Having moved to a new house with a much bigger garden recently, I decided that it was time to upgrade our composting capacity.
Before we moved here we were using one of those plastic drums that they sell in garden centres and this served us well at our old place, a terrace house in Coventry with a 200 sq ft garden. We could produce just about enough compost to cover the veg patch.
Now we’re dealing with a 10,000 sq ft space so we need barrow loads of the stuff!
The first questions I asked myself when considering the new heap were
1: Where to put it and
2: What to build it from
With lots of land to choose from, I realised that I needed to prioritise other spaces ahead of the heap, especially where I was going to put the growing plots, where I would make the chicken run and where I would position the wild flowers to name a few. What I’m getting at is that a holistic approach is required when deciding on things within the garden and it’s not easy to make a snap shot decision. You have to put everything in your pipe and smoke it before you can make the best move. So I mulled and I mulled, I would walk out into the garden with a nice cup of tea or two and just wonder about and observe. I would follow the sun during the day to see which areas it was shining on and at what times. I would take into account what was already growing in the garden – the things that I knew about anyway having only been here 6 months. Ideally I should have watched for a whole year before making any decisions but how could I wait! I would just look at the space and try and envisage it under different scenarios to see if it would be aesthetically pleasing. Some nights I even went out with the torch to wonder around….you have to grab those creative moments when they come about! I would observe the soil by digging and testing for quality and type (Filling a jar a fifth of the way up with soil and the rest with water, a pinch of salt to speed up the settling process, a shake for 5 minutes and then rest. The different constituents settle on levels so that you can see if you have a sandy soil, a loam or clay.). Google soil testing with jar for more info.
The spot I decided on was a strip of land about 4 x 1 metres, alongside a row of conifers. The reason I chose this spot was that the soil was not great – buried underneath was all sorts of rubbish from work on the property about 50 years ago. The roots of the conifers would also make it difficult to cultivate so close to them without competition for nutrients and water. I would also risk damaging the conifer root system.
The bonus for the heap is that it’s in a south facing spot and although you might think that there’s a lot here, there isn’t because of the many trees on and around the land. So the heap actually has a prime spot and will get a nice bit of heat during the day which should speed up the processing nicely.
The next question was what to make the heap from. I’m striving for a natural look in the garden so using wood was top of the list of materials.. So me being me, a recycling enthusiast, I thought to myself where can I get some free wood to knock together this structure? Well it just so happens, there are some ready made materials out there for everyone interested in organic gardening and they’re free – pallets! The great thing about pallets is that most businesses that have them want them gone, they’re the perfect size to make a heap from, they’re not treated with any chemicals so no leaching into the compost, they look pretty natural and better still they’re ready made!
So I set my mind on some pallets and before I knew it, I was driving along and there they were. I opened the boot of the Volvo and think I got 3 in, so 2 trips required but well worth the diesel (soon to be bio)!
To set up the compost area, I just laid a row of pallets along as the back wall, holding them together with a couple of screws. Then I added side panels in the same way at a pallet’s width intervals.
I then screwed some pallets to the front and got some scraps of wooden sheeting for the roof.
Job done! It’s important to cover the heap with a roof otherwise the rain will wash away all the nutrients. It also keeps the heat and moisture in.
Tom's impressive new bins!
Next for the compost making.
We inherited a full plastic compost bin at the new house and I actually transported the one from our old house, full, in the back of the Volvo….keen or what!
On opening them up, I realised that there was still a lot of uncomposted material inside – the perfect starter for the new heaps!
Partially composted material
And things were to get better. There were some sheep in the field at the back of our new house and they were being fed on straw. Once the tups(rams) had done their job, it was time for the girls to go indoors for lambing. This meant that there was a lot of straw feed laid out to waste. Before I could speak with him, the farmer had put the straw on top of a pile of hawthorn branches from the cutting and laying of our hedge. This was to go up in flames for our house warming.
In the eyes of the composter, this straw was like a big lump of gold there, ready for the taking! So I put the wheelbarrow in the field and managed to find a hay fork at the car boot for £3. Next I wheeled as many barrow loads of the stuff as I could to the fence and forked it over into the garden. Here is a pic of our two boys and the work in progress:
Everyone gets involved!
Next I just layered it up: existing compost, straw, a little chicken manure, water, a hand full of garden soil and built it up making sure I put on about 5 times more straw to other. The straw makes up the carbon requirement for the heap and is great for structure. You can use any brown material really but certain things break down more quickly than others. I remember being told once that if you break the stick and it has a hollow centre, it’s good for the heap. Shredding helps other brown material break down more quickly. Cardboard is great, torn and crumpled up. If you can’t get used straw (try asking at farms), you can actually buy bales for as little as £2 and they go a very long way once they’re out of the string.
I think that’s about it other than to show off my spent chicken straw hide at the back of the garden…..a mulch destined for the orchard on a warm day this Spring!
The spent chicken straw heap
Happy composting.
0 comments:
Post a Comment