Compost Time

The unglamorous part of the garden with bits of carpet used to keep the compost covered

One of my favourite garden occupations is composting. Thirty years ago, when I moved in here, I had two wooden compost bins built cheek by jowl. The slats have gaps between them to let in air. One bin  is always being filled up while the other one matures. I empty the mature one in March and then put the top layer of the full  one into the bottom of the empty one and start filling again. I don't look at the full one for a whole year, unless I check to make sure it's not too dry. I keep both bins covered in heavy carpet or old doormat so that unwanted visitors (foxes, rats) won't be able to get in. I always get the urge to sort out the compost when I see the first daffodils appear in the garden. 

Compost  hidden by a laurel bush; the maturing side is useful for housing garden bags and cardboard in waiting

When I first started I wasn't making enough compost to cover the whole garden so I just used it to mulch  choice shrubs and special plants. However, now I am better at it and am also adding a lot of cardboard and paper (very good if you are getting online deliveries) and my wilding produces lots more growth than before so there's a good balance of 'green' and 'brown' and this year I mulched the whole garden quite generously and was able to bag up about 40litres into the bargain which I shall use when planting. I read somewhere recently that to be colonised effectively by soil-animals a compost heap should  be sited on bare soil rather than a hard surface such as concrete. So that made me feel good even if it does mean scraping out the bottom layer from among tree roots. 

The top layer of 'matured' compost is often a bit rough with bits of stick and things not fully rotted, and that's fine for mulching. The bottom third or so is quite fine and crumbly and perfect for planting, either on its own or mixed with sand or grit. 

I sometimes try to see the creatures creating this wonderful stuff. And sure enough, I have found earthworms, spiders, woodlice, earwigs, slugs, beetles, centipedes and ants. And the robin certainly knows about them too, because it always comes to snatch what it can when I remove the carpet. But, of course, mostly everything working away there is much too small to see - in fact the whole wonderful material is made up of live microorganisms and fungi, full of nitrogen, potassium and all the other nutrients the garden needs. It has crossed my mind to buy a microscope to have a look. But where would I keep it? 

I am very fussy about what I put in the compost. Absolutely no animal parts - no bones or flesh of any kind; no cooked food; no plastic. That's more difficult because cardboard is often  strapped with  sticky plastic tape, but I do strip it all off and tear the cardboard up into small pieces so it can be digested more easily. The most irritating things are those little oval labels stuck onto apples which get into the compost willy nilly and have to be picked out before mulching. I put most weeds in and if they have a bit of soil sticking to their roots, so much the better  because even that tiny amount is already full of millions of live microscopic beings which will get to work straight away.  

I never put in ivy or brambles or bindweed or anything with travelling roots as they would simply survive and flourish in my compost which doesn't get hot enough to kill them. But I do put in small branches from the yew hedge and other small prunings because the little sticks  help to aerate the heap. So the rule is, a layer of 'green' - prunings, weedings, grass cuttings etc. then a layer of 'brown' - crumpled or cut up paper or cardboard, small dry sticks,  old cotton socks,  then a layer of kitchen peelings - not too many on their own at a time because they tend to squash up together, cut out any air and get smelly.  

My method of harvesting my compost is a bit eccentric because I can't carry big buckets of the stuff around any more so I fill up large-ish plastic pots and convey them individually where they are needed. This takes time (two or three weeks to empty out all the compost)  but I'm not in a hurry and it does encourage me to look in detail at what's happening in the garden. 

Hotbin

During Covid year my sister bought a hot compost bin which seems to work well and quickly. It does need tending and feeding, but it will take small  bones and bits of meat and fish and her compost is ready in three months which seems very satisfactory to me.