoors in quality soil, this is not needed. A fresh layer of compost once a year more than does the trick.

I finished reading this book with the conclusion that I will not be attempting to grow herbs indoors come winter. I am a full time Eco farmer who lives in a tiny historic late 1700's log cabin. Light, along with space, are at a premium. I bring my houseplants inside when the weather cools & keep them going with a lot of plant lights & cram them in the best windows for light that I have. They survive, but boy do they take off & thrive when they get put back outdoors. Also, they don't have to deal with my stupid cats once they are outside.

One of the plants I tried growing indoors once is the patchouli plant. It is a rather dull looking plant, but it smells amazing. Never having had a patchouli plant before, I over watered it & it died. I have been searching for a replacement ever since. I was pretty excited when I saw this book mentioned the patchouli. The thing is, the section was wholly uninspiring & I didn't find it particularly useful.

There is also a section on catnip. I've been growing catnip for nearly two decades. I cannot imagine ever wanting to grow it in the house. But that's me. The thing is, the section on catnip was a topic I am very interested in. Like the patchouli, I found the information lacking.

What about photos? They are kind of artsy fartsy rather than realistic for home setups. Many photos are too small to get a good look at the herb & a lot are taken at a distance. A lot are also done as topiaries. Generally I simply found it uninspiring. Too much open space, too much white, not enough green, not enough color.

My favorite part of the book is part two of chapter six. This has a really handy  list of herbs that go good with various types of foods. For example, Egg Dishes: Basil, chervil, chives, marjoram, savory, tarragon, thyme. I cook all my families meals from scratch utilizing a great amount of the ingredients from my farm. This means eating is also seasonal. Being able to see at a glance what herbs I currently have in abundance that go good for soups, salads, and eggs is very helpful.

There are recipes throughout the book, but I have herbal books that provide a lot more useful recipes than this. The book also provides little quotes & history on the herbs. Some of this was mildly interesting, but knowing how wrong they were about health in the 1600's, it's hard to really care about the opinion of some numbnut back then who was more likely to kill a patient than save them. To be fair, there are quotes more recent than the 1600's that are more relevant to today's knowledge.

Thankfully the author even admits how short lived most of these herbs are. Many grow, then go to seed & die. Some of the more woody types like sage live much longer. I have sage bushes growing outdoors that are on their fourth year. Rosemary can keep going too, but must have a lot of light. If your winter temps are warm enough, it will survive the winter, in my region, the dead of winter is the death of my rosemary. If you don't mind putting a lot of effort into caring for short lived herbs indoors, then good for you. For me, I work much too hard at a very physical job (Eco farmer remember?). I would much rather pop outside & walk up to where the herbs are growing to harvest them for my meal. If I had a large lovely home filled with windows, maybe I would feel otherwise.

If you are lucky enough to have a big sun room or something similar, then by all means, grow herbal houseplants. I think you'll have a lot of success. If you don't have a lot of natural light, you'll find you have to keep your herbal houseplants where you have plant lights. Really think about that a moment. It wont look like the photos in this book. You wont accomplish the look. Not even close. However, if you pick one or two herbs that work for you, you might be able to get away with it.

Does this mean I don't recommend this book? Not necessarily. It does have it's merits & it will appeal to a certain personality type. If you can, see if your local library carries this. See what you think. If you like it, then you know it's worthy of space on your shelf, if not, well then you just saved shelf space & money.