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By Beth Botts [ https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/home/ct-home-0131-garden-morton-20190124-story.html ] With snow on the sidewalk and ice on the porch steps, a reasonable person might ask: Do I really have to take the potato peelings out to the compost bin? They wouldn’t break down until spring anyway, would they? In fact, there’s probably action in your compost pile even in winter, according to Meghan Midgley, soil scientist at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle. The bacteria, fungi, pill bugs, nematodes, earthworms and other forms of life that digest dead plants to produce compost may have slowed down, but they didn’t leave for Florida. “All the organisms in your compost pile evolved in the soil,” Midgley said. “They’ve survived in the soil through the winter for millions of years.” The outer, most exposed layers of your…