Compost

We always had a small compost pile in our back yard when we lived in town.  It was nothing fancy.  Just a semi-circle of wire held up with t-posts and tucked back between some redbud trees.  All my kitchen waste, along with garden debrie, leaves and grass clippings went into the pile.   It is amazing how much rich, black compost we were able to generate each year from this backyard setup. 

When we moved and were getting the house ready to sell, we obviously had to dismantle the compost pile.   Unfortunately, not many house buyers want a compost pile.   We pulled up the t-posts, rolled up the wire and hauled it all over to the farm.  What was left was a tall mound of finished compost and partially composted material.  My first thought was to spread it out over the yard, but I couldn't bear to see such good compost go to waste.  So, we ended up shoveling it into 5-gallon buckets and hauling it over here to the farm.  It was put to good use on the new garden beds here which are in desperate need to organic matter since a lot of the soil here is clay.

Tom has built some new compost piles here at the farm, much bigger than the one we had in town.  Here's a picture of 3 he has built that are side-by-side so that he can turn one into the other easily.

He got industrious today and turned the the one on the right into the middle one.

Before long he had a couple of helpers: