Like most local gardeners, I am constantly at battle with the sandy, rocky soil in our area. Very little other than native plants and flowers can grow in our Albuquerque ground without first adding ample amendments. This gets expensive unless you start recycling your kitchen and yard waste into the best amendment of all – compost. My favorite part of composting is that it's a free way to minimize my garbage output while improving my garden.

You can compost the majority of your kitchen scraps. The only things to avoid are meats, grease and dairy products. Compostable items include:

• Vegetable and fruit peels

• Coffee grounds

• Tea bags

• Grass clippings

• Sawdust

• Leaves

• Weeds that haven't yet gone to seed

• Paper (in small amounts)

• Dryer lint

All these materials break down eventually, but mixing them properly speeds the process. Generally, if you combine equal parts carbon and nitrogen producing items you will have a quick-working compost pile. Think of green materials, like grass clippings, as nitrogen and brown materials, such as most kitchen waste, as carbon.

Compost also needs moisture for the materials to decompose. Watering the pile once a week during our dry desert summers helps keep it moist. The pile dries out more slowly during the winter so rarely requires watering. Turning the pile every one to two weeks speeds up the process but makes the pile dry out more quickly. Compost is still usually ready to use in two to three months without turning.

It's ready once it resembles rich, black soil. Work it liberally into your flower and vegetable beds, use it to make your own potting soil, or spread a 1 inch layer around your existing perennials. The nutrients and organic matter in the compost immediately begins to improve your garden.