There's something in that compost soil!
Jane Smith's iterations of "DUMP THEM ON THE PILE" in her HuffPo post "Stop Stalling, Start Composting" sounds so much like my grandmother, it made me laugh outloud. Thanks for the jolt, Jane!
It is so easy to get bogged down in buying gadgets nowadays to do the same simple tasks I grew up watching my grandparents perform without ever once browsing a Smith&Hawken catalog. By spending summers at a home still on a party line that didn't have indoor plumbing until 1965, I got a first rate environmental education from simple, upstate New York farmers and I didn't even realize it was happening. I was often handed a plate of scraps from dinner preparation, or from shelling peas or canning tomatoes, and told to march out to the compost. As I read Jane's advise to just dump and walk away, I recalled my little feet trudging out to the barn and me doing just that.
As an adult, I dug in to their compost--a bit larger than Jane's at 5x5', just sitting next to the barn (no fence, no turners, no thermometers at hand) --and hauled out the blackest, velvet soil for their flower beds, to help them with that year's geranium planting. This stuff looked...delicious! All my exclaiming as a novice gardener was met with their kind-but-bewildered smiles.
Jane mentions tomato plants sprouting from a friend's neglected compost pile that yielded delicious fruits, as if that were a little bit magical. I had a similar experience, finding that the mound of wild violets covering a few decades of my grandmother's kitchen and garden scraps were hardy and bountiful enough to cover a stony Bronx lot (I was part of a stealth takeover when my kids were small) into a hill of purple blooms, much to the delight of the neighboring librarians, who thanked us for changing the view out their windows from urban trash to a lush garden. I like to think of the goodness from my grandparents' old compost as adding some life to the nutrient-poor soil in a neglected corner of NYC. Jane's right--there does seem to be a little twinkle of magic in that.
It is so easy to get bogged down in buying gadgets nowadays to do the same simple tasks I grew up watching my grandparents perform without ever once browsing a Smith&Hawken catalog. By spending summers at a home still on a party line that didn't have indoor plumbing until 1965, I got a first rate environmental education from simple, upstate New York farmers and I didn't even realize it was happening. I was often handed a plate of scraps from dinner preparation, or from shelling peas or canning tomatoes, and told to march out to the compost. As I read Jane's advise to just dump and walk away, I recalled my little feet trudging out to the barn and me doing just that.
As an adult, I dug in to their compost--a bit larger than Jane's at 5x5', just sitting next to the barn (no fence, no turners, no thermometers at hand) --and hauled out the blackest, velvet soil for their flower beds, to help them with that year's geranium planting. This stuff looked...delicious! All my exclaiming as a novice gardener was met with their kind-but-bewildered smiles.
Jane mentions tomato plants sprouting from a friend's neglected compost pile that yielded delicious fruits, as if that were a little bit magical. I had a similar experience, finding that the mound of wild violets covering a few decades of my grandmother's kitchen and garden scraps were hardy and bountiful enough to cover a stony Bronx lot (I was part of a stealth takeover when my kids were small) into a hill of purple blooms, much to the delight of the neighboring librarians, who thanked us for changing the view out their windows from urban trash to a lush garden. I like to think of the goodness from my grandparents' old compost as adding some life to the nutrient-poor soil in a neglected corner of NYC. Jane's right--there does seem to be a little twinkle of magic in that.
Comment
About
© 2010 Created by No Impact Project on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of EARTH DAY 2010 NO IMPACT WEEK to add comments!
Join EARTH DAY 2010 NO IMPACT WEEK