A Richer Dust: Wherein Bob Discusses Compost

This was one of the earlier Bobs, appearing in 2005.

A RICHER DUST

BY ROBIN FORD WALLACE

Shakespeare wrote:  “Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”

This is a gardening column and will, thus, not unduly burden itself in arguing whether men do, in fact, die for love, or women, for that matter – though we are remembering a movie called Lady Caroline Lamb in which the last line was the lady’s maid lamenting, “She died of a broken ‘eart!”  We were not unwilling, at that point, to bid Caroline adieu, having never taken to her in the first place and in any case having finished our popcorn .
No, what interests us is the worms.  When we place our kitchen waste outdoors, cover it tastefully with mulch, and submit it to the digestive processes of worms (who are, presumably, ravening impatiently about the garden in hope of amorous fatalities), it becomes compost, the crumbly black stuff that is to the organic gardener what gold was to the alchemist.

Composting has existed in nature for a couple of million years, anyway.  Trees shed their leaves, which decay, making the forest soil into beautiful, black, friable stuff that you would hook for your garden except for problems of transport and the fact that the rangers would nail you. 

Little creatures die and add their tiny carcasses to the organic mix.  Bigger creatures, too.  The poet Rupert Brooke wrote patriotically, and rather too prophetically, of his possible death in World War I:  “There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed” – meaning Rupert, I’m afraid – “that is forever England.”

Dear me.  Here one has set out to discuss compost and one finds oneself not only frothing on about Shakespeare and Rupert Brooke but remembering that Lady Caroline was one of Lord Byron’s mistresses.  Well, if darling Rupert could write so romantically about being compost, surely we can permit ourselves to wax poetic about its virtues in the garden.

Most gardeners will agree that compost is superior to chemical fertilizers.  Not only does it add nutrients, it improves the texture of the soil.  Furthermore, compost costs nothing to make and it’s a convenient way to get rid of the salad from two weeks ago currently evolving into new life forms in the crisper.

Nor is there much disagreement about what to put into your compost pile:  All foodstuffs except meat, which is said to bring rodents.  So:  Coffee grounds, turnips you bought last January, the bread that is growing festive blue spots, the lentil loaf for which your family’s palate was insufficiently sophisticated.

Some materials take longer to compost than others.  Eggshells are so hardy one wonders at times how chickens get born.  And though some gardeners believe in composting paper coffee filters, we have found them dauntingly durable.  And peanut shells?  To expand upon our poetical theme:  Intimations of Immortality.

There is also consensus that layering your kitchen waste with mulch aids the composting process and that it keeps the compost area easier on the eye.  So:  Grass clippings, hay, leaves.  Throw a pile of autumn foliage on that yam casserole with the miniature marshmallows and forget that it ever happened.

Where there seems to be disagreement is how, precisely, to make compost.  Order one seed catalog and you will for the rest of your life find your mailbox crammed with ads for ingenious devices to manufacture “black gold.”  Wooden crates, wire mesh, bins made of square hay bales. One composter on the market consists of a barrel with air holes punched in it suspended between two poles, with a crank.  The idea is, you put your biodegradables in the barrel and every day you spin it around with the crank, looking smug and scientific.

We will, in the interest of honesty, admit that in our credulous youth we wanted one of these so bad we could taste it.  Not being able to afford it, we attempted to home-make a facsimile, consisting of a huge metal trashcan that we punctured with our Swiss Army knife, filled with rotting food, and then rolled around the yard, looking half-witted and vaguely inbred.  Result:  Well, we don’t imagine the expensive kind worked, either.

There are pundits who advise you to water your compost, turn your compost, buy additives for your compost.  Reading such stuff, we cannot imagine how these people find time to garden or hold down jobs.

In reality, we find that all one needs for composting is nature and Mr. Shakespeare’s worms.  Dump kitchen waste in a spot close to the garden, cover it with hay, repeat the process until the pile is a few feet high, then leave it for the worms to deal with.  You’ll have crumbly, wormy compost sooner or later, depending on the season. 

If you find yourself agitating it and watering it and buying it toys, it may be time to take up another hobby – cross-stitch, say, or writing poetry.

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