When I first published this blog, I shared it with a few close friends, among them my darling born-again hippie friends Christopher and Nicole. Nicole's response, apparently, to my first ever post was an indignant, "She doesn't even compost!" a la Mean Girls.

Ok. First, it's worth mentioning that I taught these two how to garden one year ago. What I didn't do was realize they were going to take that to the complete next level of awesome and make a self-watering garden, pickle, compost all their food and home brew byproducts, make delicious kombucha... and experiment with something absolutely horrific called SCOBY jerky. SCOBY jerky aside (shudder), these two are the sweetest friends a girl could have, and they make some pretty fine beer to boot. (Keep an eye out for Huskypup Brewing coming soon to the Charleston area!)

However. That brings me to my second point. Ok. So noooooOOOOOooooo, technically I don't compost. TECHNICALLY.

But listen. I had a really traumatic experience with worm farm composting. It's still way too soon to talk about it, so I get squirrelly about the whole thing. Like, I may or may not have killed 200 earth worms. It's a long story I might share with y'all someday after too many glasses of cava.

Whatever. I digress. 

I am really, really good at finding my way out of gross things I don't want to handle personally, and creatively justifying said avoidant behavior. Thus, I came up with a strategy for those who want to do better but are opposed to hands on composting.

For about the last 4 years, I've been keeping my compostables in a big container in my freezer. This 1) is admittedly an unusual thing to keep next to the ice cream and 2) eliminates that earthy funk and potential fruit fly invasions and 3) allows me to comfortably procrastinate for as long as I please. (This only works if you rarely eat frozen food, by the way, and have willing hippie neighbor friends.)

Then, whenever I see my friend Donna or Christopher and Nicole, I happily arrive with a stank-free bowl of frozen compost to toss on their real, grown up heap. (Can you understand Nicole's indignant response to my composting claims now, as my compost surrogate? Shhhh. Don't answer that. I'm basically doing her garden a favor.)

But now as I'm rehabilitating the mess that is my sorely neglected garden, I'm beginning to wonder if it's time to put on my big girl panties and get down and dirty with my own compost pile. I'm in the situation of having to purchase compost, and having made this commitment to do better by Mother Earth, it might be time to face the elephant-in-the-freezer. Not to mention, I think I've horrified one too many frozen-pizza-loving house-sitters at this point.

Is it time to turn over a new leaf? Or keep the situation on ice? More on that soon!