Every year, about six weeks before planting time, I start thinking about the garden again. Here in Grand Junction, spring doesn’t rush in. It arrives slowly, teasing us with warm afternoons before the last frost finally passes sometime around late April or early May. That makes early March the perfect time to sit down with a cup of tea and make a plan.

This fall I finally faced the question every apartment or condominium gardener asks at least once: How do I make compost without a yard, without spending a fortune, and without making the neighbors hate me?