Fall Cleaning

Most people do spring cleaning...well apparently we do fall cleaning, of the yard. Our fall cleaning consists of pulling out all of the plants that have died due to the cold weather, adding our home-made compost, which I will elaborate more on later, and sweeping the deck, over and over again. not to mention it is cold and a little sketchy reaching your hand into an un-known area, where a spider could be hanging out, to pull out a dead plant. Honestly it is somewhat depressing, being surrounded by everything slowly dying. I say somewhat because there is beauty when everything is covered in a glistening white blanket, and when the grass and naked trees are frost bitten.

     While we were fall cleaning, Steve, the land-owner of the yard, wanted to show me his home-made compost gadget. He took an old, green, plastic barrel, put a beam inside, horizontally, and cut a door that's latched so he could put in the needed materials. In the far left corner of the yard conceals the stand that enables the compost to rotate, two barrels of mulch, and two five-gallon buckets of already composted materials. I learned from Steve that in order for the compost to work, and compose, it is vital for it to constantly have oxygen, hence the rotating. I also learned that the reason we have been gathering all of our scrap food is to feed the compost. We save all food products except meats because they have a smell as they are rotting, and the smell attracts animals, leading to possibly digging up all your plants and the soil you just planted."While some people may compost whole cattle most compst piles will have a difficult time digesting the fats that meats have, and that is why many composting web sites recommend against composting meats. In addition the odors produced by these meats and fish as they rot, because they often are not being digested by the aerobic bacteria, attract unwanted vermin to your compost pile.Those that do compost meat and fish waste usually bury that material quite deeply in their compost piles." According to a re-blog from kimmsr. The reason we have to food scraps and the dry mulch is because you have to mix it half and half, half dry, half moist food remains.

     I am really glad that Steve takes time out of his day to share the wonders of his yard and how we take apart in how it thrives.

Works Cited

 

kimmsr. "Re: Why no meat/fish in compost?" Gardenweb.com. n.p, web. 16 Dec. 14