Word in the garden says that Arboretum compost is the best thing in town....
The morning began with a hasty hunt for compost, since our community garden plot was suffering from a clear case of compost jealousy, squeezed between the happy plots of compost-generous gardeners. I called Kenny at the Arboretum and inquired about compost availability, and he told me to "come on by".
I took that as a "Come on by". So we did.
Kenny rules.
The kids especially appreciated Kenny's use of the fork lift to pack our plastic container with fresh compost.
Then we set out for fun at Ellie's, only to get sidetracked by Josalyn and other Arboretum Board members struggling to unload a tremendous number of plants from a truck for the plant sale this Sunday. So we stopped and sniffed beautiful flowers and created an assembly line and chatted and vowed to volunteer more this week before finally returning to Ellie's place.
Back to the compost. You know it's good stuff when you open the trunk and scoop and a bucket from the bin only to be hit with a small heat wave coming straight from the compost. I asked the kids to come and "warm their hands" over the compost pile. Micah was amazed- "why is it so hot?" Max lit into his reply before I began to formulate a response.
Then the kids took turns filling our water bucket with the rain barrel water and watering plants. There was much weeding to be done around the tomato plants, and we discovered that the weeds came out more easily when the soil was wet, so we divided our efforts between watering and weeding and hauling small buckets of compost to spread over the garden. We finished about half the job- it was a bit-by-bit operation, slow and satisfying. We're learning so much from watching our fellow gardeners.
