COMPOSTING

Mike Burks, Managing Director, The Gardens Group

At this time of year, as we start to tidy up our gardens and get them in shape after a long tough winter, we accumulate lots of plant debris in the garden. Rather than it being a problem, such material can be placed in a compost bin and turned into something useful for the garden.

The art of composting is as old as gardening itself but it just got a whole lot more important in the overall scheme of things. The reason for this is that the way we discard waste that we each produce is causing major problems worldwide, including for our own local councils, which have major issues and costs in dealing with it. The good news for the gardener is that much of it can be composted and turned into a free soil improver too.

Improving the soil in our gardens is the key to improving the productivity and quality of our gardening. The Soil Association believe that if you look after the soil then the soil will look after your plants. A healthy soil includes creatures such as worms and woodlice, micro-organisms including bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi, as well as the nutrients and water that plants need. There is also a requirement for a good structure to the soil and the addition of a humus-based soil improver such as your own homemade garden compost is perfect for this.

So, what material can be composted? Anything biodegradable can be added but I would avoid meat products, dog waste and processed or cooked food waste from the kitchen. I like to split the material into two groups: green e.g. soft leaves, grass, weeds, some peelings and then brown e.g. leaves, prunings, newspaper, shredded hedge trimmings etc.

Green material is softer and will break down faster than brown material. Green material may have broken down in 3 months whereas brown may take up to a year. In fact the best quality compost has a mixture of both types and the more diverse the material the better the compost produced. Too much green makes the compost wet and sludgy whereas too much brown doesn’t compost.

Sometimes when one is gardening too much, only one type of material is produced. The best example of this would be grass when the lawn is being mowed. Too much grass makes for a mass in the compost heap which tends to break down without enough air, making an acidic sludge. My solution would be to save other types of compostable material to mix in and split up the layers of grass.

Sometimes we get into such a dither about composting, thinking that the compost is too wet or perhaps too dry. I think that if the mixture is diverse enough it will happily compost without too much interference. If the mixture feels dry then leave the lid off the bin for a while, if it’s too wet then cover it.

To speed up the composting process the addition of a compost activator such as Garotta may be useful. Such additives feed the bacteria that break down the compost with nitrogen. Organic gardeners sometimes use their own home-made concoctions including solutions made from Comfrey leaves!

For best results it’s good to have three compost bins; one being filled with this season’s debris, one composting with last season’s waste and the third being emptied and used in the garden. If space doesn’t allow for three, then choose a bin type where the composted material can be accessed at the bottom of the bin with new material being added to the top.

In our own garden we also have a hot bin. This is ideal for dealing with waste from the house. It is wellinsulated and has a temperature gauge on the top. As the material composts down, the temperature rises and often we find it at over 50 degrees C. This breaks down material at an astonishing rate.

We also use two types of wormeries. The first of these is in a dustbin arrangement with a false floor near the bottom which allows the liquid to drain from the compost into a sump. This liquid can be used as a simple fertiliser in the garden. Above this is where the waste to be composted is laid. The sort of material that wormeries easily deal with is kitchen waste such as vegetable peelings into which worms (usually tiger worms) work hard munching away at the plant material. As they munch away, they move upwards into the new material that is put in the bin. Once the bin is full, the top layer is put to one side whilst the compost below is used and then it’s placed back at the bottom to start all over again. thegardensgroup.co.uk

The second style of bin is a series of deep trays which are stacked on each other and filled one at a time. The worms work away from the bottom tray moving upwards as each tray is added. Once all of the trays are full, the lower trays can be emptied and the top bin is moved to the bottom to start the process again.

The compost that comes out of wormeries looks fabulous but should be used as a soil improver, not a potting compost.

So, helping the environment, reducing cost and energy usage by the council, saving money for yourself and improving your garden – can’t be bad!