leaps and bounds: making good stuff

Look what Joseph found.

He found it while we were doing this week’s gardening job. He found it under the trees, buried amongst the fallen leaves and seeds.

What sharp eyes he must have!

You see, this week, our gardening job was to begin making c o m p o s t ; cue a timely question from Melchior. ‘What’s compost?’

Does anyone know? What is compost? Have you heard that word before?

Yanis knows, I think. ‘Something you put in the bin. It’s rubbish.’

Well yes…..and no! What sorts of things do you put in the bin? You put in cans…..

and bottles and plastic. I don’t think you can use those to make compost.

‘Food!’ Yanis remembers. ‘You put in food!’

Ah yes. Flickers of memory on faces! Most of us have a special place at home for saving food waste which is later used to make compost. Food waste rots (yes, that means, as Anusha tells us, that ‘food gets bad’; like ‘when an apple goes brown,’ clarifies Melchior) and eventually it can turn into a rich crumbly sweet-smelling ‘ingredient’ for your garden. Something to make the soil more healthy.

Sounds like just what we need! But why are we out here in the garden? It’s not yet time for lunch, and anyway, whatever food we can’t eat at lunchtime we save for Béatrix’s chickens! What is there out here that we could use to make compost?

‘Leaves?’ asks Tanisha looking at her feet.

Yes!

‘Plants that are dead?’ suggests Emily.

Yes!

Pretty much anything that was once living can be used to make compost. And autumn, when the leaves begin to fall, is the perfect time for adding things to the compost heap. Rakes at the ready?