 |
    |
|
Years ago I was watching a cooking show and Julia Child was visiting the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market. She paused in front of a vendor selling fresh- cut herbs and chose a vibrant, healthy bunch of French tarragon. Two things struck me as I watching the show: First, the relative ease with which the vendor conducted the transaction. This was, after all, Julia Child! Second, the vendor's t- shirt caught my eye. It read, "Compost. Because a rind is a terrible thing to waste."
Because we're fairly casual about turning the compost, it takes some time for it to break down into that crumbly, odor- free soil miracle some call "black gold". In the dead of winter bringing the two full pitchers out to the piles is a chore I welcome. Time slips away as I fork the carrot peelings and onion skins from the previous night's stew into the pile, and I dream of the coming growing season and how this compost will nourish our spring seedlings. During the summer the piles get turned almost by default as we fork out the finished compost to sidedress our vegetable and herb transplants. An amusing sideshow to the natural decay happening within the piles is the emergence of some spectacular "volunteer" seedlings, which sprout unbidden and never fail to be much more vigorous than anything we plant in the garden itself. We've had avocados germinate from discarded pits, and warty, multi- hued gourds that send their 8 foot long vines around the edges of the compost like a leafy green necklace. And tomatoes- oh, the tomatoes, sprouting everywhere with thick ropelike branches and thousands of fruits, which will fall back into the decaying heap and be turned under and germinate anew each year, in a timeless cycle of renewal. My first compost attempt was a far cry from the odorless, fertile mounds of today. When I was a preteen, my mother gave me a bag full of back issues of Organic Gardening magazines she bought at a garage sale. The hours I spent poring over those magazines, trying to learn everything I could about gardening organically. Unfortunately I didn't read enough about the proper construction of a compost pile. I simply took Dad's grass clippings and piled them in a huge heap right under a forsythia bush- and the kitchen window. The foul smell that gave off as those grass clippings decomposed is an odor I will never forget. Back to the magazines I went to learn that a healthy compost pile needs a balance of raw materials high in carbon (such as straw or autumn leaves), and materials high in nitrogen (discarded weeds, manure, or those smelly grass clippings!). Out went the moldering grass clippings to the curb, but it took days before we could open the kitchen window! Why am I writing about compost, a
subject so mundane and potentially distasteful to some, in a cooking
magazine? Because we derive a great deal of satisfaction out of returning
to the earth that which we bring forth from it, from the Anaheim
chile skins Phil peels after roasting to the basil branches I fork
into the piles after I've stripped the leaves for pesto. Generating our own soil fertility in such a way is tremendously rewarding, both for the self- reliance it fosters in us and the positive impact it has on the health of our crops. Compost has been happening in nature forever; here, we do our small part to continue the cycle.
For more articles and information
about In the Kitchen, check them out online at: |
|
|
     |
I think of that saying often as I
bring our kitchen and garden wastes to either of our two compost
piles. No rinds are wasted on this farm, or eggshells, or coffee
grounds either. We have two one- gallon plastic pitchers with lids
right outside our kitchen door, and our family and friends know that
they're not for iced tea. Rather, all of our vegetable peelings, herb trimmings and the aforementioned eggshells and coffee grounds are saved in them, and carted out daily to be added to the heaps. Leaves, grass clippings and weeds are collected from our garden beds, and a pitchfork stands at the ready for us to bury the raw materials deep within the piles.
