We had some great help from Daisy Girl Scout Troop 65197 with some important spring work at LexFarm’s goat yard yesterday. Under the direction of Farmer Charlie, they raked out, mixed up, turned over and shoveled all the compost (including wonderful, rich goat manure) that had been collected over the last several months. Pretty soon, we’ll be able to use the compost to enrich some soil to plant goat forage. After their hard work, the troop enjoyed some time with Ionia and the rest of the herd.

If you would like to bring your group to LexFarm’s goat yard, just to visit, or to help with a service project, please visit our “Group Visits” page.

Watching kitchen scraps turn slowly into compost for fertilizing our garden is–truth be told–the best part of gardening. I have four home made trashcan-composters tucked next to our garage, and I love to check on how they are doing.  Once in a while I tip them over, turn over their contents to mix in some fresh air, and then fill them up again adding some more carbon– last year’s leaves, torn corrugated cardboard, news print, reused paper bags.

This spring I re-drilled the ga-zillion holes I’d made years ago in the cans to make them larger.  The holes are now 1 1/4″ so I hope the air circulation will be much better and the stuff less likely to get stinky.

Now I want to see if the compost can attract more earthworms. I might try setting the cans a few inches into the ground and hope that some worms will meander over, start digesting  food scraps and leave behind their famous “garden gold.”  I can dream.

If you haven’t started a compost area in your yard, patio, balcony, or in your house, there are many resources on the Web to help you.  I took the idea of drilling holes in inexpensive trash cans from a suggestion printed  in Fine Gardening, the beautiful magazine published here in Massachusetts.  I don’t have the exact reference, but I recommend the magazine as a great resource.