I love composting. Now, maybe you're thinking, "Um, isn't that just storing garbage in your yard?" No, I say, it is turning garbage into fertilizer! Throw some seeds and dirt into the fix and you've got food! How cool is that?

But it also allows to experiment with flat ware. Those ones that look like regular plastic but supposedly biodegrade. So I'm taking a "biodegradable" fork, knife and spoon, and regular plastic knife, and throw them into the compost pile. When I turn the pile again in three weeks, we'll see how they're doing.

We'll start with this knife I got today at the Oakland Zoo, because it has a cool web address on it: taterware.com:




Here's a spoon I got at the Monterey Bay Aquarium a couple weeks ago with my clam-chowder-in-a-bread-bowl (it says "Eco-products" on one side and "Made from Plants" on the other):



A fork, also from the Oakland Zoo cafe; it says "dispoz-o USA" on it, and the web site claims that company's products are biodegradable:



And here's the plain, plastic knife:



So my assumption is that the stuff that is supposed to biodegrade will compost in my pile, since I have successfully turned a bunch of other stuff (kitchen scraps, paper plates, egg cartons) into compost. Tune in three weeks from now to see if anything happens...

Seedling success

Observe my lovely seedling patch:



The tomato cages are actually for sunflowers; most of the seedlings in the center part of the bed are carrots.





These two big-leafed beauties are PUMPKIN seeds. Yes, very exciting. This is a dwarf variety called Baby Pam -- only about five pounds per fruit.