Garden And Gardener

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Archive for the 'Composting' Category

Making compost

Thursday, November 26th, 2015

This video claims to make compost in four weeks.
When you watch it you realise he’s only putting a small proportion of compostable materials in with lots of other stuff – he builds a good worm environment which breaks the small amount of matter down fairly quickly.
I think the chopping he does is a good idea. I think the mixing with some real soil is useful – it’s full of bacteria and worms. And watering it with diluted urine is a good idea – it’s a great activator. All those additives – including spent mushroom compost, dried shredded seaweed, well rotted manure, worm castsm, etc etc – they’re already composted and you don’t need to add all those – you could be using those straight away and not worrying about what the worms are doing so much in your compost bin. He also says about not composting onions and citrus – which I disagree with, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard this. He says something about the worms trying to climb out of the bin because of it. Surely worms would go down through the ground rather than up?
Anyway it’s interesting to watch and might encourage you to finely chop your garden waste PLUS you get to see his secret muck heap which is amazing. I’d like to go picnic there too!

Make garden compost fast

Friday, August 14th, 2015

I’ve started a blog called Make Garden Compost fast. It features information about composting and my collection of photos of compost bins. Yes, it’s another strange hobby to have but I love looking at people’s compost bins and see how they’ve made them and how well their compost is doing.
If you’d like to share your photos of your compost bins with me then please do!

Di Drinkwater

Compost tumbler

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

I’m buying one of these for the allotment. The Compost Tumbler Dual Chamber is a dual compartment tumbler.

I have seen much more expensive versions of compost tumblers and whilst I would have loved one I have opted for this which is a much more sensible price to be paying. It’s a quarter of the price of the dearer one!

The idea is you load it up with compost and turn it every day and this speeds up the compost process. You have to ensure a good balance of compost material – balancing greens and browns is essential. And balance the wetness – adding sawdust or wood pellets to soak up excess liquid is something you can do.
The idea is that the perfect balance of materials will be turned together and this will rapidly make good compost.
I’ll let you know when it arrives!

At Amazon its £84.99 and at Argos the Tumbling comoster AID- DO NOT CHANGE is £79.99 with free delivery!

They do have a good range of compost bins at Amazon

Wormery kits from Original Organics

Monday, May 13th, 2013

I’ve never had a wormery but its so tempting!


The Original Wormery Deluxe Kit
 £89.95
The Deluxe Original Wormery Kit including an Original Wormery, Wormery stand. compost caddy, insulation jacket and composting with worms book!

The Tiger Wormery (3-Tray) Black Deluxe Kit
 £76.95
Our brand new, improved, multi-tray Wormery, with TIGER (worm) POWER!

The Tiger Wormery (4-Tray) Black
 £72.95
Our brand new, improved, multi-tray Wormery, with TIGER (worm) POWER!

The Tiger Wormery (3-Tray) Black
 £64.95
Our brand new, improved, multi-tray Wormery, with TIGER (worm) POWER!

The Original Wormery with Stand
 £59.95
Our excellent Original Wormery complete with a stand to allow easy access to the tap.

The Tiger Wormery Pet Poo Loo
 £57.90
The Tiger Wormery Pet Poo Loo is a great way to turn pet poo into great worm castings (compost) and a liquid fertiliser for your garden.

The Original Wormery
 £52.95
The Original Wormery is our best selling all-in-one Wormery and was the very first commercially available Wormery – invented nearly 20 years ago by our MD, Clive Roberts.

The Midi Wormery
 £42.95
The Midi Wormery is the smaller sister of our bestselling Original Wormery, and slightly larger than our Junior Wormery. The middle of our range of Wormeries, The Midi Wormery is ideal for locations where space is limited – and also fits neatly into many kitchen cupboards! The Midi Wormery operates in a similar way to both the Junior Wormery and our Original Wormery, through an internal drainage system.

Green Johanna Hot Composter

Monday, May 13th, 2013

Green Johanna Hot Composter
 £109.95
The Green Johanna was developed in Sweden to provide a simple, easy to use compost system to safely compost all degradable kitchen waste all year round!The well thought out, patented design of Green Johanna means you do not have to know much about composting – with Green Johanna everyone can compost now!Green Johanna can compost two parts food waste to one part garden waste. All food waste including meat, fish and bones can be put in Green Johanna.
Includes1 x Mixing Stick4 x Outer Rings1 x Lid1 x Base2 x Doors1 x Bag of Fixing Screws1 X Instruction Manual

Food waste compostingTo fully appreciate Green Johannas design it helps to consider what is necessary to recycle waste the way nature does. Every year the same natural cycle occurs; leaves, twigs and trees fall to earth, decompose and become food for new plants.Naturally occurring micro-organisms, bugs and worms, together with oxygen and moisture do all the work. In the process heat is produced.Some very valuable micro-organisms work at temperatures as high as 65C (150F)! This is hot composting, oxygen in the air is critical to the process.
Dimensions
Height 94 cm
Diameter of lid 54 cm
Diameter of base 82 cm
Weight 9.5 kg (10 kg with box)
Volume 11.4 cu ft/330 litre

Learn how to compost – York

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

Part of the York Rotters activities for Compost week – a free how to compost session – learn how to set up a comost bin, the basics and also how to compost cooked food waste.

Free Compost South Gloucestershire

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

Free compost offer in South Gloucestershire – 22,000 litres of compost to local communities and gardeners on Merlin’s assisted gardening scheme. Community groups will also be able to apply for funding for any horticultural projects they are running.

Free compost bins at Anglesey

Monday, May 6th, 2013

In Wales, the Isle of Anglesey County Council will be offering free compost bins at Holyhead market (13 May from 9.30am).

Other composting events
Further events will take place in Caerphilly and Carmarthenshire, with a composting session for teachers taking place at the National Botanic Garden, Llanarthne (9 May).

A number of events have been set up across Oxfordshire, with the Groundwork Oxfordshire Green Schools scheduled to visit Long Furlong Primary School in Abingdon and Freeland Primary School in Witney, where children will learn about and perform their own experiments with compost.

Volunteers from Oxfordshire’s Master Composter team are set to be very active across the county, giving a talk at Millets Farm Garden Centre, near Abingdon and assisting at Cherwell District Council’s compost giveaway.

Recycle your Christmas Tree

Thursday, January 10th, 2013
Recycle your Christmas Tree

greater manchester options for recycling christmas trees

The leaves are starting to turn

Friday, October 5th, 2012

It’s autumn and leaves are starting to change colour here. Soon they’ll be falling and then is the time to rake them all up. Get as many as you can. If you only have a few then a great technique is to empty them on to the lawn and mow them up. Empty the resulting grass/leaf mix into bags and leave to break down. Otherwise pile them into a heap or black bags and leave to rot down. Leaves take a while to break down so it’s not quick but it is a good organic material that’s worth collecting.
You can pile them thickly on the soil as a mulch.
Leafmold is a great soil covering for winter. The worms will pull it down into the soil where it will enrich the soil and create a better soil structure. it’s especially good for next years carrot and parnsip bed. This is because it encourages a very fine tilth which root vegetables need to grow well.
If you can ever find piles of old leaf mould you’ll discover just how amazing the stuff is. It’s like the best compost soil you’ll ever find. It’s great for growing all sorts of vegetables in. I managed to fill a couple of raised beds with it this year and have grown amazing onions, leeks, and spring onions. It’s given me great sized veggies too and they’ve grown better than ones in the ground!

If you are a kind neighbour then you might also find it’s good to rake up neighbours paths and drives if they are covered in leaves. This will provide you with extra leaves to rot down for next year. A quiet word with your other neighbours might get you bags of leaves dropped off.
You can’t have too much leaf mould. It’s fantastic stuff. Apply generously everywhere as a mulch if you have lots of it. Otherwise apply to a few places in a good layer.
You can compost leaves by having a leaf pile, a leaf wire bin, stuffing them in black bin bags, or by chopping with grass and leaving in bin bags again. Any of these techniques can be used – the mixing with grass cuttings with a mower should be the quickest way to something very usable though.