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?

Belated Awareness of Compost...

Having now found out it was Compost Awareness Week in the UK, I thought I'd better go out and have a look at how my heaps were progressing. My compost area as three bins and at the minute, they're looking like:

OK, so it's not strictly composting, but my worm bin is definitely producing the best final product. On the other hand I'm having a bit of trouble keeping my worm population up, leading to a rather sedate production rate. I think it's because I'm not applying anti-acid as freqently as I should. During the summer I use the worm juice from the sump as plant food, during the winter I put it on my other heaps.

If you want more details on the worm bin, check out my review.

This is my main compost bin. I emptied it almost completely last year so the current compost is immature. I put most of our food waste plus brown envelopes, kitchen roll, paper bags and small shredded cardboard boxes in here. I'm not too fussy as I'm interested to see what rots and what doesn't. From the look of things I'll have to give it a good mix this weekend.

These bins are very good if you have a small garden as they keep everything neat and tidy.

This is the bad boy of my compost system. We have lots of privet hedge which doesn't compost very well, so I bung it in here with all the garden waste, plus worm juice and, erm, wee. Basically I just let it take its time and see what comes out.

The main area of our garden is currently a building site following our home improvements, but when it is finished we'll have a bigger lawn and therefore plenty of grass clippings. I live in hope that the mixture of 'hot rotting' grass and the slower, woody privet will then provide the perfect mix for this heap.

You've probably guessed that I made it myself! This is the cheapest way to compost - all you need is one or two 1m x 1m x 1m containers made out of scrap wood or pallets. It used to be a twin bay system so I could turn one side into the other. Unfortunately half of it had to go to fit some scaffolding in during the work on the house. Looks like I've got another project on my hands...

BTW: the type of compost you produce in the garden is strictly speaking a 'soil improver' which will help with the structure of the soil, retain moisture and provide some plant food. It can't be compared with garden centre 'composts' which have additions of chemicals (N, P & K) to boost plant growth.