Compost!

Last spring, I used a good portion of our tax return to fancy up the garden (well, a little, there's much more I want to do), and part of that included buying compost bins--plural, b/c the first we bought we weren't sure about (a big ball you can roll around to easily facilitate aeration) and then we found a display model at Costco for pretty cheap, so we were then the proud owners of TWO compost bins. And we actually produce enough food waste to fill them both. That's kind of gross.

Anyways...I was rewarded the other day with my first batch of compost!

There's actually still some egg shells in it, and a few leaf chunks left from my last addition about three weeks ago, but bin #2 is full and needed to start actively composting, which means that the ball bin needed to be emptied. And since the ball bin is now empty, I was able to roll it up to rest next to the deck, so I don't have to trek down to the garden in the cold and rain all winter.

I was so excited. I still am. I'm still amazed that our food turned into beautiful soil. It's so nuts. It's so amazing. It's things like this that make me love science and nature.

The compost is still sitting in a small pile in the garden, waiting to be distributed, but I cannot decide which plants to bestow with all of the wonderful nutrients. I probably need to make my mind up though, b/c I think we have some precipitation on the way, and I don't want all those nutrients just leaching into the soil in one spot.

This same day--I think it may have been Sunday--Chris willingly left a warm couch, with food and football, to finally put up the supports for my raspberry bed (which he also built for me, with aforementioned tax return). Isn't he a nice guy?! Then he took the kids back inside, put the leftover lasagna in the oven for lunch, and left me alone, in peace and quiet, in my garden, to play with my raspberries for an hour.

The raspberries look so unimpressive right now, but they actually yielded a fair amount of berries this summer and fall, considering I'd only planted them in early May (which was way late, I procrastinate in everything, gardening included). There are tons of suckers and I'm excited b/c I think they are going to be bee-yoo-ti-ful next summer and fall and I will have my own private organic raspberry supply. :)