Nature’s Lasagna
(Meditating on a Compost Heap)
“You need to build a compost heap in layers,” she says. “A layer of cardboard, a layer of soil, a layer of fresh organic mass and a layer of decaying material. Alternating layers of nitrogen and carbon, green and brown, wet and dry — like making a lasagna.”
“Some kind of lasagna,” I say.
We dig a shallow foundation, sixteen feet square. We lay out the cardboard as cover, and we spread a thin layer of soil over the top. Then, we get organic: moldy fruit, chicken manure, soft leaves of comfrey, and the scraps of last night’s dinner. We garnish the greenery with old straw and cornstalks, and then we shovel more soil into the mix. Dirt, scraps, manure, heat. Straw, stalks, dirt, repeat.
“During your time here, you’ll see this begin to turn into nice, rich compost,” she says. “The pile will shrink as the worms and microorganisms in the soil convert the plant matter into nutritious fertilizer. We’ll spread it over the fields in the spring.”
We work through the afternoon shaping nature’s lasagna. The wind picks up and blows a canopy of storm clouds over the Hood River Valley. Indian summer shivers at the first breath of autumn. The breeze plucks yellow leaves from the ash tree and they drift in spirals to the ground.
The plants are harvested from the field, transmuted into fertilizer, and spread back into the soil in the spring. Like the earth itself, the farm is largely a self-sustaining loop system, forever feeding itself and consuming itself.
Layers expand and layers contract. The storm clouds roll on to the southeast and the sun returns to preside over the late afternoon. The wind blows, and worms wriggle deeper into their earth-blanket, and the cycle keeps on spinning, spinning, spinning.
