![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/IMG_8681.jpg\" "\\"Pile")
<\/a>Crumbly, composted goodness<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
The pile is in a recycling center alongside big bins for glass, newspaper, aluminum and more.\u00a0 The crumbled leaf mold mountain range is huge: the summit is higher than me and the ridge runs far enough for three, maybe four cars or trucks to load at the same time.\u00a0 My gardens, Smith, Jones, and The Lorelei, are all small operations so I only bring bags: a few new kitchen garbage bags and some brown paper ones from the grocery.\u00a0 I enjoy the work because it’s exercise that has a greater purpose than mere physical fitness.\u00a0 I’m working for a cause.\u00a0 I also like it because that cause is replenishing the earth.\u00a0 It feels like an ancient and honorable activity.\u00a0 It is.<\/p>\n
Once again, I’ve pressed the van into service.\u00a0\u00a0 Today, presto, change-0, it becomes, The Garden Mobile, full of bags of crumbled, partially deteriorated leaves and their fermenty fragrance, plus a shovel, a garden fork, and my bag of garden tools and seeds.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Pressed into service<\/p><\/div>\n
Now it’s back to Smith where I worked the day before pulling weeds and spreading another of my favorite soil amendments: lovely, sweet manure.\u00a0 A fellow gardener and well-known soil amender procured a pile, of which I bought a share, fifteen dollars for some of the best stuff known to the gardening tribe.\u00a0 Normally, you don’t add manure to soil just before planting: fresh manure has too much nitrogen that hasn’t broken down yet and it would hurt the plants, likely kill them.\u00a0 This stuff, however, is six or seven years old.\u00a0 The pile looks like dirt and has only the faint whiff of the barnyard.\u00a0 In fact, the pile of leaf mold smelled more barnyardish than this.\u00a0 Today, I will only add the leaves to a portion of the bed that’s still drains slowly and stays filled with water way too long.\u00a0 When I first saw the garden plot that was to become Smith, it had puddles of standing water: not a good sign unless you plan to grow rice.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Spread it 'round<\/p><\/div>\n
These last two seasons, I have added lots of leaf mold.\u00a0 This year as I am pulling weeds, working the soil, generally preparing the ground to receive plants, I’m thinking my soil amendments over the last few years have turned this paddy into a proper plot.\u00a0 And really, that’s what replenishing is all about: improving what you’ve been given, and what you’ve made use of.\u00a0 What could be more important than exerting your First (of the season) (soil) Amendment Rights?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday was First (soil) Amendment Day (of the season).\u00a0 I claimed my right (and accepted my responsibility) to enrich the soil in my gardens.\u00a0 I like doing that work because it’s physical, good old-fashioned labor that invigorates.\u00a0 I also like … Continue reading