Lazy Compost

Compost is nothing but decomposed organic matter. Nature makes compost continuously and without any effort, but gardeners who make compost tend to favor a faster way that involves containers, watering, and back-breaking labor to turn the pile as it decays. That’s fine for them, but we favor Nature’s way, with only the difference that we pile up vegetable matter rather than leaving it scattered as Nature does.

Ours is a two-pile system: building and harvesting. We don’t water the compost that is building and we don’t turn it. It isn’t in a container. It is just a heap of garden refuse, kitchen scraps that the chickens won’t eat, and coffee grounds. Over a year’s time, only the bottom third or so of the pile has decomposed. In order to get at the good stuff, Dennis flips the top two thirds to an adjacent spot. This is the start of the coming year’s pile.

Yesterday Dennis harvested some compost from last year’s pile. As you can see in the background, this year’s pile is already substantial.

We used the compost as potting soil for our new container herb garden. I wanted the convenience of having herbs on the deck instead of in the garden. So far we have, from left to right in the photo, curry plant, rosemary, parsley with a basil plant carried over from last year’s garden, oregano, and thyme. Soon as the new basil seedlings are ready to plant we will remove the old basil.

We’ll use the remaining compost to give transplants a boost and for top-dressing perennial flower beds like this one in front of the house.

And that’s how the lazy gardener makes compost.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer