Dirty Little Secret

I have a secret. Well at least I did before I posted it on this blog. The secret is: I cannot make dirt. I can buy it, spread it, plant in it, clean it off my clothes, but I cannot make it in the form of compost. I have tried several times with various methods. I have been told it is easy; just combine 50% brown matter with 50% green matter, stir occasionally and voila in three weeks or so you should have compost. I have tried; really, really, tried. Just recently I went all out and bought an official composting bin that spins and collects “green compost tea.” I have nurtured it with kitchen scraps, shredded newspaper and lawn clippings. What I have after three weeks is a blend of newspaper, grass and gunk. Not exactly something I would want to plant in. 

 I don’t get it. I can make beautiful music with my flute. I can make a 20 page newsletter. I can make dinner. Why can’t I make dirt. I mean really. It should be a natural process of decay. How incompetent must I be to fail in overseeing decay? And if it isn’t such a natural process, shouldn’t we be more concerned about what’s in our cemeteries? Is my penchant for cleanliness to blame? (My mother would beg to differ.) Some part of me is convinced there is a farming conspiracy that wants to keep us planting newbies from ever getting nature's gold. Don’t go suggesting special compost additives, earthworm kits or special composting systems. I’m sure they all work. But the basic facts come down to this:

• Humans, under very specific controlled circumstances, can make dirt.
• Nature, under completely uncontrolled and random circumstances, can also make dirt.
• I, under anything less than perfect circumstances, have no hope of ever making dirt.

Perhaps I need not worry. While I cannot seem to make dirt, I am, it turns out, a great accidental gardener. I love dill and have tried for several years to grow dill. I have had trouble starting the seeds. The few scrawny plants that have sprouted have not survived transplant. The one (yes one) plant that did make it to the garden grew moderately but was so sparse I was afraid to harvest any because I feared it would severely compromise the plant’s chlorophyll process and kill it. Suddenly this year, those seeds so casually spread by last year’s weak plant have sprouted an entire field of dill in my garden. I also have new plants from last year’s dropped tomatoes and left over snow pea pods. I thought the seed manufacturers had made seeds that were sterile, in other words, would produce plants that would not produce any other plants. (What a great copyright protection on mother nature.) It seems however, that the myth of sterility is somewhat exaggerated. So I encourage my fellow flora fanatics to go out, plant, hope for the best, prepare for the worst and don’t worry if you can’t make compost either. I think mother nature will fill in where we fail.