That compost dates back from the leaf-fall the year before last, augmented with twelve months worth of coffee grounds and kitchen leavings, and then mingled up with all of the nitrogen-rich clippings from a long season of mowing.
Every year for the last decade, I've composted, and after two years of adding to it and turning it, that compost has always been...at this point in the season...a dark rich perfection.
But this year, the soil isn't soil. It's close, but it's not completely broken down. Large fragments of partially decomposed leaf and grass matter remained undigested by both microorganism and worm, and the resultant looser, mulchy, hay-like substrate isn't likely to work for seed starts.
It seems well enough suited to starting potatoes, and to amend some of my raised beds. If I leave it for another four or five months, the remainder will likely have fully broken down. But it's not there yet.
The "why" of that seems simple enough. As I compost out in the open, rather than in a contained barrel, the historic drought that plagued this region last summer is the most likely culprit. Though in shade and regularly pitchforked, the pile is exposed to air, and that air was devoid of moisture. Bone-dry leaves and clippings aren't a happy home for the detritivores on whom the process relies, and so it just didn't quite happen.
I was aware of this likelihood, and probably should have soaked the pile a few times over the summer, but when a region is in drought, "I'm watering my dirt" seems an odd choice, particularly as I tend to leave my ground cover to fend for itself.
Still and all, it's yet another reminder that the systems upon which we rely for life are becoming something rather less amenable to us.
"For the world," said Treebeard to Galadriel, "is changing."
And though I am a short-lived human, and not a near-immortal Ent, I can feel it in the earth nonetheless.
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