Composting underway

I arrived home on Friday to find my county-subsidized compost bin on my front porch. So exciting! I set it up Saturday afternoon and set about building my compost pile. I had that can full of apples, a huge pile of jasmine clippings, plus all the leaves that the magnolia tree drops EVERY day, so I knew I was well stocked for a good pile.

I laid a layer of jasmine branches to start and dumped the can of apples onto that since I knew I wouldn't be able to lift the can up to dump it into a partially filled bin. Then I added leaves and jasmine branches, layering them with more apples that were on the ground.

What I didn't realize is that I have enough yard waste for TWO or more compost bins. I abandoned Mt Jasmine figuring if nothing else, I could have the tree crew remove that when they come for the apple tree. Besides, the pile should cook down a bit in the coming weeks which will make room for the continual supply of fallen leaves from the magnolia tree.

After that was completed, I started pulling out the ground cover that had established itself in the driveway. Since we've had a bit of rain in the past month, it came up quite easily. I was pulling at a particularly large tuft when something moved. After jumping back, I went to take a closer look and found one of these little fellows in there. I thought about moving him to the same type of plant in an area where I wasn't going to remove them, but he was quite tangled in the plant and looked really fragile, so I decided I was finished gardening for the day. Hopefully he will have found another home by next weekend. If not, I'll set about relocating him.