Compost

Here is my compost corral. You might remember when I first built it in this post: Compost Corral. I must admit I'm really a lazy composter. I figure why do too much work when nature will do it eventually any how?

Pretty much everything finds its way to my compost pile: Grass clippings, leaves, any organic house scraps that I don't feed to the chickens, and most importantly the droppings from my chickens. I use the deep litter method in my chicken coops. In the evenings I let them free range when I am working outside. There has been too many large roving dogs to leave them unattended.

This gumbo of yucky stuff makes for really great nutrition for my soil. Most of the time I do not get into all the technical details of gardening. I just like to let nature do what it does since it does it so well. It seems to rain enough here to keep my compost corral sufficiently moist and I turn it rarely. Still my compost pile delivers the prettiest darkest yummiest compost you ever did see.

I think the pile is kinda pretty itself. Yes, you can see I haven't turned it recently by all of the mature tomato and luffa plants that volunteered! The mulberry trees by the chicken coop and the compost corral are twice the size and a much darker green than the mulberry trees I planted elsewhere on the property.
The compost corral concept is fairly simple. Throw all the good stuff in stir it and wet it every now and then.....

Scoop from the bottom underneath the bottom slat (it's raised on cinder blocks for this purpose) and you got....
The best nutrition for your soil - Compost! Healthy soil makes veggies more nutritious and easier to grow.

Here's some close ups of the luffa blossoms. The little ants fascinated me for quite a while. I'm not sure what they were doing. I didn't see any aphids. So I don't suppose they were carrying on something symbiotic. What ever it was they seemed to be enjoying the happy yellow of this flower.