“Composting is an art not a science: you get better at it with practice.”  John Seymour

This is a vocational training centre and one of the courses, the one I run, is Gardening and Composting. Twelve weeks for young men to have a chance to get their hands dirty on practical tasks and their minds exercised, learning about how things grow and thinking about how to design a garden which pleases.  The composting element is central, crucial to the concept.  First by necessity, as this centre is built on what was an industrial site with no top-soil.  Second because we believe it essential to make the best of this resources and not throw it away (we have a parallel course R3, Reduce-Re-use-Recycle, otherwise known as the Away Team, because in this world we have to throw out the idea that we can throw things away), and we want to use compost to build up the organic content of all our gardens.  Third because we want to make enough of the lovely rich, sweet-smelling friable stuff which comes out of the bottom of a well-managed heap  -  and build up a business selling garden services, which will include enriching our clients' soils with compost.

Well-managed heap ?  Umm ..... we've had a bit of a break and last time we turned the heap (which you need to do from time to time to let the air in) it smelt so foul that the neighbour, manager of a sizeable factory, came round to complain.  Friendly enough, and we sorted it quickly by covering the top with soil.  But we don't want to upset anyone and we don't know what kind of aggravation we could get if we fall out with him.  We have a new intake of students and I have a new determination to get on top of the problem/ opportunity.  Otherwise it will get on top of me.  Perish the thought.  

Perishing: that's what it's all about.

So from amongst the students we've elected a team of three for the week.  This is one of the dirtiest, smelliest jobs they are going to have to do, so we have promised them the pick of the salad crops (cos lettuce, spring onions, rocket) which are already ready or need thinning.

(The brilliance of these crops just at the end of the teaching block has, I think, raised the status of gardening.  Students from other classes  -  construction, computer software, car maintenance, etc  -  come crowding round like hungry ghosts, begging for the favour of a spring onion or trying to snatch one behind my back.  But me and my crew are merrily defending the patch, doling out supplies only for gardening merit and for the official kitchen run by the cookery class.)

Meanwhile back to earth, or would-be earth:

The slightest disturbance of the heap yields a foul smell, a sickly-sweet aroma of putrid half-rotten food-stuffs, sulphurous, almost enough to make you retch.  One of the three students says we ought to have face-masks, only about twenty cents from a pharmacy.  He's right.  We'll do that next time.  But here and now let's tackle the monster.  Spread out the sheeting (it's a re-used roll of PVC which once advertised the existence and mission of a UN-backed NGO  -  don't you love the way life moves on ?).  Get stuck in with fork and rake and shovel.  Pile A, the layer of top-soil, will go back to the bottom; pile C from the bottom is not all bad, some bits rotting, not too much sludge  -  we'll mix it with Pile A and hope it breaks down better.

Pile B is the disaster zone.  We've not been controlling properly what goes on in the kitchen, or rather what comes out of it.  So we've been dumped on: bread (the least of our worries, though its green mould would be horrid for someone with respiratory problems); spaghetti, rice, whole tomatoes, apples  -  there probably is a way of using these but they've been coated in a sloppy sauce, and plastic bags have found their way into the mix.  We (the management and I) have devised a system whereby the students on the catering class sort the kitchen waste into what is compost-able and what is not, explaining about greens and browns and biodegradability.  And the R3 people will collect it at the end of each day and take it down to the compost bins.  And the students have learned and understood.  And unlearned and misunderstood.  Looks like we'll need someone standing guard at the kitchen door: a slop inspection brigade.

“Compost is produced by microbes which feed on organic waste and break it down into a dark, sweet smelling earthy humus.”.  That's what my text-book says.  Mmm.  This pile is rich in living things which have made it their home: big flies and little flies and creepy-crawlies and no doubt vast numbers of microscopic bacteria.  And maggots.  Juicy white slug-like things chomping away at this carbon source.  Wish there was a fishing fraternity here in Jordan, this would make a fine by-product.  We leave the stuff spread out in the sun for an hour, go and take a break, hope the birds get to hear about the maggot bonanza.

We return bringing a sack of cardboard from the R3 team.  Scrunch it or shred it by hand.  Strew it over Pile B (and scatter some shreds over piles A and C for good measure).  Take out forkfuls of recent spaghetti and plastic bags, carry them away in another plastic bag.  Re-make the heap.  Breathe easy again.  

After the students have gone home I've a little mission around town, a puncture to get fixed for one of our wheelbarrows.  Issa, the guy with the small business across the street who normally does this, shakes his head at the state of the tyre.  This one won't Re-use.  We zoom up the hill, see a man that Issa knows, who has  -   wonderful !  -  the right size of tyre complete with inner tube, and get it fixed.  And some sore-needed drops of oil to the bearings for good measure.  I'm watching all these operations, especially those with the great steel tyre lever so beloved of crime writers as a weapon of passion, fascinated,wondering about the chain of events and decisions which have brought me to just this store, just this hill, just these doings on just this day.  I offer Issa a dinar for his help but he refuses: this is all part of social and business being mixed up, different elements relating to one another and, we hope, producing an end-product which will be enriching for us all.  Like a good compost.  

With some self-satisfaction I bring the wheelbarrow back to site.  Mohammed from R3 waves to me, asks if he can borrow it.  I leave it with him.  I stroll down to the compost bin.  Dark matter on top, brightened by shards of red and green cartons from a breakfast cereal packet.  Smells OK.  Here is Mohammed, trundling down with a couple of (re-used of course) white buckets in the barrow.  Greetings.  What's in those buckets ?  Compost, of course.  Mohammed grins.  Horrors !  It's spaghetti slop again, with a fair share of plastic bags and cigarette packets.  With ungloved hand I fearlessly reach in and pick out the cauliflower stems and onion leaves and a couple of other usable items.  The rest: sorry, Mohammed, you will have to throw these away.  Wherever Away is.

By Nicholas Hall

Nicholas Hall teaches organic gardening to Iraqi and Palestinian refugees in Amman, Jordan. Visit his blog to read more.