C’mon: you know you should do it. Why waste all those vegetable peelings and carrot fronds when they could be turned into really good dirt?

Cheryl Wilfong has penned The Real Dirt on Composing (Heart Path Press, 2015) for all of us Road Trips Gardeners who know that we should be composting but either don’t know how to do it, live where it’s not practical or are just too, ummm, finicky to start.

She makes it so simple even someone in an apartment can create her own potting soil (or amendments thereto) without breaking a sweat.

Sure, it’s easiest if you have lots of room (three bins, each about three-feet-square). But, as Wilfong notes, “sometimes a black plastic composter is your only option”. Take heart: every little bit helps (and, besides, you’re keeping organic recyclables out of the landfill.

Meat bones aren’t a good addition to a compost bin, but you still can make use of them in the garden. Build a big bonfire, Wilfong suggests, and bake those bones into lime ash to “sweeten” the soil.