Life in the compost bin
by Susie White from on (#N5S3)
Allendale, Northumberland There's a warm smell of muck from the treacly surface of rotting humus where pink brandling worms curl and luxuriate
A wren scolds me for disturbing the peace as I trundle a full wheelbarrow along the grass path. On this mid afternoon, sun lights up the dahlias that edge the vegetable garden so that their colours glow fiercely.
We have three compost bins, enabling their contents to be turned regularly, one into the other. Made from wood, they are each a metre square. My barrowful will add to the bin that is currently being filled. I go to check the one next to it. Debris lies scattered over the green carpet that covers maturing compost: faded catmint petals, wilted leaves, fragments of geranium stalks.
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