There are many benefits to composting your household wastes like kitchen scraps, leaves, grass clippings and so on. One of the main benefits is that you can use the compost that you’ve created on your own garden or perhaps your lawn if you don’t have a garden.

Our plants and trees can gain much needed nutrients when we amend the soil around them with compost.

Here in Toronto we have what is called “Green Garbage”. Those who don’t compost can add their kitchen scraps and a few other materials to their green bins for collection each week. The city then combines this green waste with shredded, and I presume composted yard waste (leaves and plant trimmings and such), and gives it back to the residents of Toronto each Spring on certain days. Residents can pick up compost for their garden at special depots set up in various communities on specific days.

We usually try to pick up a large garbage can worth of the cities compost each spring, but we don’t rely on it as we have our own composter in our backyard.

If you’d like to learn how to set up your own composter why don’t you have a look at these videos.

Backyard Composting

Learn the basics of garden composting. Create some great nutrient rich compost for your garden from scraps and yard waste. Improve your soil the organic way.

Garden Girl TV: Simple Easy Compost Bin

Patti, the Garden Girl, shows you a simple and easy way to make a compost bin for your organic lawn or garden.

So if you haven’t already done so, go ahead and start your own backyard compost bin. Your plants will show you how much they enjoy having their soil amended with compost and your kitchen garbage won’t be as smelly!

Are you worried about the pesticides that might be contaminating the fruits and vegetables that you eat? If you are, you’re in luck.

The Environmental Working Group has come out with a list of 45 fruits and vegetables ranked according to the level of pesticide contamination. The results were based on U.S. Food and Drug administration testing.

The most contaminated fruit and vegetables include strawberries, apples and celery. The top of the list of most contaminated food items is Peaches with a pesticide load of 100.

The cleanest fruit and vegetables include mangoes, pineapples, onions, and avocados. The least contaminated of the list has a pesticide load of 1.

I never realized that peaches had such a high contamination load. I always thought apples were the worst of the bunch.

What the report lacks is actual amounts of pesticides. The items rated on the list are organized on a scale that shows which produce has more pesticides, but without knowing the exact amount of contamination it’s hard to say if the pesticide contamination in peaches is harmful or if the low amount found in pineapple really is a safe level.

If you are worried about pesticide contaminants the best thing to do is limit your exposure.

Not everyone can grow all of their own food supply, nor necessarily do it organically, but you can limit your exposure to pesticide contaminated fruit and vegetables by trying to make some of your purchase organic produce. Know what’s on the list and try to make sure that when you want to buy some of the items that are listed as being most pesticide contaminated, like peaches and apples, that you make those purchases organic.

If you do happen to have a garden try to grow organically. My garden is organic and I find it quite easy to maintain and as you can see from all the photos on this site my plants are very healthy.

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This lovely peach colored flower is growing within the asters that I planted in June. I think it’s an Aster as well, but it’s quite a bit different than all of the rest of the asters that I’m growing.

It seems like my asters are blooming earlier this year. I guess that’s due all the cool weather we had in July and the first two weeks or so of August. I think my Asters have been blooming for at least two weeks, maybe three.

Asters usually bloom well into Autumn - I hope that mine do this year considering their early start.

Do you grow asters in your garden for some fall color? I have several shades ranging from a bluish purple, to mauve, pink, and a deep rose. Oh and the peachy colored one above too!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Ah …. I’m sitting here in my backyard at the patio table enjoying this beautiful day while surrounded by the beauty and lovely scent of my garden.

I couldn’t ask for anything better!

My husband is here beside me reading a magazine while we both keep an eye on our almost year old Labrador retriever.

Midnight, our Lab, has spent some time in the garden with us, but barely ever off leash. This is in part because our fences aren’t all that high, and well … she still likes to explore all of the garden beds. This time however, we’ve let her off leash and brought out a few of her toy bones to chew on. She’s being good and seems to be enjoying the time outside as much as we are.

My only worry is that she might try to bite a bumble bee and then get stung! You see she’s fascinated by bugs, and like most dogs tries to snap at them and eat them when she sees one! I don’t want her stung, nor do I want to find out if she’s allergic to bee stings (like me!). Plus, the bee population has taken a hard hit this year so there’s no point in letting our dog needlessly kill a useful insect.

We were expecting an overnight guest this weekend but he had to cancel at the last minute. To prepare for his visit we tidied up the garden, watered it and finally got around to putting our Tiki torches in the garden last night. The torches give the garden a “Survivor” kind of feel, and they also help keep the mosquitoes away since we use Citronella oil in them.

Do you spend time just enjoying your garden and or using it to entertain guests?

Do you ever bring your laptop outside to your garden so you can blog or read your email?

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Cleomes are strange looking flowers. They grow on long stocks and bloom as they grow. They have long spidery things that stick out all around the blooms giving them their strange look.

I plant these flowers along the back edge of my garden. They grow to approximately 4 feet tall so they help screen me from my neighbors once they’ve grown enough. I always try to grow some white ones as well as pink and purple.

Another flower that I grow is Phlox David. I have four clumps of it in my backyard garden and it’s just lovely when it’s in full bloom.

I like having some white flowers scattered throughout the garden. They seem to highlight certain areas of the garden, and of course at night these flowers are still visible so they add a nice touch if we’re sitting out on the patio.

Sorry my post was a little late today. We seem to have the flu or something like it running through the house and it appears to be my turn to fight the bug. Ugh.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!