Compost Happens

In honor of Blog Environmental Round up Day, I am going to blog about compost. I have composted for about 20 years. I have two compost piles now. One is a homemade bin made out of posts and 2x4's. The other is a black plastic barrel composter that I bought from my city. My home made bin is inside the garden and next to the apple tree. I thought I was so smart putting the compost pile by the apple tree. After all these years, the apple tree has realized where the compost pile is. The apple tree sends it's liquid and nutrient seeking roots across and up into the compost pile. When I take my pitchfork into the rich compost, the compost won't let go because the apple tree roots have infiltrated the compost like a million little hands. It's about impossible to get the compost out of there. The first time this happened, I dug around the compost bin and cut off all the roots heading inside. That helped for two years. Last year the apple tree, in it's infinite wisdom and unquenchable thirst for liquid and nutrients, decided to grow roots down deeper and then up again. So this year, once I get the compost out again, I will try a new tactic. I am going to put a double layer of landscape fabric at the bottom of the empty compost pile. Lets see the apple tree get through that. If it does, I can always try a sheet of metal. My compost is composed mostly of leaves and grass. I have a bagger on the mower and I dump the mulched leaves and grass clippings into the compost pile until the pile is higher than I can reach. Over the winter and summer, the pile grows lower and lower. Right now it's only a foot or so deep. I also add some soil, fruit and vegetable scraps from the kitchen, apples, rhubarb leaves, jack o lanterns, and ash from the fire place. Sometimes, if I have some extra tasty compost, I put it on top because the deer have been seen eating from the compost pile. They like to eat jack 0 lanterns, old carrots, and squash rinds. This year I have had 4 deer coming every evening between 5:30 and 6:30 to eat the apples from the ground. This saves me having to go out there to pick them up. I never see any deer with antlers eating apples though. Maybe the male deer only come out after dark.