New Garden Equipment Abounds

This may be a form of profiling, but I always had the image of composting vegetable gardners as being of the anti-consumerism, recycle and simplify-simplify-simplify persuasion.

But in the space of six weeks, our gardening equipment has expanded in size, type and sophistication.

We were given a baby tiller; a big, stacking compost bin; and a chipper. We found a deal on a folding, tough nylon wheel barrow. We bought the industrial pooper scouper to clean up after our dogs and the neighborhood cats who think of our garden as a the Kohler of the earth.

Kate macerated 75% of the garden plot, pausing long enough to transplant a volunteer tomato plant. She has the BunnyLuv waste straw carefully piled as mulch. She's been fondling saw blades and looking up at the termite infested branches of a tree leaning over Karen's garage.

The longer she looks the more termite and rot infested the tree becomes and the more necessary it is going to be for her to climb up on the roof of the garage and cut the branches -- if not the whole tree -- down. Then, of course, it will all have to be chipped. And chipped branches make good mulch . . .

Mulch may ring Kate's chimes, but compost catches my fancy. The new bin is something Aureliano is comfortable dumping grass clippings in. The stackable bin will make it easier to toss the pile and pull out the compost as it gets done. There's definitely some action building up.

The one resource we just can't get enough of right now is time . . .

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The Fink Farm Dirt

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