gardenthoughts

i love making compost more than i love doing anything else in the garden .. well, maybe a little more .. in fact, i love doing whatever i do in the garden .. i do, however, recognize that all gardens begin with soil .. that soil is the foundation of any garden .. that soil is the building block of a garden ..  you get the idea .. and the magic revealed through the process of composting astounds me .. composting, to me, is magic in action .. compost piles, in and of themselves, can even be art ..

i had attempted, at different times in my younger gardening days, to ‘make’ compost .. for whatever reason, it didn’t work for me .. then, i started to work with/for phil .. well, phil was a gardener from lincolnshire, england .. had gardened from a very young age .. knew vegetable gardening, mostly .. (although he did create the beautyfull winter flowering shade garden) .. and he knew composting .. one of the first things he taught me .. much to my delight .. i mean, after all, we needed somewhere to put garden debris .. kitchen waste .. we even brought in straw from across the way .. “straw’s got carbon,” phil told me .. we layered the pile with all the ingredients at hand to let the magic happen .. we started off, initially, with a four by four by four pile .. just on the ground in the back yard .. it was as square as i could make it .. (i was so eager to please) .. it turned into a work of art for me .. sometimes we would just stand and look at it .. once we got it where we wanted it, the pile would sit .. and work .. and every once in awhile we would put our hands into the middle of it .. to feel the heat .. that in itself so amazing to me .. we did the compost piling for a couple of years .. when frank came into my life he built a three bin composter in phil’s back yard .. i felt as if i’d somehow graduated .. to the next level of composting ..

i’ve worked many compost piles since those days .. the picture above shows one bin of the three ‘binner’ frank put together at the community garden .. it’s made out of pallets .. simple to put together .. even i could do it .. (lol) .. we’re using the basic layering method .. my favourite method .. although you can’t see it, there are layers of garden debris .. with layers of maple leaves .. with layers of seaweed .. layers of some strawlike grass clippings .. layer upon layer .. no particular order .. just as the layers come .. people bring their kitchen waste .. dig it into the layers .. cover it over .. and eventually, the layers all blend in together .. working in the heat they create together .. coming out as beautiful earthen material for the garden .. i love composting .. and it’s free .. even better ..

oh, yes .. and it is a work of art .. a living work of art, if you will .. this particular one created by many hands ..