What a gorgeous weekend. The sun was out, the light spring breezes were blowing and the tulips were up. We spent the weekend working away outside at every moment we could. And now we feel it. You know how you feel that first weekend you garden in spring? How the next day you feel sore muscles in places were you didn’t know you even had muscles? Scott’s ankle is sore, my elbow is tweeked and my back muscles are reminding me of all the digging that was done yesterday.
It felt good though to have dirt under my nails again, the energy (after four solid years of being pregnant and nursing) to dig up that impossibly hard dirt in our front garden, and to get that patch of fence fixed.
Scott turned our compost pile last at the end of the day yesterday and as I predicted this morning he said, “my left arm hurts, do you think I’m going to have a heart attack?” He says each and every time after he turns that huge pile. It’s a big job, a lot of pitch fork work, but it’s worth it for how incredible it’s made our soil over the years. I’ll write more about our compost soon.
In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful weather, even if it’s snowy, rainy, or sunny because soon enough the first radishes will be ready, lettuce will be asking to be picked, and you won’t know what to do with yet another zucchini.
[…] I mentioned the other day that I would talk about our compost pile. Or should I say ‘piles’. We use the pile approach as opposed to putting it in a bin. I think because it’s easier, we have the room for them and it makes them so much easier to turn. We put our kitchen scraps in it, our grass clippings, leaves and any other weeding and pruning we do. They say a good compost pile should have a ratio of 25 parts brown, carbon-rich materials (such as dry leaves, straw and wood chips) to 1 part green, nitrogen-rich materials (such as kitchen scraps and grass), but we are more relaxed than that. We’ve never been very scientific about our ratios and we seems to come out with a good mix. […]