frenchtown fiber

Chris Mundy and Kate House try to make art while navigating the crap life throws at them.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Spring Landmarks

There are several spring landmarks on the way to summer. One is the first lawn mowing. I bought this lawnmower when I bought my first house in 2002. Every year it turns right over, no problem.














The other is the turning of the compost pile.









I am a big believer in organic gardening. Especially for small, largely ornamental gardens like my own. I can't see spreading noxious chemicals all over the place just so I can have pretty flowers. And no commercial fertilizers either. I have an old pamphlet from Rodale Press called, "Make Compost in 2 Weeks" or something like that. There is a lot of useful information in it, but I pretty much ignored the "2 weeks" aspect. I can't be bothered worrying about sticking a special thermometer in the pile to make sure it's hot enough. I thow in kitchen scraps, grass and leaves in something of a parfait and let nature take its course. Nature's course takes about a year. I have 2 kinds of compost piles. One is this thing I purchased from the town when they were promoting composting to save money on trash removal. It was $40 and looks a bit like a space ship. The other is just a 3-foot dia x 3-foot high round of fencing. They both work pretty well. I dug out what finished compost there was to spread on the garden and turned the rest over, adding some new material. I will turn it again at some point during the summer, once again taking out whatever finished compost there is. And that's it.


2 comments:

Quiltplay said...

Good for you... Thanks for reminding me to turn my compost... I think we have the same container!

marty mason said...

Hey, you are good. I compost too and you are right about the one year it takes. But, we don't baby our compost pile either. What is is what is. Black gold....that's what it is!