Benefits of Compost: the tale of two pumpkins

The roots of nourishment? Don't yawn--it's all about the soil! The secret to growing delicious, robust vegetables and grains filled with nutrients required for good health depends on the fertility of the soil. And one of the best ways to sustainably insure fertile soil is by making and using compost (every season!).

O.k. Consider the following photograph, which tells the tale of two pumpkins:

I grew both these pumpkins a few summers ago, planted from seeds from the same package ("Cinderella" pumpkins, or "Rouge Vif d'Etampes"), grown in the same climate, within a mile of each other, with similar watering regiments and sunlight. The only difference was one was grown in loose garden soil enriched with about a cubic foot of compost, and the other was grown in hard packed greyish clay soil. Yep, you guessed it, the one on the left grew in the compost. (The color difference between the two pumpkins reflects the relative age of each--the larger one is not as "ripe" as the one on the right; it turned redder as it matured, in this case off the vine).

Which pumpkin would you rather eat? Which would you rather carve for Halloween? If you had a limited amount of space and a large family, which pumpkin would bring more calories per square foot of growing space? Most of us could agree that the pumpkin on the left would be preferred in all these cases.

There are many ways to enrich or amend soil to make it more fertile. Compost is one of the best ways to do this. Of the many benefits of compost:

• It makes the soil better able to retain moisture, which means more water is available to the plants at depth, leading to stronger roots better able to take up nutrients
• It balances the pH of the soil
• It creates a home for beneficial microbes and worms, which create soil
• It contains a balance of nitrogen, phosphorus, and trace elements which feeds plants, encouraging both leafy growth and robust fruiting.
• Finished compost won't burn plants, and can be used as a mulch or mixed in
• It interacts chemically with the rock particles in the soil to foster soil formation
• It is a free and easy to make, recycles garden and kitchen waste, and smells good if you do it right.
• It's renewable and potentially sustainable

You thought oil was black gold? Wrong. It's compost. The man who pulls aside the Dustin Hoffman character of today's "Graduate" would whisper not "plastic", but "Compost. The future is Compost." And, just like vegetables, the best compost is home grown.