Smelly Compost
(c) Melina Magdalena (2008)
It was 5pm before I was able to force myself to go outside. I had plenty of excuses – it was thirty three degrees, after all, I had lots of planning to do, I’d got up this morning and washed 3 days worth of dishes and a week’s worth of clothes already; it wasn’t like I had been spending all day playing solitaire and checking other people’s Facebook Status Updates.
I put on some socks and shoes and trundled the wheelbarrow around from the front to the back yard. I was very conscious of the full bucket of composting materials still sitting on my kitchen bench, waiting to be taken to its final destination. Tja – it was time to deal with the big daddy compost.
There are two compost bins in my back yard – one quite a lot bigger than the other. I stopped using that one about a year ago, and started on the smaller one, in the vain hope that the stuff in the big one would miraculously transform into soil for my garden, as compost is supposed to. Alas.
I tried pushing the big bin over, and soon realized that the stuff inside was not friable, as composted materials ought to be. Or else it was just that the compost bin had been dug into the ground and was holding on. I grabbed the fork and began to work my way around the base, prising it up a little from several directions. It began to come loose. Good news. OK, so what next? Maybe I could try lifting it off like a mould.
I removed the lid and gagged. The surface was alive with bugs. It was black and it was slimy. I went inside and found some gardening gloves, which I put on. This made the dog very excited. I’m not sure why.
I approached the compost bin again, embraced it gingerly and slid it upwards. I twisted to one side and set it down on the ground, now empty, and turned back to view my glorious creation – 3 years worth of rotting vegetable matter. It looked like a bizarre sandcastle. It was the colour of babyshit and smelled much, much worse. I could identify bits and pieces, but other things were not readily identifiable and I quickly stopped trying to analyse them, because I was beginning to feel rather ill. When I prodded the mound with the fork, hoping I might be able to lift it bit by bit into the trench I’d dug to bury it in, the fork got stuck. By exerting some force I managed to yank it out again. There were slimy, gooey somethings hanging off the tines. I began to dry-retch, but thought better of it, and managed to curb the reflex. This nightmare was just beginning.
Gilles Plains is a swamp and even in a drought it is a haven for mosquitos and flies, but this beggared belief. Six-legged flying torturers cruised gaily in and out of my hair, my ears, my eyes, my nose, and calmly settled on my bare arms as I frantically tried to deal with the [not]compost. Goodness knows how many made their way into my digestive system. It does not bear thinking about. Of course, the flies were far more interested in the stuff that was supposed to be compost. I decided to bury it as fast as I could.
In the mistaken notion of being an independent woman and an ecologically minded world citizen, I made certain lifestyle choices after moving to this house. It had been supposed to be my final move, and now with six weeks until my sweetheart and I move into the home we’ve just purchased together, I chose to spend part of this weekend preparing for our impending move. She’s moving from a sharehouse in Melbourne, and I’m just moving suburbs, so we’re preparing separately for our lifetime of living together.
As well as purchasing the compost bins, a couple of years ago I purchased 10 untreated jarrah sleepers and constructed a large vegetable patch in the centre of our backyard. I’d considered leaving it here, but it’s several hundred dollars worth of sleepers, and since we do want to grow veges, it makes sense to take them with me when we go. My most recent purchase was the wheelie bin equipped with a handy hole in the top for the washing machine hose, and a tap at the bottom for emptying water out of it. I stopped collecting the water over the winter months, but it’s time to start looking after the fruit trees. It will be a bit sad to leave them all behind, but I don’t think I’ll have the energy to try and take them to our new home. We can start afresh.
How wrong I was, to think I could make compost… I wish I had had some guidance from a real person with experience in these matters (as opposed to printed materials). I’m hoping that life lived as half of a partnership will be more fruitful and less disgusting than this experience has been. I’m not a little worried that someone is going to come and angrily break down my front door demanding to know whom I killed and why I thought I could get away with burying the corpse in my back yard. Or irate neighbours whose backyard BBQs have all been spoiled by the stench still drifting in from my backyard. I’m very sorry about this. I hope the smell reduces quickly.
I’m not sure what went wrong. Note to sweetheart – I think maybe we should try chickens next time, if we can make a chook run that is Jack Russell-proof...
I worked solidly for two hours transferring the soil out of one-half of my vege patch onto the pile of [not]compost. Unaccustomed to such labour, I am now as tired as I could be. I finally stopped, coughing uncontrollably, still trying valiantly not to retch, and completely devoid of energy; went inside, stripped and got under the shower. I cleaned myself as well as I could, but the aroma of rot lingers on my fingers in the same way that poo will do. I’ve read about that. Our noses are more sensitive than we’d like them to be. Tiny particles of scent lodge themselves in the membrane and we are convinced that we haven’t washed ourselves under the fingernails as well as we should have.
Now I’m sitting by an open window that faces the backyard. I’m really not sure how stinky it still is. I’m pretty concerned that the dog is going to have a field day overnight. Oh well – maybe after some sleep I’ll be able to muster up more energy. If I empty the other half of the vege patch tomorrow, the compost will be a few feet under. Maybe we won’t be able to smell it anymore, and I can pretend this debacle never happened … just move on to our glorious and fragrant future.
Yep – and all those wonderful worms I found whilst digging the good soil might sprout wings and fly, too.
