Compost

 

Looking up intermittently from their internet, nerds notice through an actual window nearby how nature is twirling through the air outside towards a dank death. It might be the closest some of them get to International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW), which is settling down nicely between the 2^nd and 7^th of May. One of the admirable women on Gardening Australia once said you can chuck anything into the compost. Pondering this position over the years I have come to the conclusion hers is a minority opinion. She must have a bottomless pit at her place. Citrus, I was always told, is a main offender. Those lemon and orange rinds, end products of juicing at start of day, rot a lot slower than other rinds, a wealth of acid and anathema to worms. Boffins of the blogosphere will agree that organic matter deteriorates at different speeds, and what did she mean by ‘anything’, anyway? Even professionals can be known to give way to enthusiasm. The international online reading audience will be delighted to learn that we use a stainless-steel champagne bucket for collection of kitchen scraps. It is the most overused champagne bucket outside of the Ritz. Potato peelings, shredded corn cobs, apple cores, parsley stalks, everything is plopped into the bucket, for transport to the currently active compost bin. We have three bins, which we circulate through the seasons. As e-types are occasionally aware, autumn is about the main season for compost, with cooler temperatures allaying concerns the sun will fry the bin. Layers of yellow leaves and grass clippings and vagrant weeds rise to the brim, to start their rapid descent to the level playing field again. Synonym Search calls this humus. Web surfers will be interested to know that we employ tiger worms in our bins, payment being all the food they can eat. They hang around in clumps, turning mouldy rubbish into pure gold for the garden. My one concern is the sun, as I may have mentioned, which last summer was a blast furnace at times. Bins must be located by shaded fences. In halcyon days I trialled open compost troughs, but alas results were less than halcyon. Despite the promises of wistful decomposition on a large scale, the high maintenance time frame and risk of theft by bird and rodent defeated the desired aim. High turnover was an impediment to progress. Impressive troughs of Gardening Australia’s haughty composters shared no resemblance to my heaps of weeds and carrot tops. Bins are easier, the results the same. Slumped with their mouse, geeks need consciousness raising about the satisfactions of keeping the cycle going, shovelling rich granular mixture into wheelbarrows, scattering seedbeds, spooning textures into flowerpots, and generally turning castings into enriching agent everywhere.