This year we had
a little “volunteer” tomato plant that grew up right beside our compost
tumbler. (For those of you who don’t
recognize the gardening term “volunteer,” it means that the plant was not
intentionally planted and it grew from seed that either fell to the ground, was
dropped by a bird, or made its way into the soil by some other means.) Our compost tumbler sits on two rubber mats
that used to be in our dog kennel. Since
Max spends almost no time in the kennel now that Charming and I no longer have
jobs outside the home, we moved the mats under the compost tumblers in an
effort to keep weeds from growing in that area.
Getting back to
the volunteer tomato plant…Volunteer plants are usually pretty hardy as they
made it, against the odds, to germination.
We could have dug this one up and re-planted it in a better location;
however, it grew right smack dab in the teensy weensy crack between the compost
tumbler mat and the garden bed that butts up against the mat. What are the odds? I tried to pull it up to transplant, but its
root system is firmly in the ground and it wouldn’t budge.
Anyhow, we
decided to let it grow…and grow it did! It
is now up to my waist and interferes with the little latch that releases the
left side of the compost tumbler that allows the tumbler to spin and aerate the
compost. So I decided to take the
compost out of the left compost tumbler and put it in the garden bed where I
grew snow peas this spring. (I pulled up
my snow pea plants over the weekend and got a bunch of leftover snow peas for
seeds…but that, in itself, is a subject for another blog post.)
This morning I
took the not-quite-ready compost and dug it into the now vacant garden
bed. I shoveled the compost out of the
tumbler and into our ancient green wheelbarrow.
After dumping the dark brown stuff onto the garden bed, I used a hoe to
mix it in with the already loosened soil.
After I leveled it off, I drenched the entire bed with water from our
rain barrels and will let that soak in until this evening when I will take our
handy-dandy post hole digger and make “wells” in the garden bed for our final group
of tomato seedlings. I’ll add egg shells
and a tiny bit of cow pooty to the holes for the plants. In addition to the compost, this should give
them a great start on their growing adventure.
We have fifteen
tomato seedlings that I’ve been nursing along since spring. They have held up like little troopers, just
waiting to get their chance to stretch their roots into the warm, dark
dirt. I’m anxious to see if, due to the
added compost, the poor little things will do as well as the ones we planted in
the spring. Will keep you updated on
their progress as well as the progress of the show off growing beside the
compost tumbler!
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| Not-quite-ready compost in our compost tumbler. |
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| The "show off" volunteer tomato plant that grew in the crack between the rubber mat that the compost tumbler sits on and the cinder block that outlines one of our garden beds. (It is a beautiful specimen...though I'm not yet sure of what variety.) |
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| The garden bed after I threw the compost onto it. (Awww... note my trusty garden buddy at the top of the picture.) |
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| The garden bed after I mixed in the compost... |
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| The garden bed after watering. The water will soak into the bed and be ready for planting left over tomato seedlings this evening. Yay! |
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