Yesterday I helped load my composter into another woman's van & saw it disappear up the driveway. From now on I order commercially prepared compost--delivered.One of the "rural" lifestyle habits I adopted when we moved here was composting. Our soil is glacial till & needs massive amounts of amendments to get anything to grow. Since I have massive amounts of spent perennials every fall their logical use is as compost. First I tried just piling it up in an unobtrusive corner of our property, but of course that didn't work since, as I subsequently learned, compost must be turned, watered & nurtured with the right mixture of ingredients. I had to have a professional type composter.
Pouring through catalogues I found a drum type that you put yard waste, etc. into & then hand cranked to turn & mix it. It came in a narrow rectangular box & I laboriously put it together all by myself. David just shook his head. We stuck it around in back of the garage in a niche that fitted it perfectly.
To make a rather long story short, I never really did get the kind of compost you're supposed to get from a composter, nor did I really have a knack for composting. I tried. I put yard waste, grass clippings, vegetable peelings, strips of torn newspaper, I watered it & even added "compost booster" in my composter, but it never worked properly & I was never able to figure out what I was doing wrong. But David never said "I told you so." Bless him. So I finally gave up composting.
We have a wonderful FreeCycle group on the island & when I listed it I received many calls from the composting crowd. The lady in the van was the first to come & I'd really like to know if she has better luck with my composter than I had.
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