Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Showing posts with label in the wood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in the wood. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 April 2014

Come on a Bluebell walk with me :)

 @moorswood #bluebells

After some heavy rain we had a break in the clouds so a walk in the wood called.
Wellies on, raincoat donned, so off we go! Down into the wood past the hens who were not impressed I did not let them out to join us.


This patch of bluebells had been rolled on by something - maybe a badger? or maybe just the rain beating them down. Who knows?


There is a very large patch near the log circle  which looks stunning in a shaft of sunlight breaking through the trees above.


No fire lit today, lets have a sit and listen to the bird song; can you hear the Cuckoo calling and the Green woodpeckers drumming?


The leaves are opening in the canopy; soon it will be dim and cool and green down in the log circle with dappled shade and patches of sunlight.


More blue, such a wonderful scent!


Wild honeysuckle - Dormice use it to make nests like little woven basket cups


Looking back up towards the house


That patch of blue is getting nearer...




Lots growing on the ground level - here with the Bluebells are Ivy and Herb Robert - a very "aromatic" plant! it grows in the polytunnel and is very stinky strong smelling.


More and different ferns are slowly moving into the wood

And back to the house, pausing to let out the hens and collect eggs.

The bluebells are much earlier this year - I looked back through my photos yesterday and realised they were out like this on 20 May in 2013! Delayed due to the very cold winter we had in 2012 - 2013 I suspect.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed a virtual walk in the wood with me.

Saturday, 16 November 2013

The last few days


 Have involved a lot of these ...



And a lot of this ...

 More of these - this time cooking  and baking ...


 Lots of these now filled with lovely apple juice and pasteurised, safely stored away to drink over the next year.












Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Jungle cat...


Wherever I go, whatever I do outside I am accompanied by my faithful furry familiar - Cassi Cat. At this time of year she can be quite hard to spot - she loves to hide and pounce out at me.




She is very vocal and loves to comment and grumble about everything - the hens, the weather, the state of the ground underfoot - she chats all the time.


She loves to kiss my hand or face - and is often to be found sitting on my shoulder or chest.

The latest thing she has been doing is to chase leaves whirling on the patio in an eddy of wind :) Very entertaining to watch :)

Monday, 18 March 2013

Spicy tea and a blocked view


At mid morning break time today I decided I would take my drink outside and sit in the sunshine at the edge of the wood. Normally I take coffee mid morning but as I still feel  full of cold and a bit rough I took a herb tea -  as I thought it might help me feel a bit better and warm me up a bit.

As is usual I  sat surrounded by a bevy of hens and cats. I wanted to take a photo of the wood, but hens kept on getting in the way!


 This is Babs - she always jumps up on the bench and tries to drink out of my mug!



But I fended her off and drank my tea before it got cool. Today I was trying a new to me tea - Sweet Chilli from Higher Living Herbs  Wow! It was so nice! I like herb teas but usually drink single herb versions and have never tried a blend like this sweet chilli blend before. It was really warming and tasty, but not too chilli hot, more warming and comforting than anything else.

















This is Yarrow hen, still alive and looking quite perky, she begged a few crumbs from my mid morning cookie. Apart from her permanent limp she looks pretty good now. She wanted some of my tea, as well.


After I finished off my drink I also hung out some more washing - I got five loads done and dried yesterday. Then I came inside and because I liked the Sweet Chilli tea so much,  I made another one!

Higher Living Herbs are based not far away from us in Gloucestershire and their teas are 100% natural and organic. They specialise in herbal teas ( there are loads of other flavours to try!)  and have over 45 years blending experience.

As you can see from my oh so artistically arranged shot set in my kitchen, the teas come very attractively packaged  in paper and card so all fully recyclable materials ( or in my case, fully compostable!)

I was also impressed that there was no little metal staple holding the tea bag string on to the paper tab - as I hate having to fish the staples out before I compost it - so full marks for that Higher Living,  as well as the yummy tasting tea.


 Oh - and Higher Living don't just do herbal teas, they make a range of "ordinary" teas as well - you can find the full range here. I like Breakfast tea, if anyone is interested...(!)




I was sent a couple of boxes to review (thank you Higher Living) but you can buy the teas online,  in some health food shops and I think Waitrose stock them as well.

Saturday, 2 February 2013

Refurbishing the compostbins part 1

As you all know we have a lot of compost bins of assorted make and style and we make a lot of compost.

 My favourite bins are the "New Zealand" style wooden, slatted bins, so easy to put together and so easy to dismantle and re errect, as needed.

Mine are all from The Recycle Works and I got the first 3 bins as part of a discount offer from my local council, back before I was even a Master Composter or anything - I think in 2003... certainly it was well before Compostgirl started pre school in 2004

And now some parts of those original compost bins have reached their use by date...and need replacing.





The ends have rotted away  from some of the planks


Some of the centre posts have broken up

 

And generally they need a bit of tender loving care and some new parts to restore them to splendidness.

 

  Now, the good thing about these compost bins is that you only have to replace the damaged bits! You can buy the individual posts and planks from The Recycle Works so it is very economical to repair them



So today we started to dismantle the compost bins, so as to see how many parts needed replacing.  This, of course, meant moving the finished compost from out of them, so we could take them to bits.  Which meant I had to find a place to put all the aforementioned finished compost...

Fortunately I had a cunning plan...I had a waiting raised bed which needed a lot of compost putting in it, to fill it up, ready for planting potatoes in the next month or so.


As we dismantled the compost bins we found some of the centre posts had rotted where they touched the ground

And some of the boards had rotted through or lost their end plates.


As always, we had company while we worked, both of the feline


and the chicken sort! The chickens were going mad to get to the worms we were exposing.


We got the bins dismantled and the area cleared, ready to sort out those planks and posts which could be re used and those which were too far gone and would need to be burnt.

The wood is not treated, apart from a paint on water based, animal, insect and bird friendly stain, so I think to survive being buried deep in compost for around 10 years before finally rotting a bit  is impressive indeed.


Today was cold but gloriously sunny and we really enjoyed being able to get outside and do something

More tomorrow  as we put the new planks and centres together and re fill the bins - fingers crossed the weather holds out.

The Recycle Works have two special offers on this weekend - 

Two Very Special Brief Offers

compost duvet
This week our Brief Offer is all about protection! 

Offer One: Buy a Big Square Compost Duvet for only £13.99 instead of the normal price of £18.99 saving you £5 on each one you purchase.

All you need to do is enter the code BIGSQUAREDUVET in to the discount code box when ordering and your savings will be automatically applied.

Offer Two: Buy our Frost Protection Fleece at a special price. Buy one for £6.60 or buy two for £12.99.

To take advantage of this offer you just need to give us a call on 01254 820088 and we'll sort our your order for you!

 
Love Your Environment! Love Your Protection!

*Terms & Conditions Apply. New orders only. No other discount code can be applied with this offer. Free Delivery applies to Mainland UK* orders over £50. 

Brief Offers Available Until Midnight on Sunday 3rd February

Thursday, 8 November 2012

How to identify Chalara ash dieback

Chalara fraxinea is a disease that has decimated Ash tree species throughout Northern Europe, already affecting over 90% of Ash trees in Denmark and Sweden and is present as far as Belgium. Until recently the UK was unaffected, but it now seems that imports of Ash saplings have released the disease into the wild, and at least two outbreaks have been spotted in wild woodland in Norfolk & Suffolk.

This is very bad news indeed. There are about 80m native Ash trees, making up 30% of our indigenous deciduous woodland, so there are very serious ecological consequences if the disease is not contained.
Spores can spread about 20 miles, and it could be as bad as the Dutch elm disease which hit Britain in the 1970s and all but wiped out that native tree species from our landscape. More about the science here.

I wish I could check our Ash trees  but virtually all the leaves have now come off now after we had strong winds a week ago. I went for a wander with my binoculars to see if I could spot any lesions etc in the trees themselves, but as a lot of our trees are Ash mixed in with other species, I couldn't really tell much.

I think I am just going to
have to wait until new leaf burst in spring shows more signs of dieback ( if it is there in our wood) .

This is a really useful video of what to look for in Ash.

Sunday, 5 August 2012

A walk in the woods.

 We decided to go for a wander around our woods to see what was happening in there - it has been so wet recently that we have not been doing very much in the wood, so when we had a nice sunny day we decided to have a trip "out" into the wood

We found lots of ferns growing, enjoying the extra moisture no doubt!



A very overgrown log circle! It is just cow parsley, but the wet weather has made it grow everywhere!


Compostman soon cleared some space with his scythe


while Compostgirl had fun up a tree :-)


I sat on a log and listened to birdsong


We then went a bit further down into the wood, and found this. It had been a bumblebee nest, sadly ( for the bees ) a badger had taken a fancy to it and dug it out. A solitary bumblebee was flying around, trying to get back in to the underground nest.


More ferns


Going back home


I love our wood

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

A wander in the garden...

 Ok, so it FINALLY has stopped raining , here!

So I went for a wander around, to see what everything looked like.


 First stop is a very special patch of grass next to the polytunnel...any idea what might make it so special? I will tell you later on, if you can't already guess :-)



Out into the wood,to look at the compost bins


and to let out the hens (hello, girls, )


I spotted this as I wandered around the top of the wood - an Early Purple Orchid, with Bumblebee feeding.






 I went down into the wood where it was cool and very damp - raindrops fell from the trees overhead and the Jays chattered at me.

Back up to the garden, to check on the veg patch - all very soggy! I have loads of plants waiting to be put into their final positions but it has been SO wet I have not been able to put them out - am hoping that the weather improves enough in the next few days to do something about the plant backlog




The Broad bean flowers are very pretty




And finally, back to that patch by the polytunnel - have you guessed, yet? Here is a clue.





Can you see? In the middle? 


Yes! it is our very own four ( or five, or even six) leaved clover patch. Very handy to have around before exams :-)
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