Down in the Compost Pile!

  One never knows what can be found in a compost pile until a good bit of time is spent there.  I am still cleaning the gardens so I have become quite familiar with the contents of the pile.  A good bit of refuse is hauled to the fenced composting area.  Every year, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of leaves are dumped in to mulch down for potting soil.  Every day, the pile receives kitchen scraps such as coffee grounds to add to the nutrition in the soil.  Occasionally, some stray veggie or fruit that is a bit over ripe is tossed into the pile as well.  More oft than not, seeds will germinate there.  I have always thought that if a seed sprouts in the compost pile, it would flourish and be amazingly productive.  That is not always so.  This past summer the only thing that flourished in the rich soil was some odd vine that sort of resembled a Morning Glory.  It was a huge vine with saucer-sized leaves but made the scrawniest flowers I had ever seen!

  I was thinking about that plant today when I dumped another load of leaves over the fence.  I wondered if the vine was going to make another appearance this summer.  The vine and I battled over who was going to have domain over the compost pile and I do believe the vine won.  Although I tugged at the thing seemingly on a daily basis, I could never completely get rid of it.  Then in midsummer, I gave up.  I did not admit defeat but rather found that a few moths and butterflies seemed to crave the nectar in the tiny blooms.  If I wanted to enjoy their beauty, I had to tolerate the vine cluttering up the compost pile.

  So I learned that the compost pile not only held a bunch of decomposing vegetable matter, it also held life.  A lot of critters crawl, creep, slither and fly about under and above the pile.  These critters all help with the decomposition of the contents of the pile so are therefore a necessary part of it.  With all of those critters creeping about, it sure makes me glad that the pile is a good distance from the back door!