25 March 2013

I play with worms

It's that time of year again, at least, here in California it is. Other places, not quite yet, I see snow storms in the news. But here, it's time to work in the garden again. And work we did over the weekend. We have one problem flower bed. Not only is it mostly in the shade but the soil is horrible. There still is builder's debris in it, there are tons of rock, there is clay and there are roots, many, many roots from all the plants we have tried there that failed to thrive. So, this weekend, we dug and dug and pulled and pulled. And carted out buckets full of crummy dirt . It will be replaced with nice potting soil and my secret weapon: compost.
Yes, I compost and I'm thrilled with the results. I'm not very scientific about it, I just dump kitchen scraps and a few other things (leaves, shredded paper, lint, grass clippings) into one of the three bins I have, turn it a few times, water it occasionally and leave it be. And I'm rewarded with the most magnificent soil ever.
The worms? They just showed up on their own, sort of like "If you build it, they will come." I know you can buy them, red crawlers, I think, but mine are volunteers and free. In return I obviously feed them well. And they return the favor by turning my scraps into beautiful soil.

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