Odd crop

I went out to put some items in our compost bin and decided that it needed a bit of attention. I hadn't been as diligent as I should have been about taking out the completed compost from the bottom of the bin, so it had basically turned into a tall pile of dirt with a little bit of biodegrading stew on top of it.

So I opened the bottom and started to dig. My back didn't like the whole process but I kept digging, and digging, and digging. Until I hit a root. A big root. About half way up the bin. Huh? I got on my knees and looked in the bin. Yup, that's a root alright. And it's big. Where the hell would it have come from?

A light bulb went on in my brain and I hoped it wasn't what I suspected it was. I quickly glanced to the back fence (about 3 feet from the compost bin) to look at the giant bamboo in the next yard. My eyes fell short and stuck on the three new shoots coming up into my yard.

Now, these are not small, finger-sized bamboo. These are the bamboo which you have to use both hands to gauge the circumfrance of. Giant bamboo. So the shoots were pretty impressive. Could one of them have made a beeline for my compost pile?

I got up, removed the screws which hold the compost pile to the ground, and turned the thing on it's head. The most recent additions to the pile spilled over easily and I was left staring at a root-bound pile of dirt with a tenacious bamboo sprout working it's way up the pile.

Oh shit.

For those of you who have never had to dig out bamboo... hope you never have to. The roots are thick and clumpy, not easy to cut through. I hacked at the pile with my shovel and took a hack saw to the big runner root, finding a second runner taking off in the other direction, and hacking it off too. Then I reset my compost pile and filled it with the recent bits from my kitchen. Stared at the three sprouts at the fence line and decided to deal with them later.