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The seed falls to the forest floor and is covered by the brown, dried leaves. The leaves decompose and enrich the soil providing nutrients to the seed. It rains, the seed sprouts and a tree grows. Eventually its leaves fall onto another seed and the process is repeated ad infinitum. This is Mother Nature's recycling and composting regimen. Any gardener worth his salt will take a page out of her lofty book and do the same.

The importance of recycling and composting in the garden is too immense not to take seriously. To take these things lightly is to negate what gardening is all about, reconnecting with nature, being part of it and bettering it for all concerned. Don't believe me? Well, if we did no recycling nor composting our gardens would become, in a surprisingly short amount of time, a wasteland. Ever been to the Badlands of South Dakota? Not much better than that and, no, I'm not exaggerating.

In the spring time we all have to clear out the old tomato vines, the dead flower stalks and crumbled leaves from our vegetable patch, shrub borders and flower gardens. We have all this organic material and nowhere to put it. Nowhere? Mother Nature would be so disappointed to hear you say that. Surely, you can emulate her, use her example and find a better use of that seemingly useless stuff rather than just throwing it in the garbage. Need a hint? It's called the compost pile.

All that stuff which would naturally decompose on its own will do it that much quicker, more efficiently and neater in a pile of your creation. And really it's not nearly as tough to do as some folks think. It is as easy as cutting off a corner of your yard, blocking it from view with hay bales or hedges and layering grass clippings, vegetable peels, leaves and flower stalks then leaving this to decompose on its own. No, you don't have to turn it nor fuss with it in any way. Let the worms and microbial beings do all the work. That's how Mother Nature does it. Talk about the laziest gardener ever, that's her!

Dig at the bottom of your pile after several weeks and you'll find black gold in the form of nutrient rich compost ready to use as a top dressing around plants of all types. It can make poor soil good, make sandy soil less porous, make clay soil less dense, make dry soil more able to retain moisture, make wet soil less so. Miraculous thing this compost, don't you think? The fixer of all evils, it is. Wouldn't you like to get in on this? I thought so.

As for recycling other things than just

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