End of an era ( well a decade, actually)

On Fri I also learned that after 10 years of being a Master Composter ( community composting volunteer) with Garden Organic and Herefordshire Council, mine ( and all the other Herefordshire MC's) services are being dispensed with at the end of March. This is due to council cutbacks.

So, no more helping people on stalls or at garden festivals or in schools as a volunteer Master Composter. If you look back over the archives you will see I have done a LOT of that!

I have to admit I am rather gutted.

I am considering my options, but one of the reasons I was able to offer so much of my hard won knowledge and experience for free as an MC, or for a relatively small fee as an Environmental Educator,  was because I was paid a small sum towards travel expenses; the council paid for any stall fees and also provided PLI at events. So a lot of the time I offered my expertise as a volunteer, even when frankly I was doing far more than the role would normally call for.

If I want to continue doing events and shows (and people want me to, and I want to carry on!) I have to come up with a sustainable funding mechanism, as I can't afford to fund free advice when I have to pay for expensive insurance and all travel costs. Also time I spend doing that, is time I am not spending working at my own business or on my own land or with my own family.

So, various ideas are going round my head at the moment and it's been a hard few days.

Visit to Bisley Community Composting site

I had a great trip out last week :) I went with fellow Master Composters and council officers to see Bisley Community Compost site. 

 Sited next to a village allotment site

I have serious compost envy, and I don't say THAT very often!

Logging the hours, making some gift tags and a visit to Newent

Yet more rain fell overnight - the ground is so sodden there is nowhere for it to go and we are getting flooded patches in the wood, garden  and many of the raised veg beds and flower beds are under water.

Today I got on with sorting out documents to do with filing my Tax return, I have all I need to hand and am just inputting the data to the website - I think I may be owed some back tax, but am not 100% sure - we shall see.


I have also been sorting out the hours I volunteered as a Master Composter and Master Gardener, although I am very good at recording my hours I am much less good at actually sending them off to Garden Organic, and the same goes for expenses! I really must get more on top of this aspect of volunteer work.

Late morning we decided we were fed up with the rain and being indoors. We needed a few bits of shopping and had planned to go out, but rather than visit Ledbury we went to Newent for a pub lunch and a look around. Newent has some excellent charity shops as well as a couple of craft shops which I love to visit.. So after a very nice lunch, I visited The  Patchwork Shop and The Wool Garden  so I had a "fix" of crafty chat. I also collected some money from the sale of some stuff in The Stock Exchange  ( a shop selling " pre loved" stuff  - clothes, shoes, dvds, books etc), while Compostman browsed the books in the charity shops. He found an interesting History book but I found nothing I really wanted to buy(!) so I just came away with some quilting thread, bought with the money from The Stock Exchange sales :).

We returned home past very flooded fields in time to greet Compostgirl from the school bus and then after all the evening jobs were finished I settled down to some crochet, watching Big Bang Theory re runs on E4 and making some gift tags from cards.

These are from Christmas cards

And these are from "other" cards and will be good for non mid winter presents

Anyone else make their own tags? I guess a lot of you do :)

Compost Awareness Week 2013

Compost Awareness Week  (CAW) is a week of activities, events and publicity to improve awareness about using organic waste as a resource to produce compost.  Garden Organic’s Master Composters around the country will be out and about answering composting questions and encouraging those who don’t already compost at home to start.

I will be at Sainsbury's in Hereford on Thursday, helping the Council Waste Officers answer questions about composting -  various collegues will be doing the same in other parts of Herefordshire and Worcestershire this week as well!

Herefordshire

       Tuesday 7th May – Morrisons, Leominster 11:00 – 2:00

-          Wednesday 8th May – Sainsburys, Hereford 12:00 – 4:00

-          Friday 10th May - Asda, Hereford 12:00 – 4:00

Worcestershire 

Mon 6th May	Discover Bewdley Spring Fair	10:00 – 4:00
Tue 7th May	Evesham library WR11 4PJ	10:00 – 4.00
Wed am 8th May	Malvern library WR14 2HU	10:00 – 1:00
Wed pm 8th May	Upton library WR8 OLE	1:30 – 4:00
Thurs 9th May	Kidderminster Town Hall  DY10 1DB	10:00 – 1:00
Fri 10th May	Avelchurch Library B48 7TA	10:00 – 1:00

For the 2013 Compost Awareness Week Garden Organic will be running a ‘Decorate Your Compost Bin Competition’; be creative and as imaginative as possible.  Entry to the competition is open to all ages and abilities.

 If you need reminding how to make compost, my "How to..." guides is a good place to start!

How I make compost

Top tips to maximise how much compost you make.

Making Leaf Mould



Happy Composting :-)

Welcome

As I am appearing in the local media this week for winning the Innovation Award at the Garden Organic Masters Conference - here is the link to my write up of the day

http://www.the-compostbin.com/2012/07/master-composter-and-master-gardener.html

I am SO pleased and proud to have won this award - and if you are visiting me for the first time as a result of reading about it in the local press - a HUGE welcome from me! I hope you enjoy reading what I have written about, here in The Compost Bin, and that you follow my blog and become a regular reader. :-)

If you have any questions about composting or gardening, please comment on these pages

or contact me compostwoman@the-compostbin.com

and I will do my best to help.

A day out with fellow composters....and a really good talk!

Back from a lovely day out at a social gathering of Herefordshire and Worcestershire Master Composters held at Worcester Woods Country Park. We had a fabulous talk from a member of the Countryside Services, Senior Greenspace Officer Wade Muggleton, on his amazing recycled garden

Wade is a local award winning gardener and writer. His talk was titled "Gardening like a Womble! a talk on permaculture and gardening"

Wade has travelled extensively in New Zealand & Australia, visiting and working on organic farms and permaculture projects. He “walks the talk”, having spend the last 7 years developing his own small garden into an intensive food producing plot that contains more than 23 kinds of fruit and about 20 types of vegetables. “Grow It” magazine awarded him their coveted “plot of the year” award in 2009 and he writes for Permaculture magazine.

It was a really good talk, as Wade said, “if we use small garden plots and allotments we reduce carbon emissions, waste, transport and pollution.” He is the most amazing skip diver, vegetables and fruits were flourishing in an amazing variety of containers and raised beds. As you might expect from an audience of Master Composters, we then had a lively question and answer session .

We had some lovely lunch, followed by a workshop, again headed up by Wade, on making willow structures such as obelisks and hurdles. We all had a really good time and, as always ,I came away enthused and energised by these gatherings with like minded folk.

Wade demonstrating how to make a willow obelisk

Also no hens were killed today and it was lovely weather.

So all in all a good day!.

Master Composters cutting willow.

Finally, if anyone reading this lives in Herefordshire or Worcestershire, the Waste Management team are looking for some more people to train as Master Composters? So, if you are interested, give me an email and I can give you more details?

Me and my lovely willow obelisk.

Master Composter Conference 2009

One thing I DID enjoy during the 6 weeks in the summer when I was not blogging, due to illness, was going to the 2009 Master Composter Conference at Garden Organic in Ryton. This is always a really good event and full of inspiring speakers. Mixing with several hundred fellow compost enthusiasts is always a treat as well!



I went to a wonderful workshop on insects given by Peter Smithers, co author of a really good book of bug ID. The workshop was wildly oversubscribed and there really were not enough microscopes etc which was a shame but he gave a fascinating talk and was very informative. He also gave a talk to the whole conference about how little is known on the insects etc which actually live in a working compost bin and so we Master Composters are all going to be part of a very large scientific survey to establish what,species are actually in there. Very exciting!

I was yet again nominated for awards, I made it into the final 3 for the Master Composter Achievement Award and also Herefordshire and Worcestershire Master Composters were finalists for the Master Composter Group Award, although I/we didn't actually win... but still, an honour to be nominated!

Alys Fowler gave an interesting talk



and also presented awards and cut the cake, she was very interesting and friendly to chat to as well. Wiggly Wigglers sponsored a wonderful cake, made in the shape of
(you guessed it!) a Can O Worms wormery! It was very tasty and not at all wormy!

Alys cutting the cake...


I was very tired by the time I got back home that evening,as I really was not feeling very well but it was good to go and share my passion for all things composty with a few hundred like minded souls. I also had a lovely wander around the gardens, they were stunning in July!



Wildflower meadow with the Giant Flowerpot in the middle!



Look out for me in the Oct edition of "Grow Your Own" magazine as well ;-)

CIWM Recycling Champion Award

Oh I am so excited! Once again I am up for this award! I am so pleased, for me, my family and for all the people and the children I work with :-)

From the organisers, The CIWM,

We are delighted to inform you that once again you have been short listed for this award and will be put forward as a finalist to our judging panel, who will be choosing the category winners and also the winner of the overall Award for Environmental Excellence. All the winners will be announced at the ceremony which takes place at the Dorchester Hotel in November.

Hope this time I have better luck actually getting to the event, though....

Fri 5th June The Big Event and more composting advice given out

Today (Fri) was very successful in Hereford High Town, we had lots of visitors




and children planting seeds,




and I had a good look around The Big Green Bus. It was full of very interesting stuff! I also met up with someone I haven't seen for a long time, the dynamic originator behind the Big Green Bus and its charity The Big Green idea . the lovely Brigit Strawbridge. (yes, Brigit from the TV programme)

Brigit handed over 2 Bokashi bins she had very kindly collected from another friend..so I now have a "full house" of different composting methods (compost bins, wormeries, bokashi, green cone, green joanna....)

The rest of the various stands were also really interesting and I learned some new stuff ( always a good thing...)

On Sat 6th June I shall be in Hereford on the King George V meadow doing my Compostwoman bit to promote composting at home. I am doing this (with other Master Composters) as part of Hereford Earth Watch, a 2 day event celebrating World Environment Day.

Saturday's event is more of a general festival, with a big music event !

I shall be there from 12 noon until the end so if you are in the area come and say "hello"

Love Food, Hate Waste training day, what an eye opener!

Well, I was invited to attend this training , as I am a Master Composter (a community Compost Advisor working to promote home composting) and I thought it sounded interesting and a complementary activity to my "compost your compostibles" campaign....

I had to keep a food waste diary for a week before the training day (which was very interesting and informative, it turns out we don't really waste any food BUT largely beacuse I have "birds" and cats to feed odd scraps to, and we compost EVERY SCRAP which can be composted..so we came out as unusually low food wasters....as did all my fellow Master Composters and Council Waste Officers on this course! ( not a big suprise there, all the MC's are dedicated RRR people as are the wonderful council officers!)

The training was really good we learnt lots of useful stuff , had a really nice lunch and networked like crazy! AND learned a lot as the course detail was vey good and informative.....I found myself speechless ( seriously!) several times during the presentations and the later role play scenarios....


Here are some extracts from the (properly assessed) studies done by WRAP ..I asked some quite hard questions about this and am satisfied the study was pretty well organised!



In the UK in general

Total food waste = 6.7 million tonnes PER YEAR in the UK

Read that again..6.7 MILLION TONNES PER YEAR!!!!

Which breaks down to ...

Avoidable food waste = 4.1 million tonnes 61%
Possibly avoidable food waste = 1.3 million tonnes 20%
Unavoidable food waste = 1.3 million tonnes( peelings etc) 19%
Which OF COURSE should be composted!


Foods thrown away whole and untouched every day

Potatoes 5.1 million a day
Sausages 1.2 million a day
Slices of bread 7 million a day
Yoghurt & yoghurt drinks 1.3 million a day
Apples 4.4 million a day
Half of the salad we eat !

Avoidable food waste = 4.1 million tonnes (£10.2 billion)


Avoidable food waste = 4.1 million tonnes (£10.2 billion)
“cooked or prepared too much” 1.3 mt (£3.4 billion)
“left & unused” 2.6 mt (£6.3 billion)
“unknown” 0.2 mt (£0.5 billion)

“left & unused” -

Storage

“less than ideal” location
 bread in the fridge (11%)
 bananas in the fridge (6%)
 apples outside the fridge (74%)

“Unprotected”
 sliced meats unsealed after opening (13%)
 dried foods unsealed after opening (11%)
 cheese unsealed after opening (7%)

Incorrect fridge temperature
 60% don’t know what it should be (average is 6.6°C vs. target of <5 data-blogger-escaped-br=""> Lack of knowledge about what can be frozen
 Not making sufficient use of the freezer

Date labelling
 Food “gone past its date” is the main reason given for throwing away food
 Almost 50% do not understand the meaning of date labels (FSA, 2008)
 36% treat “best before” as a “use-by”
 53% never eat past the date for fruit & veg
 56% never eat past the date for bread & cakes

Confidence
 “use by” = use by end of that date
 Almost 10% leave a days “buffer”
 21% will not “take a risk” with a product close to its date, even if it appears fine

Cost per household per year ( ie this is what could be saved if you didn't do this kind of thing...)

average households with children £610

Households of adults £380

Households of unrelated sharers £520

Single occupant households £250

WOW that is a LOT of dosh!


A really thought provoking fact..... food waste is the equivalent of 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide

That is the same as produced by one 1 in 5 cars on the road! THINK about it!


Also it is no good blaming "the old" " the young" etc....

As age isn’t really an influence, we’re all wasting food! 1.2kg/person/week…

nor is Household composition, Household with children is the same as a household with just adults (per capita)…

and nor is Household size! Only significant difference is single households at 1.9
kg/person/wk

We’re all wasting food! BUT 84% of us believe we throw none or hardly any food away!


So...doing this training means I now have a better idea why so much food is wasted and I can help people get the very best from the food they have shelled out their hard earned money for...

How to store it so it lasts, how to cook just the right amount, how to store any leftovers and use them up next day and how to perhaps shop so as to minimise waste!

all this AND save cash and eat good food as well!

If you are interested in this, see Love Food Hate Waste for more details!

I shall certainly be adding the LFHW leaflets and banners to my composting related stalls over the summer!

Being a food lover means getting the most from the food I buy. It is not about having gourmet cook intentions, but about being grounded in everyday simple actions that can help me manage and cook my food so that more gets eaten and less gets wasted.
It pays on so many levels – I save money, feel better and more confident, save time and I help the environment too.

The habits of a food lover
1. Check fridge first - try to make a shopping list ( and stick to it!)
2. Keeping food fresh - most fruit is best in the fridge, but bananas are better outside of it.
3. Judging the right amount – get a mug for rice - work out a measure which works for your circumstances! Use a spagetti "hole" to portion what you need in one go!
4. Freezing and frozen foods –what freezes & for how long? If you grow your own or buy in bulk, how to best store it? Open freezing? Dehydrating? Bottling? jamming? pickling?
5. Use-By and best before – what needs eating first? Learn! Be more self reliant! Sniff and look and trust your judgement BUT be aware of Use by dates for meat and dairy etc as they are there for a very good reason ( to stop you getting food poinioning)
6. Free-lunching – taking well stored leftover food outside the home to eat for lunch the next day ( mmm yum! I LOVe pasta salad next day...)
7. Leftovers – new meals from leftovers, store them correctly to be safe!
8. In-store – frozen v fresh/ right size of pack/ offers - are they as a good a deal as they seem?


For more information on food waste
www.wrap.org.uk
Love Food Hate Waste www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

General catch up

Well it has been a bit manic here at Compost Mansions recently, hence the lack of posts since last weekend..(which was actually a post I did a week earlier but hadn't actually hit "post" on it....)

First, at the start of the last week I got ill...very ill....with a nasty flu-ey thing which I am only just recovering from now...I missed 2 days "outside" work ( grrr, but working with children, I couldn't either ethically contemplate dosing myself up and going, nor was I actually well enough to do so anyway...)

I was chilled, sweating, aching, sore throat, headache, sick, had the runs and generally felt like I had been hit all over by very angry, big people with very big sticks......( and NO, I have NOT been in contact with any one recently returned from anywhere overseas, or from areas where Mexican Flu had hit in the UK....I DID wonder about volunteering myself as a possible case BUT I didn't meet the NHS criteria , so I didn't...)

I have been ill for 10 days now and I only JUST feel vaguely human today....and have missed the last few days of the term and most of this half term....

Also, we have been so busy with growing and planting and sowing and mowing and scything etc...I dragged my self out of my sick bed at one point to prick out plants and had a lap tray on my knee whilst on the sofa, so I could pot on some tiny brassica seedlings......I have still been tending to the plants in the polytunnel and the hens, despite being ill....Compostman had so much to do.. so who will do it if *I* don't?

COMMENT

One of the downsides of an "idyllic" rural lifestyle is, unless you have pots of money and can afford to pay staff to do stuff for you, you have to keep going regardless of illness. I didn't do any stuff for 4 days when I was really ill, but once I was "sort of " ok, I had to get on with at least some of it...as Compostman has more than enough of his own work to do, without having to do *my work* as well..Compostgirl helped a lot, but at 8, she really can't just step into my jobs and do them like me....she can water stuff and collect eggs but she doesn't know what to do if anything more tricky presents itself...

People often don't consider this aspect of living "the rural dream of downshifting"...they think of a few hens, some pigs, a veg garden, a greenhouse and being more self sufficient in fruit , veg and eggs etc ...BUT its a 24/7 dedication, 365 days a year...regardless of illness, incapacity or inclination...YOU have to keep going....that is the reality if you keep any livestock.....or grow a lot of stuff to eat...if you want to eat it, you have to look after it!

END COMMENT

The hens have all mysteriously gone off lay...I am only getting 2 or 3 eggs from 6 laying hens..I think it is because the 2 cockerels are fighting and generally being a pain..and disturbing the hens...so MEASURES WILL BE TAKEN......(!)( use your imaginations..they have had a reprieve while I have been ill.....)

Various "work stuff" has also been going on for me, I finally got my Forest School Practitioner Certificate through in the post yesterday (hurrah!) AND I am about to start a regular programme of Eco Club sessions somewhere, for a fee...which is great....! (I could do with the money)

I have also been arranging a weekend of Master Composter activity (as in ALL the arranging, of the stand, the booking, the rota, the supplies, the session plans, the risk assessment etc...) at Hereford Earth Watch, which revolves around World Environment Day on the 5th June, and also carries over on the 6th June.

I am also organising (as in ALL the organising, the booking, the rota, the supplies, the session plans, the risk assessment etc...) the Master Composters presence at Hellens Manor, The Garden Festival in the 13th and 14th June.

AND I am doing some "Love Food Hate Waste" training this week.....

(To be honest, I feel tired just contemplating the next 2 weeks, and I haven't even started it yet.....)

BUT its all good stuff and will help to spread the word about living a more sustainable, frugal minded life...

Oh, did I mention the Transition Town Ledbury stuff?...no? ....more in a future post!

Do something on World Environment Day? Please? If only to make me feel my shattered-ness is having an effect?

I shall post some links tommorrow...........promise....but for now it is off to bed for me.....

Thank you...

:-)

I am now a no show at the Compost Awareness event in Hereford

I agravated a long standing back injury lifting tables and trays of plants last weekend..and now I can't drive, or do much at all...so lovely Compostman drove me to school today and helped at Eco Club this afternoon...

because today I was scheduled to be teaching in the organic garden at School, I had Reception class scheduled to be out in the veg garden, planting potatos, carrots, beetroot and shallots.

Yesterday I had Gardening Club (juniors) out in the garden over lunch break planting potatos, beans, carrots, peas and beetroot. Then during the afternoon I was showing year 1 children how to plant up their raised veg bed with onions, carrots, turnips, potatos and beetroot, all with the theme of "purple"

I also, today had Eco Club and we did some pond dipping , which was great fun!

But, painful....and I wouldn't have managed it without Compostman's help.

Unfortunately due to my ( very painful) back injury I will also not, now, be at the Compost Awareness Week event in Hereford Fri.

Sorry! especially to Kim, who was going to come and say hello I know..

so...its rest, and recovery, and NO digging for me...

This is a really bad time for me to have an injury, as apart from all the stuff needing to be done here at Compost Mansions, there is a major re vamp of the school garden this weekend as well...moving the fence out to make the plot bigger, a new greenhouse, new raised beds..oooh all sorts of stuff ...and I am meant to be there digging and moving and dismantling compost bins and laying terram sheet and mulch and all sorts...

but I suspect I will be making the tea, instead :-( Grrr, bluddy back injury, I have had this for 40 years now, am Sooooo fed up its not true...mumble mumble mutter curse........)

How I make compost

As a Master Composter promoting composting in Herefordshire, on behalf of the Council and Garden Organic, I get asked a lot of questions about how to make compost and what to do with it.

So, in honour of it being Compost Awareness Week, I am going to post ( again) about composting :-)

In this post I am going to talk about how *I* make compost. I will mainly talk about the "Hot" composting method, as that is how I usually make compost. The "Hot" method involves taking lots of material and filling up a compost bin or building up a compost heap in one go. Within a few days, the heap is likely to get very hot to the touch. When it begins to cool down, or a week or two later, you can "turn" the heap. Remove everything from the container or lift the container off and mix it all up, trying to get the outside to the inside. Add water if it is dry, or dry material if it is soggy. Replace in the bin. You could add a lot more material ( if available) at this point.

The heap may well heat up again; the new supply of air you have mixed in allows the fast acting aerobic microbes, ie those that need oxygen, to continue with their work. You can do this several more times if you have the energy, but the heating will be less and less. When it no longer heats up again, leave it undisturbed to finish composting.

The "Cool" method is where you add bits and bobs of compostable material over a longer period of time; it works just as well but takes longer and tends to work best in the summer. It doesn't reliably kill seeds in the same way as the Hot method because it doesn't heat up to a high enough temperature over the total volume of the material. When the container is full - which it may never be as the contents will sink as it composts down - or when you decide to, stop adding any more. Then either just leave it to finish composting (which could take up to a year) or turn it to get more air in and make the fast acting aerobic microbes start to work again.

Whichever method you use, make sure that the contents of your bin or heap is not too dry and add water if in doubt. A good sign that it is too dry is the presence of ants in the mixture.

As you can see from my photos, I use a variety of different bins and have made compost heaps in the past. Bins are good as they allow the material to be contained in one place, and I can also vary the contents to produce different sorts of compost. I have bins which are just grass and card, bins which are slower working and bins which are making very fast, fairly coarse compost for mulching. BUT I have lots of space and a professional interest in compost! (and am a touch obsessed about compost, I grant you.....)

BUT it doesn't really matter what you make compost in! As long as there is air, water and the right mix of compostable material it will produce compost ...eventually

So...this is how I make compost....



Site your bin or heap in a not too sunny or shady place if possible. If you can, put the bin on the ground. It will still work if you have to put it on concrete, though.
Choose a place where you can easily add ingredients to the bin and get the compost out.

Composting requires a roughly 50 :50 mix of of green sappy stuff ( which is high in nitrogen) and brown, papery stuff ( which is high in carbon). Before you start to fill your bin, try to build up a good collection of "green" and "brown" material if you can, the more you put in a bin at once, the hotter and faster it will work.

In this set of photos, we have just finished cutting down all the spent daffodils and pulling up nettles in the garden so I had LOADS of material waiting to be composted. I also had a collection of old cardboard waiting to be mixed in with the green stuff....It really REALLY helps to build up a collection of "green" stuff and "brown" stuff when filling your bins, as a full bin works more efficiently and composts quicker and hotter, thus killing off any seeds as well.



I started off with a layer of well composted bark shreddings from one of the storage bins then added a mix of paper bits and grass clippings. If you are starting a bin in a new area a shovel full of soil is a good idea as it introduces helpful bacteria and other organisms, but it's not essential as I find Mother Nature has an amazing power to sort this out for herself :-)



I then added a layer of grass clippings and a layer of very damp cardboard bits on the top. Other green material could be used instead of grass.



Then a layer of nettles (without the roots- they go in a "weedy " bin to make compost which is only used in the bottom of very deep holes...)and another layer of card on the top....



I repeated the layers of green stuff (nettles/comfrey/weeds/grass) and brown stuff (card/paper) until the bins were full to the brim.

The green items contain bacteria which will generate the initial heat that is required by the process. A healthy compost bin is a living ecosystem. By keeping a good mix of green and brown material you will provide the perfect conditions for a variety of fungi, insects and bacteria and can let them get on with all the hard work for you.

This mix will heat up FAST over the next few days, getting up to about 60 degrees centigrade in the middle, and then the material will cool down a little, and slump down. At this point I top the bins up again with alternating levels of green/brown stuff....

If this process is done correctly you don't actually NEED to do any digging out and mixing up (referred to as "turning" in compost speak) to get good compost. The turning process is there to get more air in to your compost material to aid the aerobic (air loving) bacteria in doing their job; but IF you have built the bin correctly, there will be air pockets in it still! you can turn it if you like and it WILL speed things up, but it shouldn't be actually required.

Making compost is really easy...especially if you can get a good pile of stuff together first!

Using this method, in spring and summer I can make acceptable compost in 8 weeks or so. It still needs to be stacked and left for a few more weeks as it is still biologically active and it would be a bit rich for plants "as made", but certainly it has finished composting and can be got out of the bins to make way for more fresh material.

I use the comfrey and nettles I grow (well which grow all over the place by themselves!) and add them to my compost heaps AND make fertiliser teas from them to feed my plants..(BTW Nettles are good BUT always make sure they are of known provenance!...else you might be importing herbicides and we all know where THAT can lead!))

If there is anyone out there who likes peat, well it is perfectly possible to make a good peat free substitute using grass cuttings and cardboard. This is called "Grassboarding" and if it's only grass and cardboard, it makes a wonderful peat like compost....if you have a source of grass and plenty of cardboard this is a very good thing to make. The result can be excellent compost, which is weed-free and does not contain large particles or lumps of material.

I know I have a lot of space and a lot of compost bins BUT all this will work if you only have one or two compost bins! In the picture at the end, can you see the black "Dalek" type bins? They are 220 l or 330 l capacity, and they make wonderful compost! And the "cold/cool" compost method works really well, it just takes longer and you may get the odd weed seed growing in it, so make sure you keep out any nasty weed seed heads you con't want carrying on. I am not soing anything differently here, to what I would do if I only had one or two bins, honest :-)


Compostwoman's top tips to maximise compost making!

To get the ideal compost mix you will roughly need a 50:50 mix
of both "green" and "brown" material in your bin.

I keep a few "browns" bins in the house which I use for all the little bitty bits of card, paper, tissue etc which is too scrappy to recycle, as well as a caddy for peelings, tea bags, coffee filters etc ec in the kitchen.






I am always on the lookout for cardboard sheets, from shops or from Freecycle.



I stockpile various weeds and prunings and grass cuttings from the lawns, until I have a good quantity of raw materials to fill up the compost bins.

By composting everything and anything available it is possible to dramatically increase the amount of compost you produce.

‘GREENS’
● Fruit scraps (including citrus peel)
● Vegetable peelings
● Tea bags
● Old flowers
● Spent bedding plants
● Rhubarb leaves
● Comfrey leaves
● Nettles
● Young annual weeds (e.g. chickweed and speedwell)
● Pond algae and seaweed (in moderation)
● Coffee grounds and filter paper
● Grass cuttings
● Manure (horse, cow, pig, sheep, goat, chicken, rabbit – not too much as could become too wet)

Human urine is a very good activator!

‘BROWNS’
● Tissues, paper towels and napkins (unless they have been in contact with
meat or disease)
● Tumble dryer lint (from natural fibre clothes)
● Old natural fibre clothes (e.g. woolly jumpers or cotton t-shirts
– make sure you cut them into small pieces)
● Vacuum bag contents(as long as you have natural fibre carpets)
● Garden prunings
● Toilet and kitchen roll tubes,
● Woody clippings
● Dry leaves, twigs and hedge clippings
● Human and pet hair (slow to break down)
● Cotton threads/String(made from natural fibres)
● Feathers
● Wool
● Newspaper(scrunched up)
● Shredded confidential documents
● Straw and hay
● Vegetarian pet bedding
● Ashes from wood,paper, or lumpwood charcoal
● Sawdust and wood chippings
● Corn cobs and stalks
● Cereal boxes
● Corrugated cardboard packaging (scrunched up in small amounts)
● Pine needles and cones (although slow to compost don’t put too much in)
● Egg shells (but crush them first to speed up composting)
● Egg boxes (good as they trap air)
Paper and card is usually printed with fairly harmless inks now (in the UK at least) and I certainly don't worry too much about that, as anything in there is well diluted and a lot of inks are ( I understand) vegetable based now, with the glossinesss being from clay particles. But if you are worried, perhaps steer clear of very glossy magazines? They can go in the recycling bin



When the various ingredients you have put in your container or heap have turned into a dark brown, earthy smelling material, the composting process is complete. It is best left for a month or two to 'mature' before it is used as it is a bit biologically active to apply to plants straight away. Don't worry if your compost is not fine and crumbly. Even if it is lumpy or sticky with bits of twig and eggshell in it, it is still quite usable. It can always be sieved before using if you want. Any large bits can be put back into your new compost heap.



I hope this has been helpful, I shall talk in the next post about removing and using your compost and also how to make leaf mould.

Happy Composting!

Why I make compost.

As a Master Composter promoting composting in Herefordshire, on behalf of the Council and Garden Organic, I get asked a lot of questions about how to make compost and what to do with it.

So, in honour of it being Compost Awareness Week, I am going to post (again) about composting :-)

Composting your biodegradable, organic waste is great for many reasons. It reduces the size of your waste bin, so means less transport is needed to remove household waste. It gives you fine, homemade compost so you don't need to buy in artificial fertiliser. And it also removes some of the most damaging, greenhouse-gas-causing, waste from landfill sites.

According to CAT

About a third of the waste sent to landfill in the UK is biodegradable organic matter, such as food , paper, cardboard, textiles, and garden waste. In a landfill site, these materials will be broken down by microbes to produce a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is a very damaging greenhouse gas - it has over 20 times as much 'global warming potential' as carbon dioxide (by weight). At the moment, about 70% (over two-thirds) of landfill gas is flared off or captured, so a damaging impact will still come from the remaining 30%.

Methane is produced in 'anaerobic' conditions - which means that there is not much oxygen present. The emission to the atmosphere of large amounts of methane can be avoided by not sending lots of biodegradable waste to landfill. Instead, it can be composted at home or at a community level, or sent to a special anaerobic digestion facility, where the bio gas (methane and CO2) can be collected.

Amazingly, by composting all their food, garden and cardboard waste, an average individual would prevent about 5kg of methane per year from landfill, which is equivalent to just over 100kg of carbon dioxide per year.

An average household that composts this waste would prevent emissions of 13kg of methane per year, equivalent to 280kg of carbon dioxide per year (just over one quarter of a tonne of carbon dioxide). By comparison, a small petrol car doing 40mpg will need to travel about 1000 miles to release one quarter of a tonne (250kg) of carbon dioxide, and a small diesel car doing 60mpg will need to travel about 1200 miles to release the same amount.

So...you can see it all makes good environmental and economic sense to make compost!

As regular readers of this blog know, I have been a keen organic gardener and composter for many years and am a Master Composter - a volunteer community compost advisor with my local council and Garden Organic (the working name for HDRA). I go to various events such as county shows, give talks and demonstrations, take school assemblies, lecture, give talks to garden groups and enthuse about compost to all and sundry! I can talk about compost endlessly, I find the whole process fascinating and view compost making as the very heart and soul of gardening.

We garden completely organically here and making compost is at the very heart of all our growing and disposal methods. We take fertility from the earth by growing vegetables and fruit, then we return it to the earth by composting the left over waste and feeding it back to the soil.

Compostman and I make more than 4000 L of compost a year plus what ever is currently cooking in the various compost bins. We use it to grow a huge amount of veg in a quite small space. Our outside veg plot is relatively small at 10 x 14 m,


plus another four of 1 x 4m raised beds but it provides us with veg for most of the year, and has in the past supported us virtually all year round.


The plants in the 4 x 9 m polytunnel are grown in builders buckets of home made growing medium also, made up of home made compost, sand and a bit of soil. I only buy in growing medium (certified organic!) to sow seeds.



I am sure it is all so productive because of all the home made compost we put back into the soil and whenever we dig it all over there are loads of worms and insects.

In my next post I shall share how *I* make compost :-)

Compost Awareness Week

Grow your own this Compost Awareness Week 3-9 May 2009

Compost Awareness Week is all about learning how to make a difference with compost. We can do that by composting our own household kitchen and garden
waste or making the ‘Greener Choice’ of peat-free composts containing recycled materials.

If you want to know more, have a look at the recycle now website about composting.

I have done a few (!) posts on here about the wonders of composting, as well ;-)
I shall be out and about this Compost Awareness Week, I shall be in Hereford High Town on Fri, so if you are nearby, come and say hello :-)

An unexpected gift

Ooh I have received an unexpected gift via the postman!

I was entered into a draw and I have won some lovely goodies from Garden Organic.

A jute bag, some seeds, a CD about composting, a couple of booklets (on worm composting and composting), the biography of Laurence D Hills ( which I was actually considering buying!) and a yummy G and B Easter egg...

Mmm guess what I will be doing on Easter Sunday? reading my new book and eating "Maya Gold" chocolate, that is what :-)

It has occurred to me, as I have some of these items already, and I have got a few other things I would like to share out from having a clear out, and it is my birthday soon

..... I think I shall do a giveaway...watch for a post in the next few days for details....