Composting

This blog entry is all about composting. It is much on my mind at the moment.

In the last few years a new initiative has been introduced in our district whereby everyone has a green bin.

The idea is that you fill it with any garden waste and it gets taken away once a fortnight.

 There are rules about what goes in....nothing with a diameter over one inch and nothing with soil on.

As you can imagine a garden the size of ours produces far more waste than this at certain times of the year.

In the past we have managed our garden waste very well with four compost heaps side by side.

Looking a bit full at the moment .....

Every now and then we have a bonfire at the bottom of our garden (after 6 p.m) to get rid of waste which cannot be composted or cannot go in the bin because it is full..... rose prunings and old matted roots etc.

There is much talk in the village about nuisance bonfires....people lighting them during sunny days and forcing others indoors and spoiling their washing days.

One of the best purchases we ever made was a shredder. So far in our gardening lives we`ve had three shredders. This one is by far the best as it never gets clogged up (touch wood) It is light and easily managed.

It`s a Bosch. 

There is nothing quite as satisfying as pruning a shrub and immediately reducing it to shreds. It takes up a lot less space too. The great thing about this shredder is that it will take softer material.  

In the autumn we usually put up a temporary wire netting bin. 

Later this is used for leaf collection using a garden leaf sucker. 

Being surrounded by woodland we get rather a lot.

This rots down in plastic sacks and is perfect for our camellias as a feed and mulch.

Our home compost is not perfect by any means. We are not the type of gardeners who religiously turn the compost. This is too much work. But it seems to do well enough and rots down in about six months to a rich dark brown soil. Steve often sieves it and we use that for our containers. 

The rest goes straight onto the garden.

It sometimes retains seeds but this makes for very interesting finds which I pot up 

and sell at our garden openings.

On the whole our composting is in control but I do get a little agitated when the bonfire pile gets too high or too wet.....or if my gardening habits are dictated by how full the green bin is.

Back to the crafts.....

My latest little mouse. He`s called Morris and I found the pattern free on Pinterest.

I don`t follow crochet patterns that well and have to really concentrate.

This one is for my great-nephew Aiden.