Month: July 2015

It’s time to turn the compost pile again, and as soon as I have the pile broken down to rebuild it, it is all hands on deck. It’s been cooking at between 135ºF and 155ºF since the third, and I’ve turned it twice. Each time I turn it, which entails lifting the wire frame off it, breaking it down, and rebuilding it so that everything is well mixed, the chickens come running, wanting to lend a hand.

You can take a pinch of developing compost, dilute it with some water, put a drop of the water on a microscope slide and dive into another world of microorganisms. So many invisible living beings, too many to count. Bacteria, amoebae, protozoa, fungi, wriggling nematodes, microscopic insects. Thousands and thousands in a single drop of water. Things we never see, and yet they are what make life possible for us. The microorganisms are what feed our plants. They purify our water. They weave together the fabric of life which sustains us. They make it possible to enjoy a bowl of fresh greens for supper.

For supper there is rhubarb sauce to make from thick, juicy stalks of rhubarb, shooting out of the ground. There is a sound only rhubarb makes when you slice a knife through it, a sound so distinct there should be a special word just for that sound. It’s a crisp, wet, crunchy sound. No other fruit or vegetable makes that sound. The sound is best on just cut rhubarb. Slice several thick stalks from the garden and rush to the kitchen to hear it. Don’t stop to do anything else. With each passing minute, rhubarb loses its vitality, its ability to make your knife scrunch. Quickly rinse and toss the rhubarb on the cutting board. Grab your knife and scrunch, scrunch, scrunch.

The grapes are budding. Will they ripen this year? If they don’t, the poppies will. Poppies are pure magic, from their tiny, tiny seeds, to their fantastical jagged jade leaves, to their glorious flowers, and perfectly shaped seed pods. What’s so amazing about their capped vase seed pods is that when they dry and you turn them upside down, all the tiny seeds roll out. You don’t even need to open the pods.

It’s no surprise they produce opium. If you had no idea which plants produce opium and you were shown a hundred plants in a verdant garden, you’d pick the poppies without a doubt. They scream, “We’re the crazy ones. We’ll make you happy!” It’s a scream only poppies make.

Look at what a marvelous bird Skunky has become. She has so many colors. It’s like nature couldn’t decide what color to make her and used a whole box of crayons to color her feathers. Skunky has a couture like no one else.

For supper tonight, kale, radish, and one very large garlic. This is my first season growing elephant garlic. If the customers who come to Bow Little Market enjoy them as much as I think they will, I will grow a lot of them next year.

The last of the compost is off to the vegetable beds … and the chickens are having a hay day with the rest. If they could, chickens would spend all day in a compost bin. There are too many good things for them to eat.

Before you know it, the compost will turn into delicious vegetables, some of which will end back in another compost pile, and round and round it goes. It makes you wonder if individual atoms ponder what they’re in now. Am I in a plant? Am I in an animal? A spec in the ground? Where am I? Imagine how many different organisms, say an individual nitrogen atom has been in over the last 450 million years since plants first appeared. And before then, fused inside supernovas from oxygen and hydrogen, and blasted out through space throughout the universe, where all have the nitrogen atoms travelled that are in the vegetables you eat? They’ve been on the move for billions of years. You munching them isn’t going to stop them from moving.

With the compost bin empty, it’s time to gather matter for the next compost pile. There is an endless supply of grasses and brush, fallen leaves and twigs, and chickens wanting to lend a claw.