ANYBODY WANT TO BUY A FABULOUS PATENTED COMPOSTUMBLERÒ?

ANYBODY WANT TO BUY A FABULOUS PATENTED COMPOSTUMBLERÒ?

By Robin Ford Wallace

            “Cadillac DeVille, ’05, White.  Loaded.” 

That, in 8-point type, on a tiny scrap of newspaper, is what I read one sunny morning in August.  I cussed.

            Not that I’ve got anything against Cadillacs, and not that I’m ungrateful, at my age, to be able to read 8-point with the naked big browns, if only in bright sunlight.

But the scrap of paper shouldn’t have said anything at all.  It shouldn’t have even been a scrap of paper.  I had just pulled it from my fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ, where, according to the user’s manual, it should have turned into “nutrient-rich, sweet-smelling compost in as little as 14 days.”

It had been two months.

In the past, all my compost had been made using the stodgy old-fashioned method – step 1, empty kitchen garbage onto dirt, step 2, walk away – and it had never been perfect.  It had little white flecks in it that were still visibly eggshells, and sometimes tiny colored ovals where I’d forgotten to take the tags off fruit.  So heaven knows, I had no unrealistic expectations about compost.  

But it shouldn’t try to sell you a Caddy.

The ComposTumblerÒ is a vented barrel suspended on a raised framework, with a crank that you turn to make it go round and round.  The idea is, the motion mixes and aerates the organic matter inside, magically transforming kitchen garbage into “black gold.”  If you have ever flipped through a gardening magazine, you’ll have seen glossy ads depicting the ComposTumblerÒ being smilingly cranked by an impossibly clean gardener looking smug and scientific.

In 2005, I wrote in this very space about the fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ.  Composting is the province of dirt and worms, I wrote, not of revolving plastic barrels.  With withering sarcasm, relentless logic and a bewildering array of Shakespearean references, I concluded that if you were dumb enough to buy a fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ, you were too stupid to garden and should probably take up cross-stitch.

            But of course I always kind of wanted one.

What can I say?  I’m no more immune to advertising than other mortals, and it looked so scientific. 

            So I was thrilled when I was given a fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ by someone who had been dumb enough to buy one.  It might not work, but what was the harm in trying?  

            Avidly, I read the compost recipes in the user’s manual.  I tried to measure out just the right amount of a useful but unlovely substance produced by my neighbor’s horses.  I soaked newspapers.  I added kitchen garbage, then I turned the crank 40 revolutions per day, looking smug and scientific.

Result:  A perfectly legible car ad, slightly smeared with horse poop, and a sore shoulder. 

What was to be done?  My philosophy is: if at first you don’t succeed, stalk away and drink a beer sullenly.

            Problem is, when I stalked away, I left the top off the fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ for a day and a night.  If nature abhors a vacuum, it purely loves a barrel full of garbage with the top off, so next time I checked on my nutrient-rich, sweet-smelling compost, something long and evil was in there wiggling.

            I consulted the user’s manual.

            What I needed, I decided, was bulk.  The more decaying matter in the barrel, the greater the heat.  The heat generated by a full barrel, said the manual, was enough to kill weed seeds; if so, I reasoned, it would also kill long, evil wiggling things.

            So I mowed my nation-like lawn with the bag attached to the mower, stopping every 37 seconds as the bag filled to dump the grass clippings into the fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ.  Then I added water and turned the crank, looking scientific but possibly a little less smug.

            Result:  Two sore shoulders.  The barrel was now so heavy, cranking took both hands.  And the odor!  Despite the advertising, I had never really expected my nutrient-rich compost to smell like Chanel, but now turning the barrel took even longer because every time the ventilation hole came slowly around to nose level you had to stop and vomit.

            What to do?  My problem-solving methodology can be found above. 

When I could finally bring myself to approach the barrel again some weeks later, the mass inside had compacted.  Cranking it, one felt that a fat person had gone in there and died.  It was crank, crank, crank, THUNK, crank, crank, crank, THUNK, as my “black gold” shifted like a body in a car trunk.

            I knew what had to be done and I did it.  Two weeks later. 

Anyway, finally I gathered my courage.  Teeth gritted, eyes narrowed, knuckles white on shovel, I opened the lid to break up the mass.

            And shrieked girlishly as tendrils of black slime slid from the lid into my hair.  Then dropped the shovel and ran like a hare as I saw what was inside.

            The long evil things were not dead.  They were now longer and more evil.  They were in there coiling like pythons. 

And that’s where matters now stand with my fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ.  I may have to hire somebody to deal with it for me, possibly an exorcist.  Or I could just move.

Compost is a matter of allowing organic matter to decompose.  The function of technology is not to help things decompose but to stop them from doing it.  That’s why they invented freezers.  Compost has nothing to do with technology.  It has to do, like everything else in gardening, with dirt.

That was my advice in 2005, and this time I will take it myself.  So don’t be surprised if you open the classified section of this newspaper and see, in 8-point:

“Fabulous patented ComposTumblerÒ, ’06, Gray.  Free to a good home.”

Oh, I almost forgot: 

“Loaded.”

END

Robin Ford Wallace lives in Deerhead Cove, where she plays quietly in the dirt, disturbing no one.