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Geoffrey Carr |
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September 2009 Let’s Talk Compost Recently
while doing a morning’s allotment work I decided to cook an egg and a nice bit of
rainbow trout for my lunch, on my compost heap. If you manage a compost heap
with a good mixture of ingredients and turn it regularly you can easily
achieve a temperature of 80 centigrade. The lunch was ready to eat after 40
minutes gently coddling in aluminium foil although I might try a different
covering material next time. Keeping
perfect time with the seasons and the ebb and flow of the gardening calendar
compost is the slowly beating heart of a garden. To achieve such timeless
bucolic bliss however takes a good dose of 21st century control
freakishness. It simply will not work efficiently if you chuck anything in
and leave it for 12 months. A well controlled heap can give usable compost
back to the soil in 6 weeks from start to finish. So,
what makes ideal ingredients for the compost heap? Dry, hard materials such
as wood chips, cardboard loo roll and kitchen roll centres, fallen leaves,
junk mail, egg shells, fire ash and waste paper. Mix these up with fresh,
soft, moist materials such as grass cuttings, veg food scraps, tea bags,
coffee grinds and plant material. Next
month I will describe how to make a really efficient composting system by
using old, non return, pallets. I will also be detailing how to really get
the most from your cooking compost heap. If
you can’t wait until next month try contacting the following organisations:-
The Community Composting Network, www.othas.org.uk/ccn,
The Composting Association, www.compost.org.uk,
Green Books, www.greenbooks.co.uk,
The Organic Organisation, www.hdra.org.uk. |
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