Why the manufactured compost container solution is so appealing is because nothing has broken down in my compost cage for months. It looks like garbage, because it is. Everything I could cover it with, like leaves, was frozen. For a few days now, it's stayed above freezing. Better yet, it was fifty degrees yesterday.
In addition to the cage, I have a Big Weeds Dump, where I throw spent tomato vines and their ilk over the back fence of the garden onto the steep hill. Those gnarly things will break down over a period of two years.
When I was exiled to the suburbs years ago, I bought a compost tumbler from a neighbor for twenty-five dollars. The guy who did the lawn maintenance for the nearby apartments told me he'd sold it to him. So it was not highly recommended. I did manage to produce some compost if I was careful with what went into it.
When I moved here,the composter had started to rust in the drum and the supports. I was not tempted to buy another one, especially for five hundred dollars. Having plenty of old hog fencing, and no old hogs, I bent a length of it in a semicircle and attached it to the garden fence posts. That is my cage. It was time to move it along the fence to the next spot. Thick fescue loved that cage and wouldn't let it go. I got out the shears and convinced that grass otherwise.
The top layer of the pile was full of garbage, but a ways down was compost. This stuff was along the edge of the pile.
This is one of my favorite tools, the big hoe head. I found it at my old farm when I moved there in 1977. In constant use in the gardening season, it has served me well, surviving a big flood and occasional neglect. But I digress.
First, I dumped a tub of leaves in the "new" cage, on top of the thick grasses in residence. Then I raked off the stuff from the pile that could be recognized as garbage. All went into the cage, along with several tubs of chicken bedding I had spread on the garden in the fall.
After a rather dry winter, the straw had not broken down much. The Bradford Pear at the end of the garden contributed leaves to the wonderful potential compost.
The beauty of my system is once I use the compost, the indomitable fescue has been smothered to death, leaving a new bed for planting flowers. To the right of the pile are two former compost cage spots, now growing peonies, rudbeckia, irises and coreopsis.
Words cannot express how happy I was to actually do some gardening. Instead of dreaming about better soil, I mixed up some ingredients for a batch..
Geese flying high overhead showed me that even though it is still January, spring is on the way. I didn't quite understand why they were headed west.
