IT AIN’T ROCKET SCIENCE!
Or, why aren’t you all composting like mad?
Or, why aren’t you all composting like mad?
It wasn’t until I started to grow a few vegetables in my back garden that it fully came home to me that the soil on the allotments is pretty poor. Some of the older members had made similar remarks over the years, but until I saw the amazing results in my garden I hadn’t given it much thought.
The allotment land has been worked for about a century now, and it is standard practice to add fertilisers to the soil to get a decent yield. Some plot holders add horse and cow manure (and I have seen a potato nearly as big as big as an 8 years old head come out of this land).
When we were getting skips, half of the content was ‘green’ waste – waste being the operative word! Now there are no more skips, and this same waste is being dumped, willy nilly, with bits of carpet, concrete, plastic and all sorts of other rubbish by our recycling bays, to be tidied and sorted by others, but which should be taken home by the plot holder and dumped in their black bins.
Back to my little home garden, each year a large tree dumps it’s flower tassels and leaves on it, and this has accumulated to produce a rich loamy mulch that is full of nutrients, and these nutrients gave me the best crop of onions, garlic, beans and peas I have had for many a year.
When you think about it, it all falls into place. The calculation goes like this….
Crop cabbage. Put leaves, stem and roots in skip = impoverished soil.
Crop cabbage. Put leaves, stem and roots in ground, or compost = Nutrients are returned to soil.
The commonest form of composting is also the most expensive – the compost bay. It also has to be turned regularly to produce the quickest and best results, but there are other ways.
Burying.
Dig a trench on a bit of spare land, about a foot deep, and put everything compostable** in it. When full, put back earth and dig another trench, using the soil from the second to heap on the first. Do the same again, etc.
Most of the annual spring crop of weeds can be composted in this way, even most grasses.
Bagging**
Instead of slitting and throwing away, carefully cut off the top of your compost and potting bags. They can be used year after year if kept in a shady spot.
Weeds such as horsetail, dandelion, dock, convolvolus and perennial rye grass (twitch) roots should be kept separate from the rest and placed in bags. When full, put a brick or stone on top to exclude light and tuck away in a corner of the allotment. In about a year they will have rotted completely and then you can dig them in. Diseased cabbage roots, blighted tomato plants and carrots with fly can be treated in the same way. The ‘disease’ will be eradicated by the rotting process.
Compost bays and bins We all know how these work. The more you have, the better. Good accelerators are comfrey and nettles. Soft tissue brambles are okay, but woody material should be avoided. A piece of good quality carpet (not the type that have foam backs) placed on top will exclude light and protect from dehydration (a dry heap will not rot) and also from too much rain (a sodden heap will get cold and the composting process will stall).
Don’t worry about buying in special “compost” worms. They will find the heap, plus all sorts of other creepy crawlies that thrive on decaying matter.
Last, but certainly not least….
The next time you are passing the site cabin on a Sunday, instead, pop in and we will show you our newest gadget for getting your own composting up and running.
Good gardening, and good luck.
Joan.
The allotment land has been worked for about a century now, and it is standard practice to add fertilisers to the soil to get a decent yield. Some plot holders add horse and cow manure (and I have seen a potato nearly as big as big as an 8 years old head come out of this land).
When we were getting skips, half of the content was ‘green’ waste – waste being the operative word! Now there are no more skips, and this same waste is being dumped, willy nilly, with bits of carpet, concrete, plastic and all sorts of other rubbish by our recycling bays, to be tidied and sorted by others, but which should be taken home by the plot holder and dumped in their black bins.
Back to my little home garden, each year a large tree dumps it’s flower tassels and leaves on it, and this has accumulated to produce a rich loamy mulch that is full of nutrients, and these nutrients gave me the best crop of onions, garlic, beans and peas I have had for many a year.
When you think about it, it all falls into place. The calculation goes like this….
Crop cabbage. Put leaves, stem and roots in skip = impoverished soil.
Crop cabbage. Put leaves, stem and roots in ground, or compost = Nutrients are returned to soil.
The commonest form of composting is also the most expensive – the compost bay. It also has to be turned regularly to produce the quickest and best results, but there are other ways.
Burying.
Dig a trench on a bit of spare land, about a foot deep, and put everything compostable** in it. When full, put back earth and dig another trench, using the soil from the second to heap on the first. Do the same again, etc.
Most of the annual spring crop of weeds can be composted in this way, even most grasses.
Bagging**
Instead of slitting and throwing away, carefully cut off the top of your compost and potting bags. They can be used year after year if kept in a shady spot.
Weeds such as horsetail, dandelion, dock, convolvolus and perennial rye grass (twitch) roots should be kept separate from the rest and placed in bags. When full, put a brick or stone on top to exclude light and tuck away in a corner of the allotment. In about a year they will have rotted completely and then you can dig them in. Diseased cabbage roots, blighted tomato plants and carrots with fly can be treated in the same way. The ‘disease’ will be eradicated by the rotting process.
Compost bays and bins We all know how these work. The more you have, the better. Good accelerators are comfrey and nettles. Soft tissue brambles are okay, but woody material should be avoided. A piece of good quality carpet (not the type that have foam backs) placed on top will exclude light and protect from dehydration (a dry heap will not rot) and also from too much rain (a sodden heap will get cold and the composting process will stall).
Don’t worry about buying in special “compost” worms. They will find the heap, plus all sorts of other creepy crawlies that thrive on decaying matter.
Last, but certainly not least….
The next time you are passing the site cabin on a Sunday, instead, pop in and we will show you our newest gadget for getting your own composting up and running.
Good gardening, and good luck.
Joan.