Garden Compost
Making your own garden compost is very exciting and rewarding. Homemade garden compost is the most environmentally friendly way of using both garden and kitchen waste. But you must NEVER put any cooked food in as this will smell and attract rodents.
Making good mature homemade compost is rather like a bran tub, you only get out of it what you put in. The result will become a rich bounty of good natural compost and manures that will provide a satisfactory feast for woodlice, worms, micro-organisms, bacteria and fungi. Garden compost improves moisture retention and soil aeration. Use it to top dress or mulch your existing plants after thoroughly watering to conserve moisture. It is also worth remembering that all homemade compost must be sterilised to create a bacteria free growing medium in which there are no extraneous seeds if you are going to use it for seed propagation. To sterilise compost, fill a bucket with sieved compost and pour over enough boiling water to saturate all the soil, when cool allow the water to drain off and dry thoroughly in shallow trays or boxes.
Grass clippings will provide the necessary heat and moisture, pruning’s however, will provide carbon and help to aerate the heap. Household vegetables, peelings, fruit, spent flowers, crushed eggshells, teabags and coffee grounds are all vital ingredients. You can also add well-rotted stable manure as this will help to quickly bring in the insects and worms to start decomposition of the heap. Composted bark, seaweed and fallen leaves of which elm, oak and beech are the best, but also eluvium (riverbed) soil and maiden soil gathered from molehills can also be brought into play.
Making a separate compost area and sprinkling it with horticultural lime will sterilise the heap but this must be then left for a whole season before it can be used. However, if you grow plants needing an acidic soil like Rhododendrons, Camelias, Azaleas, and some types of heather, it would be better to omit the manure and compost this separately as this medium breaks down more slowly. This material is low in nutrients and is very well suited to acidic plants. It is worth mentioning here that summer and autumn heathers don’t need an acid soil but will tolerate a neutral sandy soil. Pine, fir and evergreen clippings should be omitted from your compost heap as this takes many years to decompose.
Unsterilised compost contains many weeds which can harm in a much more subtle way than by stealing its food and essential minerals, for weeds may harbour all kinds of pests and diseases which can spread and greatly affect all kinds of crops. Please remember that compost heaps especially the open kind, are a favourite for many friendly predators such as frogs, toads and slow worms, (legless lizards), a frequent visitor to mine is Spike, a hedgehog I raised from a tiny baby many years ago, who still comes to our garden to eat the slugs and snails, so please be mindful of these friendly creatures.
Place your compost container in a semi-shaded area, blending it into your garden setting. Compost containers come in all shapes and sizes; some are plastic, some wood and with a little creativity and basic DIY skills you can create your own compost container from pallets cobbled together in a disused area of the garden. I use an old, discarded beehive which blends beautifully within the flower border.
To speed up the process a small electric garden chipping machine is a valuable asset for the small home composter as this makes short work of your garden waste. No more trips to the council tip or topping up your green bin, why waste this valuable, rich, natural resource. Go green, help the environment, it’s extremely rewarding, and your plants will love you for it. Happy composting!
