Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Making hay, er, compost

Once one has scythed down the bizarre mixture of grass, weeds, clover, and aspirant alder trees that live on my property, there remains the question of what to do with it. This is really simple: we feed the compost heap with the "hay" we have just made. Much easier than real haymaking. Why, as Eliot Coleman points out in his book The New Organic Gardner, bother with manure? Cut the hay, bypass the cow, dump it on the compost heap. The heap acts like a cow and digests it. No mess, no smell. And if you're like me and don't want a cow in the first place, it's a winner. Spoiled hay? So much the better! Speeds up digestion.

So we take the bull rake and march down the windrow:
For some reason (probably so much fireweed in the mix) I get cigar-shaped results. No matter, works fine. Pick up the cigars and dump them in the Darthcartt:
And off to the compost pile we go. On a nice day, it's fun. If it's raining, not so much, but we must take the weather as we find it. The payoff is here:
Radishes and turnips! All is well on the farm. Radishes will grow where other vegs fear to tread. Love them!

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