Living in an Apartment with No Room for a Compost Pile? Ask a Local Farmer

Composting is a great way not only to have a great, natural fertilizer to put on your garden, but it’s also the ultimate way to be “green.” Composting offers an ingenious way to reuse the things around you that would otherwise go to waste or be thrown into the landfill.. Composting is actually very easy to do, but if you don’t have the room, it can be very complicated. Many people who live in apartments don’t have the wide open spaces that they can use to compost. But that shouldn’t stop you from composting! Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as the saying goes.

A City Garden

One thing that many people don’t realize is that, even though you are living in an apartment it doesn’t mean that you can’t have a garden. Many of the best growers in the city actually have very little space to grow their gardens, and they make do with either having “in-apartment” greenhouses, or by using their rooftops as their gardens. If you have a rooftop in your apartment that is currently not being utilized, you can always ask the manager or the building’s owner if you can use the rooftop to create your own garden. A garden not only provides you with food, but it also beautifies the rooftop as well, which is one reason why a building owner should have no problem allowing you to build your own garden on the rooftop.

If you’re able to build a rooftop garden, then you have room for a compost pile. There are a number of places where you can get a composting bin, which confines the compost to one area  and keeps it off the ground. This is especially important if you’re going to be using a rooftop garden, because most managers or owners will not want compost scattered all over their roofs. But what if you don’t have a rooftop garden but you still want to have compost for your houseplants? Or what if you do have a rooftop garden but don’t have access to any sort of composting materials like cuttings?

Farmers

It might be easy to forget about the rural life, farmers, and farms when you live in a city, but in most instances if you go a few miles outside of the city limits you’ll start to see farm land. A few more miles and you’ll run across some amazing farms. If you need to get some compost material, or you want to locate a place that will host your composting, then there’s no better place to look than a farm.

If you don’t know any farmers, ask your friends and family members – they may be able to recommend a farmer or two that are friends, family members, or acquaintances. If you don’t know anyone who knows a farmer, the best thing to do is to simply start looking for one. Take a drive outside the city and look for farms, or look in your local directory for farms in the area. Once you’ve found one, feel free to contact the owner. Explain who you are and what you’re trying to do. Most farmers have an abundance of raw materials that you can use in your composting pile, and are more than happy to give them to you. They will most likely want to keep the hay that they produce, but there are plenty of other possibilities around the farm that should be able to provide both the greens and the browns that you need for your compost pile. Ask, instead, if you can help clean up around the farm, or around the farmhouse, and if you can have the greens and browns in exchange for your work. They’ll likely be more than happy to give you the extras around the house or barn.

If you don’t have room in your apartment, or on your roof, for a compost pile, and you still want to have one, ask the farmer if it’s possible for you to begin a compost pile there. Many times you’ll be surprised to learn that the farmer will be willing to help you out. He may request that you keep it combined to a specific area, and it would be very nice if you offered to allow him to use some of the compost once it’s ready. Chances are pretty good that you’ll have plenty of extra compost to go around, so it shouldn’t be a big deal at all to give him a good percentage of your compost. Don’t ever feel that just because you live in an apartment you aren’t able to have the compost pile that you want. As long as there is a farmer close by, you’re likely to be able to find help.