_A note to the internet reader: In the the print-on-paper edition,
this chapter and the next one on vermicomposting are full of
illustrations showing composting structures and accessories. These
do not reproduce well on-line and are not included._
Growing the majority of my family's food absorbs all of the energy I
care to put into gardening. So my yard is neat but shaggy. Motivated
by what I consider total rationality, my lawn is cut only when it
threatens to overwhelm the lawnmower, and the lawn is not irrigated,
so it browns off and stops growing in summer.
I don't grow flowers because I live on a river in a beautiful
countryside setting surrounded by low mountains. Nothing I created
could begin to compete with what nature freely offers my eye. One
untidy bed of ornamentals by the front door are my bow to
conventionality, but these fit the entrances northeast aspect by
being Oregon woods natives like ferns, salal, Oregon grape and an
almost wild rhododendron--all these species thrive without
irrigation.
When I give lectures, I am confronted by the amazing gardening
variations that humans are capable of. Some folks' raised vegetable
beds are crude low mounds. Then, I am shown photographs of squared,
paralleled vertical-walled raised beds, uniformly wrapped in cedar
planks. Some gardens are planted in fairly straight rows, some are
laid-out in carefully calculated interplanted hexagonal successions
and some are a wild scattering of catch-as-catch-can. Some people
don't eat many kinds of vegetables yet grow large stands of corn and
beans for canning or freezing.
Others grow small patches of a great many species, creating a
year-round gourmet produce stand for their personal enjoyment. Some
gardeners grow English-style floral displays occupying every square
inch of their yards and offering a constant succession of color and
texture.
This chapter presents some of the many different ways people handle
the disposal of yard and kitchen wastes. Compost making, like
gardening, reflects variations in temperament. You probably weren't
surprised at my casual landscaping because you already read about my
unkempt compost heap. So I am similarly not surprised to discover
backyard composting methods as neat as a German village, as
aesthetic as a Japanese garden, as scientific as an engineer would
design and as ugly as . . .