Growing Vegetables

Last year I began to use a new strategy in composting. I used to keep the pile on the side of the garden or as a separate entity by itself.  But now I have been putting it in the middle of the garden and circling it with my tomato plants.

 This has many advantages; first it keeps the compost pile in a central location that is easy to throw garden scraps into. Having it central also makes it easier to shovel it out where I need it in the garden.  The tomatoes really reap the most benefits. By surrounding the compost pile the soil around the tomatoes remains super charged with the compost runoff, which otherwise would be wasted. Especially when it rains it used to wash away valuable nutrients but now that liquid compost is deposited right at the base of the tomato cages.

The tall tomato cages will provide good shade and insulation to the compost pile. Keeping it warm but now letting direct sun dry it out and keeping it evenly moist.  Another idea would be to build a wooden compost bin around the pile with horizontal slats and plant the tomatoes to grow directly up the sides. That would be a huge space saver. The surrounding tomatoes makes the aesthetic of your garden much more pleasing by hiding the compost pile.