Compost

The first snowfall has arrived. Just a few flakes in the City, but cars coming into the City from the region still had a light snow covering. It is a bit early but not unusual.

When we first moved to Thunder Bay in 1991, we had snow on Halloween night for several years. Recent years have seen snow as late as the end of November or even mid-December. Last year we almost had a brown Christmas.

I have had a cold for a few days so have reached back into one of my favourite earlier Suite articles.

Compost, one of my earliest garden memories is the compost pit that my father built in our backyard. The pit was in the corner that was the farthest away from the backdoor. It was about six feet long, 3 feet wide and 2-3 feet deep. It ran along the fence that separated our backyard from the Corbett's. When the pit was first dug, we had only one neighbour and that was the Sandfords.

Mr. Sandford was a gardener. There was no lawn in his backyard only a vegetable garden that blossomed ever year. I have vague recollections of the carrots and cabbages he used to hand over the fence that stood between our places. It was a friendly fence only 3 feet high. Easy to see over, to have a chat with a neighbour over and to pass over vegetables for our dinner table. You could grow morning glories and other vines along it.

My parents also loved gardening, at least when I was young. My mother loved her flowers, irises, tulips, roses and hollyhocks.

Dad grew tomatoes. I can still taste the beefsteak tomatoes he grew. One slice made a sandwich. We only had fresh tomatoes in the late Summer and Fall, off our own vines.

Canned tomatoes were available in the grocery store all year round but only for a few weeks each year could you enjoy the distinctiveness of a fresh tomato. Times have changed.

The compost pit disappeared sometime in the late sixties. A plum tree was planted over the spot and flourished for a number of years, producing delightful, small purple plums each Summer. The family home was sold to a neighbour, the son of the people who lived cross the street, the Boudreau family. That was in 1988.

It has been many years since I played in that backyard, helped my parents garden or had a chat with our neighbours and shared concerns over the weather and how the gardens were doing. I have similar conversations with friends and neighbours, now each one an echo of a wonderful childhood.

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