Composting

Q. I was recently told that Baltimore County residents were not permitted to compost kitchen scraps in their backyard compost bins? Is this true, and what is the reasoning for the rule? A. Baltimore County residents are not permitted to compost kitchen scraps. Only grass clippings, leaves, flower cuttings and fertilizers are permitted in compost piles. Baltimore County officials think that kitchens scraps attract rats to compost piles and provide a food supply for them. I would argue that a well-constructed or well-tended compost pile does not harbor rats.

Q. We were very busy this summer, and the weeds in our vegetable garden got out of hand. One of the plants that took over was morning glory vine. Can you tell me how best to get rid of it? A. Morning glories are annuals that will die over the winter. However, they are prolific seeders, so you can plan on them being back next year. I would pull the existing plants out to prevent any further spread of seed and then be prepared to eliminate any new seedlings that emerge next spring. This could easily be done with a hoe, but it will likely take more than one hoeing.

"LIFE BEGINS at 40," or that's what 62-year old Lew Shell would have us believe. No, the Severn resident isn't referring to the human condition, but to a key element of one of his favorite topics - composting, or as he and his colleagues in the Maryland Master Gardener program prefer to think of it, the art of transforming organic material into a natural soil conditioner. The "life" that Shell, a master gardener and horticulture consultant at the Maryland Cooperative Extension Home and Garden Information Center in Clarksville, refers to is the process of decaying that occurs only when the air temperature is above 40 degrees, usually from April to November.

STOP THE presses: Baltimore County residents have beaten their own record. Last year, they collected an all-time high of 89.8 million pounds of residential mixed paper for recycling, besting their own statewide record they have held since 1995. The county netted $930,000 from sales of the refuse paper. It also saved valuable landfill space. "People know that recycling benefits the environment, but it makes economic sense, too," says County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger. Is Mayor Martin O'Malley listening?

Q. I read about someone who grew her garden plants from seed using compost. Isn't compost too strong for seedlings? Can it cause disease problems? A. You can grow beautiful flower and vegetable transplants using compost but follow these guidelines: Use only completely mature, stable compost at least 6 months old. Sift it through a screen (like 1/2 -inch mesh hardware cloth), thoroughly mix the compost (1 / 3 to 1/2 by volume) with a soilless growing medium (compost should constitute a third to a half of the mixture by volume)

LONDON GROVE, Pa. - Steve Goddard is surprised himself when he finally counts the number of compost bins behind his London Grove house. Let's see: The numbered ones, one through nine, are squat cylinders of green plastic 3 feet high, 3 feet in diameter. Two have names - Judy, after the friend who gave it to him, and Black Mariah, because of its color. Then there's a squarish model dubbed "the doghouse" and three resembling mini-space capsules. Finally, the grand champions: two voracious tumblers that can hold almost six large trash bags of stuff each.

Alfred S. Bassler, the man at the center of Howard County's longest-running zoning dispute, has it all figured out. People need to stop having babies, he says. It's as simple as that. If there were no more babies, there would be no more houses, no more roads -- and no need for his Forest Recycling Project, where logs and stumps go to die after they have been cleared to accommodate development. "If you try to close my operation, you're barking up the wrong tree," Bassler says. "If people are born, they are going to grow up and live in a house.

About 25 years ago, Alfred S. Bassler began running a composting facility on his Clarksville property, using part of his 430-acre farm to recycle trees after they had been cleared to make way for development. For years -- ever since the building boom in the 1980s, when Bassler's compost piles grew -- neighbors have tried to shut down the operation. They say the facility, sometimes called a "stump dump," creates too much noise and air pollution and should not be allowed in a residential area.

Q. We're newlyweds with a composting conflict. I like to throw everything on the compost heap as is, and he insists on buying an expensive shredder to chop it all up beforehand. And then he wants to spend a whole day carefully layering soil, grass clippings, leaves, etc. Please help me straighten him out.A. You're going to have to compromise to make this compost pile work. He's right about shredding materials before they go in (although you don't need an expensive shredder). Chopping things into small pieces will hasten decomposition.

Overnight, it seems, the weather has turned chilly and brisk, and the trees are daily dropping their bounty of nuts for the squirrels to harvest. They are also dropping their leaves. This will shortly become a flood.I am not fond of raking leaves, and because burning them is no longer permissible, I cannot even look forward to a bonfire. So what to do with them?I am well aware that the municipalities around us provide leaf pickup days, but as a confirmed composter I always cringe at this waste of organic material.