compost

Spring is here. The garden is coming alive. I love to go out and see what made it through another cruel winter. I love planning on what to add this year and how to fill in the spots where plants didn't make it.
This is also the time of year that I place the empty ice cream pail on the kitchen counter and we begin to collect things for the compost pile. I love collecting compost. I love seeing the pail fill up with egg shells and tea bags, orange peels and apple cores, wilted lettuce or a remembered-too-late plum. I love thinking about all the vitamins and minerals I am adding back into my garden.
I think that all Pete thinks about is how gross it all looks and how much he dislikes the fruit flies we have to battle all summer.
I'm not actually all that good at producing really good compost. I can add all of the ingredients but I usually don't turn it and water it often enough. That's kind of a big job that's usually moldy, slimy or smelly and often involves scraped knuckles. I always laugh when I see advertisements for composters that turn out stuff that looks like actual soil - yeah right! My dream is to have one of those double barrel composters that you turn with a crank. It would be so nice to have two stages of composted material and the ease of turning the whole mess with a handle.
This summer the handle I will be turning will be attached to the end of a shovel. So why do I bother? It is so gratifying to see grass clippings, fallen leaves and kitchen scraps turn into something else. Something dark and lumpy with hunks of eggshell still clearly recognizable - but still something new and good.