Musings on compost

Yesterday, I side dressed the plants in the garden that seemed yellow and struggling to thrive with rich compost. I dug the compost out of an old pile in a now untended herb garden that received kitchen scraps for years. Totally covered over with unkempt tarragon, a single tug on the tall plants yielded the dry black rich soil below.

Scooping it up with my hands, I filled a gallon flower pot and carried it to the vegetable garden. I pushed back the newspaper and hay mulch and surrounded each plant, peppers and basil in one bed, acorn squash in another, with what I consider good nutrition. I watered each plant, with the intention of providing a lubricant to send the nutrition to the root of the plant.

Today, I noticed that the tops of those treated plants are already showing green.

I wonder if we can effect positive change in our bodies and our physical world just as easily? Are those systems just a little more complicated and the change is not as quickly recognizable?

Is the fact that each one of our actions has an effect a secret, whose meaning we haven’t quite grasped? And if that is true, how can we side-dress our days with rich compost?