Gardening vs. Composting

Posted by Robert Dailey Sep 15, 2007

I personally like to vary my activities in a garden. Although I do tend to be highly “obsessive-compulsive” when it comes to other things (like eating, watching a movie, or power washing a house), I really do like to switch work projects in the garden regularly during the day.

Many readers know that I am a master gardener. Master gardeners must complete a specific number of hours per year of community volunteer service. I am no exception. One of the gardens the master gardeners tend in my area is less than a mile from my home, so naturally, that’s an easy choice for me.

At least I though it was. To date, I have been attacked by a nest of hornets (which actually stung me through my gloves), raked by resentful roses, and attacked by hundreds of angry ants.

These incidents I have been able to put behind me.

However, it seems that every time I put in required hours at the nearby community garden, I end up doing the same things: composting, turning compost, hauling compost and spreading compost.

Not that I have anything against compost. It’s a noble product. Compost, if I may wax poetic, is at one end of the planet’s immense food chain.

But I long to aggressively prune a yaupon, plant prolific beds of portulaca, conspire with the heavens to create a palette the likes of which Monet would have been proud.

Someone once told me what I believe to be a paraphrase of a religious tenet: “Some of us get to see the beauty of this universe, and some of us get to haul the compost.”

I suppose I am some of the latter.