Worth the Effort

At first, Plotnik was somewhat put off by S.P.'s new waste disposal system, but he has turned into a real fan. It turns out that the city turns huge amounts of household vegetable waste into beautiful and healthy compost. It also turns out, though you won't find it on their web site and nobody at the company seems to know anything about it, that they make a pile of it available to the public, and even supply the shovel.

You shovel it into the heavy plastic bags you brought along and heave them into your car. You know it's compost all right and not soil amendment like you buy at Home Depot, because it weighs at least twice as much, and it's completely dry. And there are also, well, a few physical reminders here and there of its origins and we're not talking about celery tops. No matter. It's clean, no smell, you shovel it into your bags. The Plotzwagon could only hold seven bags full but that was a lot.



Then you schlep this really heavy stuff into your back acreage, which of course you have prepared in advance, and simply pour it on and dig it in.



Plot will head back for more to do the rest of his garden at some point this year. You can never use too much of this stuff. It turns into regular dirt -- in fact it really is already. Everything that grows loves it. Especially these little jewels.