tool looking like an ordinary combination shovel but with a flatter,
blunter rounded blade attached to the handle at a much sharper
angle, allowing the user to stand straighter when working. _Sharp_
irrigator's shovels are perfect for scooping up loosened soil and
tossing it to one side, for making trenches or furrows in tilled
earth and for scraping up the last bits of a compost heap being
turned over.

Once turned, my long-weathered pile heats up rapidly. It is not as
hot as piles can cook, but it does steam on chilly mornings for a
few weeks. By mid-June things have cooled. The rains have also
ceased and the heap is getting dry. It has also sagged considerably.
Once more I turn the pile, watering it down with a fine mist as I do
so. This turning is much easier as the woody brassica stalks are
nearly gone. The chunks that remain as visible entities are again
put into the new pile's center; most of the bigger and
less-decomposed stuff comes from the outside of the old heap. Much
of the material has become brown to black in color and its origins
are not recognizable. The heap is now reduced to four feet high,
five feet wide, and about six feet long. Again I cover it with a
thin layer of soil and this time put a somewhat brittle, recycled
sheet of clear plastic over it to hold in the moisture and increase
the temperature. Again the pile briefly heats and then mellows
through the summer.

In September the heap is finished enough to use. It is about thirty
inches high and has been reduced to less than one-eighth of its
starting volume eighteen months ago. What compost I don't spread
during fall is protected with plastic from being leached by winter
rainfall and will be used next spring. Elapsed time: 18-24 months