As each of these materials is acquired it is temporarily placed next
to the heap awaiting the steady outpourings from our 2-1/2 gallon
kitchen compost pail. Our household generates quite a bit of
garbage, especially during high summer when we are canning or
juicing our crops. But we have no flies or putrid garbage smells
coming from the compost pile because as each bucketful is spread
over the center of the pile the garbage is immediately covered by
several inches of dried or wilted vegetation and a sprinkling of
soil.

By October the heap has become about six feet high, sixteen feet
long and about seven feet wide at the base. I've made no attempt to
water this pile as it was built, so it is quite dry and has hardly
decomposed at all. Soon those winter rains that the Maritime
northwest is famous for arrive. From mid-October through mid-April
it drizzles almost every day and rains fairly hard on occasion. Some
45 inches of water fall. But the pile is loosely stacked with lots
of air spaces within and much of the vegetation started the winter
in a dry, mature form with a pretty hard "bark" or skin that resists
decomposition. Winter days average in the high 40s, so little
rotting occurs.

Still, by next April most of the pile has become quite wet. Some
garbagey parts of it have decomposed significantly, others not at
all; most of it is still quite recognizable but much of the
vegetation has a grayish coating of microorganisms or has begun to
turn light brown. Now comes the only two really hard hours of
compost-making effort each year. For a good part of one morning I
turn the pile with a manure fork and shovel, constructing a new pile
next to the old one.