Retrospect: compost on the snow

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor relates a memory about public compost.

When we moved to the Annapolis Valley, our house came with a garden. We arrived at the start of spring; our second week there, my father started gardening. The back patch was large, maybe 10m by 15m. I’d never known my father to garden before, so this was a big change: most evenings in the spring, summer, and even the first half of fall, he’d be out there.

You could join my Dad out there, and the conversation would be about gardening. What he particularly loved to talk about was composting – the transformation of vegetable waste to useful nutrients. Our neighbour had a compost bin, and so did we, but they were different. My father would ruminate about the advantage of one over the other. What my father really loved was informal, make-it-up-as-you-go gardening.

In that place, everyone who grew vegetables knew what they were doing: it was tradition. Moreover, good land was common. At the end of one main road lived an old guy – likely a widower – in a house that looked, from the outside, like three rooms, maximum. While his house was small, his garden was about four times the size of ours. It lay lengthwise just back from the road.

If my father ever envied anything, it was that guy’s garden. His soil was much better than ours, you could tell: it was deep brown in color, almost black. Moreover, his was in a hollow, whereas ours was on a side hill. Therefore, his collected nutrients, while ours shed them.

Driving by that place, my father always had something good to say about it. He loved the guy’s lifestyle, as well: “Look at his woodpile,” he’d point. “He just heats the place with one stove.” What my father loved most was his way of composting.

The guy just took his vegetable waste and threw it straight onto the soil. You could tell, when you drove by, what he’d had the night before: cabbage, or broccoli, or apples, etc. He rotated it, throwing it to different parts of the garden.

In the winter, you’d see the compost sitting on top of the snow. My mother thought this was unsightly, but my father thought it was great. I sometimes think my father wanted to be that guy – maybe he still does.

You could probably pick that place up for a bargain:)