Compost heap, Step Two

Today I took the last of the soil from the right side, it was another five full barrows, bringing the total on the new garden bed so far to nineteen. Once I was satisfied that I was at ground level, I started dragging the upper loose material, using a rake, from the left side. It was hard work on a hot day, there was a lot to go in the empty space and from time to time I would compact the compost down by stomping on it and wet the right side down with a hose, to keep dust down, but also to help with the composting process.

Apparently it is good to urinate on a compost heap to add nitrogen and other goodness, I tend not to do that though, you know, neighbours and all that.

We now have the right side filled up, new material will go on top of that until I have excavated the left side down to the ground level, then any new stuff will go to the bottom of that side. In the process of digging the left side, some of the upper material will be retained and moved to the top of the right side on a temporary basis, this is because that material is partially decomposed, not quite ready as soil for our beds, so I will drag it back into the left side at the end.

If you want a technical explanation, a three-stage composting system is essentially a biological conveyor belt driven by time and microbes. At the top layer, fresh organic inputs like kitchen scraps, weeds and yard clippings are introduced; this raw material is highly energetic, recognizable, and rapidly consumed by initial bacteria. As these materials break down and sink, they enter the middle layer—often called active or semi-mature compost—where the intense heat of initial decomposition has subsided, leaving behind a fibrous, dark transition zone where fungi and actinomycetes slowly break down tougher fibers. Finally, at the very bottom layer, the process reaches completion, resulting in finished humus: a rich, stable, and dark, crumbly soil-like material that is completely unrecognizable from its original forms and fully ready to nourish the garden.

In the late 1960s, my grandfather, John Edward Edwards, or Jack to those that knew him, understood all of that, no need for google or AI, he knew stuff without the internet, how could that be possible?

It also helps to have worms and other insects in the compost heap, worms consume and pass the composted material through themselves as they bore through it, they tend to live at the lower levels of the heap, creating tunnels and aerating the pile, every time I walked away from the heap with those nineteen wheel barrows of soil, our local robins would swoop in to snatch a worm or two, which is why when we are digging in other areas of the garden, if we find a worm, it is abducted by "aliens" and moved through time and space to the new planet called the compost heap.