compost! it's the sh*t.

While away in the field and desperately missing my garden (among other things), but loving my new Kindle, I downloaded and read The Quarter-Acre Farm. While there were a few dumb moments, overall it was a decent read, and I especially appreciated the part about compost. As a lazivore (my new favorite term, thank you Treehugger), I don't turn our compost. Sometimes I poke at it with a pitchfork, but that's about it. And by sometimes I mean once every 6 months. Apparently I am not alone, but Ms. Warren describes her technique of simply removing the uncomposted stuff on the top to get at the good stuff below. Ah hah! Only our scrap wood compost bin has a removable front, so I just removed the front and carefully scraped out about 3 cu. ft. of lovely composted compost. I could have gone for more, but I started to worry about the pile's structural stability, plus it was hard. But I got enough to top off the one raised bed that is currently empty. And I forgot to take pictures before I got it all re-sealed.

In other news, things are growing, but not too fast at my own 0.05 acre farm. Except for the birdhouse gourd vines, which are trying to take over the world. One of the more amazing things in the yard continues to be the flowering basil, which the bees love so much it is almost embarrassing. And fortunately Rudy the dog has decided to ignore them for the time being (we will not pretend that he actually learned from last year's bee eating / face swelling / Benadryl induced sleeping event).