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by:
Paul Rush
illustration: Stephen MacEachern |
MY HISTORY OF COMPOST |
| Never
did get much soil, but the racoons were well fed |
 Once
upon a time we lived in a house that backed onto a ravine in
the poor part of Toronto’s mostly posh Rosedale area. And on
the edge of that ravine we set a large plastic composter supplied
free by the city.
In days gone by we had, of course,
done some composting by raking leaves and lawn and flower bed
leftovers into large piles. In theory this would rot and create
compost. But we never stayed in one place long enough to find
out.
If
this was low-tech composting, our new plastic model was high-tech.
It had a locking top, side vents and little doors at the bottom
from which—in the fullness of time—rich, loamy compost would
pour forth. In theory. The composter came with a user’s manual—grass
cuttings good; oak leaves not so good. Carrot ends, melon rinds,
potato peels, dead lettuce and such were welcome. Bacon fat
didn’t belong.
In those early days we were filled
with compost frenzy but we soon began referring to our composter
as “the raccoon feeder.” We filled it, they emptied it. We screwed
down the top, they unscrewed it. We tied on the top, they untied
it. We piled it high with concrete blocks and they played dominoes
with them. In the eight years we lived in that house we never
stopped filling the composter (although we did slow down at
times), and the raccoons never stopped emptying it. Never did
we create so much as a teaspoon of dirt.
But we don’t give up easily,
and when we moved to the country we kept on composting. Amazingly,
this went quite smoothly because all the raccoons had migrated
to the city. That’s when I started to build my own composters.
My own simple, primitive, rustic composters.
Remember, to my mind a compost
pile was just a place where table scraps and grass clippings
went to rot. Thus I found some old half-log siding and built
a box five feet wide by six feet long and two feet deep. We
didn’t have many grass clippings to shovel in but we certainly
had table scraps and oak leaves and even a bit of dirt now and
then. I spent a couple of summers filling it up and eventually
found an old sheet of marine plywood which made a natural cover.
Two or three springs ago I pulled the cover off and found a
colony of moles. I gave them a few days to run for their lives
and then I shovelled some dirt into a wheelbarrow and trundled
it to a small flower bed. I dumped in the dirt, stuck in some
flowers and wonderful to say, they thrived. My compost worked.
Since that original box I have made three more rustic and primitive
boxes in which materials are given a chance to compost. Two
of these boxes are just small pine or hemlock logs with the
ends notched so they fit with a modest degree of snugness. One
has been filling up with rotting tree stumps and pine needles
and might produce compost by the next millennium. The other
has received more table scraps and coffee grounds and even dirt
we have dug in making pathways. I plan to check it for moles
shortly.
My third composter I made out
of the ruins of the gutless wonder—a large and ancient record
player that we had taken apart. I rather liked the idea of having
a mahogany composter, but over the winter the veneer came off
and all we were left with was crumbling particleboard. This
spring I took it apart and burned it; the ashes were distributed
through all my other composters.
As I write this it dawns on me
that I am not much of a compost role model. I just throw stuff
in boxes and wait for the rot. So I’ve decided to study the
scientific principles of composter making and composter filling.
Maybe I will get serious this
summer. Maybe.
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