Our Garden Journal - Compost

The same week that we started our second batch of seeds, I also decided to tackle our compost pile in the backyard. We bought a composter at the store, and I needed to clean out the compost area to make some room for it. It was just a huge heap of grass clippings and sticks from last year. The top layer just looked like a cold, crusty pile of grass, but once I dug into it I realized there was a lot of rich soil under there. It was exciting (I know, I get excited about the weirdest things), to see that we already had some really great compost, without even trying. So, my girl and I dug and turned and piled up dirt until we had enough room to put the composter in place. Then we put some of the good compost at the bottom of the composter, and left the rest in a pile next to it. Ever since, we've been adding our vegetable and fruit scraps, eggs shells, and the stuff that comes out of the bunny and guinea pigs' cage when we clean it (gross, but makes great fertilizer) to it. Hopefully, we'll keep making some good compost.

My girl loved doing this as much as, or maybe even more than, planting seeds. She was "saving" all the worms from the pile of dirt, and putting them into the "safe" shelter of the composter. Of course, she didn't want to actually touch the worms, so she was picking up clumps of dirt that she could see worms in. She could have done that for hours. When I talked to Hub on the phone that night and told him what we'd done, he said, "See, that's why I love homeschooling. She could have been sitting in a classroom today, but instead, she was working outside and learning all about compost." And it's true. She knows all about making compost now. Ever since that day, whenever the kids are playing outside and they find a worm that might get fried in the sun, they "save" it by putting it in the compost.