A little birdhouse in my soul...

Normally I have a big project over the Easter weekend, but this year with a baby and an election, I have only really managed to repair and reposition our birdbox which had been battered by the weather (or a trespassing tree climber). I've never been that sure how much birdboxes help given the number of perfectly decent trees around, but we'll see if anyone takes up the offer.

I was devastated to hear that long tailed tits had a hard winter and their numbers are down - they're my all-time favourite bird and bring joy to my heart with their cheeky antics. So I was delighted when four flitted through the garden on Saturday. I like to think that our feeders gave them the edge over the crushing winter we had this year*.

So apart from that, I've redosed our lawn with organic food, but I haven't managed to get a full crop of compost for mulching having emptied all the heaps/containers last year. I may turn the "hedge heap" but I'm not expecting much quality compost there.

*btw not only was Jan the warmest globally on the satellite record, but Feb was second warmest on record. We just got someone else's weather.

Turning over a new leaf...

My New Year's Resolution every year is exactly the same - to live life properly. This gives me a kick up the backside every January to stop cutting corners and take the time and effort on every task. That's very fulfilling in itself - I don't buy into this "modern life is so hectic" nonsense in the meeja. If you want the time to do something then you will find the time.

So, a bit early this year, I've decided to do my composting properly. Normally I just chuck leaves into the general compost heap, but this year they're going into a dumpy bag of their own to make leaf mould. Most of the work in a compost heap is done by bacteria who need heat and oxygen through turning. Tree leaves however are broken down by fungi who work in a cooler environment and don't like being disturbed. I'm paraphrasing Carol Klein here, but, unlike her, I'm leaving some leaves to decompose in situ which should improve the ecological value of the garden by encouraging microfauna.

On my main food composter, I'm not only adding shredded brown envelopes this year, but I'm using a small pitchfork (which was in the house when we moved in) to mix the material as I go along. Already the composting is happening faster and better. I've also just insulated the worm bin to help them through the frosts.

All this compost will be used to top-dress the flower beds next year. We did this earlier this year and we've had the best display that we've had in the nine and a half years we've lived here.

Chop chop!

My arms are aching today from chopping the four large logs I've had in the back yard for about three years - they were 'rescued' from some local tree surgery. Well, I got a neighbour with a chainsaw to cut them, then I split them in four with a large axe, so they're not quite a carbon neutral fuel. If they were recently felled green wood I would leave them for a year to 'season', but these seemed to have dried out well during their wait, so I'll try them out in the new year. I should have enough wood from previous years to last until then - we only use our wood burner on really cold nights.

Also yesterday I did the final hedge trim of the year which filled up much of the compost heap. The problem now will be getting enough high nitrogen material to help the woody stems to rot - not much grass from now on in, so it will mainly be the odd widdle... I made sure that I left some parts of the hedge rough and left some leaves for the micro-fauna.

I also fixed my wormery whose tap I had managed to knock off some time ago - so little or no liquid worm food this year, although we'll still get the lovely wormcast to top dress the flower beds in the winter. Once I've made sure they've got enough food for the winter, I'll bubble wrap the container to keep the frost off.

Just another Sunday in the life of an eco-liver (or lifer!)... by the way, is it just me or are the leaves staying on the trees much longer this year?

Compost frenzy part 2

So as I mentioned in part 1, my big compost heap wasn't producing the goods. Too much privet hedge, not enough anything else, was leading to a big dry pile of privet with a trickle of really poor dried out compost from the leaves. So, I shovelled all that out, smashed up the old compost bay (which was disintegrating) and built a new robust double one out of five pallets from my dry stone wall materials, plus some wood left over from our decking. Ta daa...


The two bays mean I can fill one, tip it into the second to turn it, then fill the second. This gives better mixing, oxygenation and it is easier to tell the newer compost from the old stuff.

In the medium/long term I'm not worried about the privet imbalance as, with a lawn, I'm going to have a good source of high-nitrogen garden waste to balance out the high-carbon hedge clippings. Getting that C:N balance right is, along with moisture and oxygen, the key to composting. But in the short term, to get the old privet to rot, I mixed the privet with immature compost from my food waste bin (which you can just see to the left) plus some other soil and green waste I had lying around. If nothing else, this will retain moisture in the heap and allow the woody stems to rot. I'm still not expecting fantastic compost, but this approach has worked before.

We shall see...

Compost frenzy part 1

Easter weekend is the biggest gardening/DIY weekend of the year and I decided to spend it this year sorting out my composting arrangements.

First I had to empty the various containers - worm bin, food waste bin and garden waste bay. Chucking food scraps, envelopes and cardboard into heaps and bins and waiting for nature to do its thing is the easy bit - it is back breaking work shovelling the resulting compost out, sieving it to take out bits of plastic, and then carting it to where you need it.

You can buy sieves for compost but, before I found my proper one, I found that an old wire shopping basket does the trick nicely. This is my food waste compost - the worm bin produces much darker, richer compost (and liquid plant food), but it works on much smaller volumes. My garden waste compost was, frankly, rubbish - too much privet, not enough moisture - more on that in part 2.



I used the compost as a mulch on our front flower bed. It sets off the plants a treat and will also release nutrients into the soil, suppress weeds and retain moisture. Some say it also protects against disease.



More on the new arrangements in Part 2...

How to Make a Compost Bin in Under Two Minutes

I thought you might enjoy this quirky vid on how to make compost bins from the London Community Recycling Network. They appear to be using pallets for the sides, but I couldn't quite make out how they did the doors as this is one of the hardest parts - if you get it wrong the weight of the composting material will force the sides apart.

It's a good time to turn your heap. Yesterday I found that the envelopes I had put in my compost bin had been compressed into a hard pan, dividing the compost in two. More shredding and turning for me from now on...