Organic Gardener's Composting by Steve Solomon

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 . . .