More of the Wonder of Spring

First Daffodil Bloom of 2007 this morning

Completed

Strawberry Pot
13 plants
6 ever bearing 7 June Bearing

Compost, the secret of the Garden

I began composting 34 year ago. Actually it was longer than that. I began dealing with decomposed cow manure when I was about 12 years old. My parents had a little tomato patch on their 40x100 piece of property in Bellmore and one year they made horse manure tea. Horse manure tea is made from horse manure and water. You fill a garbage can full of water with horse manure in the spring and put the lid on it and let it cook in the sun. Open that thing up and you have some of the worse smelling stuff that has ever entered your nostrils! Whew! You also hold in your hand the best fertilizer bar none! It was my job to put this on my folks' tomatoes each week. I used to gag when I did this chore. Little did I know I would look forward to making this brew each year in adulthood. My granddaughter Emma asked me what it was and then what I was going to do with it. When I told her she said, "I'm not eating any of those tomatoes, Poppa!" I am working on convincing her they will be delicious!


23 years ago this month I began a compost pile here in the house I live in. The original site is still in use, however the main production area is on the south side of the house. This is in operation 365 days of the year. Since Lucy is very health conscious we eat more fresh vegetable and fruits than we do canned and frozen stuff. Consequently we have more scraps for the composter than we do trash and recyclables in the trash!

For years now I have not bagged leaves up and put them at the curb. Before I was throwing away the stuff that black gold is made of! Compost enriches the soil, hold in moisture and provides all kinds of nutrients. I am a organic gardener. Egg shells, potato peelings, cumcumber rinds, and all the rest (including peanut shells) go into the bin and turn into beautiful rich compost! Many of the leaves do not make it into the heap. I have now begun mulching them up so fine that I put them in various gardens out back each fall. The following year I hardly pick a weed from such beds and always have beautiful soil in the summer heat. My son-in-law, Mike, a landscaper commented on my tiger liles - how all over Bay Shore he has not seen such full green clumps- the secret is the compost!

Here is an ingredients list for compost:

1. Grass Clippings, mulched leaves (so they don't mat)

2. All garden waste- old plants in the fall, etc.

3. Coffee Grinds, tea bags

4. All peelings: Potato, Cucumber, orange

5. Egg Shells

6. Apple Cores, trimmings off vegetables like lettuce, cabbage

7. Once in a while a little sprinkling of dirt and some wood chips

Do not put in cooked items, any evergreen clippings, anything that won't break down.
(for example you can put in potato peelings but never cooked mashed potatoes)

Turn the pile every few days. You will have rich compost with things you used to throw out!