You wouldn't know it from swash-buckling wiles and my...my.....my....
Ah screw it. Composting used to terrify me. There. I said it.
Okay?
Yeah, all the websites I've read about the art of composting over the years made it seem like a Grand Production. Turning the compost and the various browns and greens and...like...worms and heat and compost teas and all sorts of crazy crap. Diagrams of huge, three bin structures to build for proper composting.
Composting seemed like a big freakin' deal. Like getting a goddamn pet.
But ya know what? It's not. It's crazy easy.
Here's how it works:
You collect your food and paper waste...and you toss it into a pile in the corner of your garden.
Ta-daaaaaa! Done. A few months later you'll have dirt.
If you're feeling ambitious, you can turn it over with a shovel once in a while.
Or...here...try this:
Collect your food and and paper waste, then bury it in a foot deep hole in your garden.
Yeah, as it turns out, stuff just sort of naturally decays, right? No structures needed, no special worms, no nursing the process along. It just HAPPENS. I know, I know. I'm a slow learner. But there it is.
In other news, I've manged to finally find a good way to start plats inside...
My success is a combination of:
1. Making a bunch of little tiny greenhouses out of used milk cartons, soda pop bottles, and juice bottles.
and
2. My youngest boy being old enough now to not destroy everything I put within arms reach of him. Many of my early tomatoes met their end at the hands of a two year old last year, and a one year old the year before that.
The little greenhouses look like this: