Monday 24 February 2014

My Fledgling Garden

Last year I started composting. My father in law had a compost bin languishing behind his shed, and I asked if I could have it. It was one of those green plastic ones that our local council gave away a few years ago. I brought it home and then wondered just what I was going to do with it.

Compost is a natural organic material that contains important nutrients and nitrogen beneficial for the health and growth of your garden plants and vegetables. It improves the condition of the soil, and helps to retain moisture for your plants to take in and absorb. If you are gardening in earnest, making your own compost is a natural step. Much of our kitchen waste can be composted, which will provide nutrients for all the plants in your garden. These in turn will provide leaves, twigs and garden waste that can be put into the compost bin. And so the cycle continues.


And why send good composting material to land fill when it can be used to improve our own back gardens? When kitchen and garden waste goes into landfill sites, it ends up getting buried and producing methane as it rots. This damages our environment. Composting is done above ground by all the lovely worms, microbes and bacteria and no methane is produced.

When I took possession of my compost bin, I didn't know the first thing about compost. I always bought mine from the garden centre, put it into my raised beds or pots and planted my plants. I didn't give any particular thought to the compost itself. Now I wondered how to actually go about filling the bin. And with what?

Making compost is a bit like making a cake. You need the right amount of ingredients in order to make good compost, so try and aim for a 50/50 mix of 'green' and 'browns'.
Greens are important because they rot quickly and provide a moist nutrient rich material. They  include:
grass cuttings, soft plant cuttings, dead flowers, bedding plants and leaves, tea bags and leaves, vegetable and fruit peelings tops and leaves, used coffee grounds and filters, young weeds, poultry and horse or cow manure.
Browns are important because although they are slow to rot down, they provide carbon and the fibrous material which holds pockets of air. Browns include:
cardboard egg boxes, egg shells, shredded paper, cardboard tubes, cereal boxes, twigs, straw and hay, wool, vacuum cleaner contents, bonfire and barbecue ashes, bedding from pets such as rabbits and guinea pigs.
There are also items that shouldn't be put into a compost bin. They include:
cooked food, diary products, dog faeces, diseased plants.
All the above will smell as they rot down and attract rats and mice.

Looking at the above lists, there really isn't much that can't be put into the compost bin. The key is to maintain a balance of green and brown material.  For example, if your compost looks a bit dry, then add more green material. It's also worth adding your material in thin layers. If you dump a load of grass cuttings from your mower into the compost bin (as I have done), it will just become slimy. Try and mix it up with some brown material, so that it can rot down more effectively.



I was naive enough to think that I would be spreading my home grown compost around almost immediately. I should have known that the process takes time. Good compost can take up to a year to be produced. It cannot be rushed. Site your bin on bare earth, so that the worms can get up inside it. It's also a good idea to put it where it gets some sun. Most bins are hidden away in the shade, but it needs a little heat from the sun to get the process started. I have sited mine down the side of the house, next to the chicken run.

Once you have a good heap of material inside the bin, it will heat up. When it has cooled it will be time to turn it. The reason for turning it is so that it can be aerated and no slimy mass has congregated anywhere. This is not so easy in my bog standard bin. You could tip it all out, turn it and pile it all back in again. I didn't have the space for that, so I tried as best as I could with my fork. I also had a go with gloved hands, but only the one time...

I got a great deal of satisfaction in taking all my kitchen waste down to the compost bin every day. I lifted the lid and threw it all in.When we harvested the broad beans, Olly carried all the spent pods and threw them into the bin. Ditto any other garden waste. We could never resist having a peek inside. The flies that may be on the top are harmless fruit flies, but if you don't like that you could always cover the top of your compost with a bit of old carpet to stop them hanging around. I was always amazed at how it had all rotted down if we had been away for a few days camping. It didn't smell unpleasant either. Olly loved being part of the process, and although he probably isn't old enough to fully understand the mechanics of composting, he is growing up with a nod to the mindful way we try and get rid of our waste.

This weekend I proudly deposited my home made compost all over my raised vegetable beds. It was moist, crumbly stuff that smelt pleasantly of the earth. There was still a few egg shells here and there and some twiggy bits that hadn't completely rotted down. I put those back into the compost bin, ready to start the process all over again. I cannot tell you how proud I was of my first batch of home made compost.

Leanne xx



14 comments:

  1. Ah yes, lovely, lovely compost. I love seeing it all disappear down into the bin too. One day it's nearly at the top, a few days later the bin is only half full - it's a little miracle. I'm waiting for a drier spell to spread mine over the garden. Have you every posted about your chickens Leanne? I'd love to have a peek, as it's something me and my biggest boy would like to do one day. Well, today actually, but that's not very likely, so maybe one day. Hope you had a good half term. CJ xx

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    1. Hey CJ,

      I did do a chicken post last year sometime http://todaysstuff-leanne.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/keeping-chickens.html

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  2. We have a compost pile in the garden. I didn't realise vacuum cleaner fluff can be added, good idea, there is always lots of that stuff ( must remember to remove the lego bits and other plastic pieces). I don't do any of the compost turning but I like it when Richard spreads it out in the spring. I can't wait to use this years compost for the flowers that I am trying to grow. Must get on with sewing the seeds actually. We also have a cooked food waste collection here and as a result we have hardly any landfill waste. Our wheelie bin always looks good next to the neighbours' that is spilling over with ridiculous amount of rubbish. I am a bit of a recycling/composting warrior actually.... Cx

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  3. Well done you Leanne!! I am sure that your vegetable beds will appreciate your composting efforts! xx

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  4. We've been talking about composting for awhile now. I need to get a barrel to really do it right, but we try to save scraps of veggies now. I think this is a great idea. Our soil is so poor here I'll do just about anything to improve it. Thank you for sharing your experiences with composting; as always, I learned a great deal.

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  5. You should meet my Dad ... he is the king of compost and will debate the finer points of what not to add and when best to turn and so forth with anyone prepared to listen. His is a proper old fashioned bin with what I think are called rising sides, where you slot more planks in as the bin fills up. And he's been known to keep a separate compost bin to grow tomatoes in!

    I can just imagine your glee as you spread your first home made batch around :)

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  6. Well done, your beds will definately appreciate the nutrients.
    luv
    irene
    xxxx

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  7. It is difficult to get the balance right, I still struggle, gold star!

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  8. Our compost too is very hit and miss , well done for making some good compost! Sarah x

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  9. This is genuinely fascinating! I think this might be my favourite post in your series so far. I knew about the "greens" but had no idea you could put cardboard or the contents of your vacuum cleaner or even yarn scraps into compost. I don't make my own and feel eternally guilty, I really should. You make it sound so easy. What did it look like? Was it the dark brown colour the stuff from the garden centre is? x

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    1. Hey Gillian,

      It really was very similar to the garden centre compost. I couldn't believe it!!

      Leanne xx

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  10. thats brilliant! I got a huge compost bin for free from the council yars ago and began to compost but then we moved and i left it there! we still rent the house out and i was sad to see its been broken into pieces by old tenants! come on council give some free bins again please i have been inspired by my friend with the friggin awesome looking blog! great blog makeover although i miss that crazy big closeup of your face! you really should come link with annie at mamasuarus if you haven't already, xxxxxxx

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  11. We are all for composting here and we have a few bins on the go at once, so they can properly mature. I also love my wormery that I have had for over 10 years now and it is still going strong! I have just spoken to my friend last week about my wishlist for a hotbin as they are amazing! xoxo

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  12. Hi Leanne, Christina left a link on my blog to this post, thank you Christina. I am doing my first compost bin this year and your post is very helpful. How satisfying it must be to use your first batch of compost in your own garden, well done. Your list of 'greens' and 'browns' have certainly pointed me in the right direction. I am using a dustbin that is no longer in use for anything else, it's in the shed doing nothing. I have asked my boyfriend to drill some holes in it and then I can get started ... who knows maybe I will become an eco warrior like Christina lol.

    I have a 'my garden' tab on my blog where I will be posting my progress with my small garden this year.

    linda-dawn-designs.blogspot.co.uk

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