Unleash the magic of compost making
When you hear the word compost, what's the first thought that pops into your head?
Smelly mess? Breeding ground for vermin? Too much like hard work?
These are all common compost myths.
True, your vegetable scraps and used cardboard won't turn into rich brown soil overnight, but with a little effort you can recycle your organic waste and use it to make those summer hanging baskets grow beautifully.
Composting expert Carl Nichols, from Recycle Now, said: "Composting is so easy. All you need is a good mixture of ingredients. By that I mean green nitrogen products like vegetable peelings, fruit skins and tea bags, and then drier materials like toilet roll tubes, cereal boxes and shredded paper.
"Then you sit back and six months later you have compost. But the secret is really in the mixture."
Eco-chef Arthur Potts Dawson aims to run the greenest restaurant in London.
He recycles as much as 80 per cent of his waste, composts and grows herbs, runner beans and tomatoes on the restaurant's rooftop terrace, where there's also a wormery.
"Composting is one of the easiest and most fulfilling things you can do to help the environment, but many people are unaware of the impact it can have or think it is too complicated to do," said Mr Potts Dawson.
"At Acorn House we compost all our suitable waste on site and use the compost we make to grow herbs and other vegetables to serve in the restaurant."
While the chef might have a whole roof terrace on which to cultivate his compost, even a small space can accommodate a compost bin, said Mr Nichols. "If you've got even a small terrace you can compost using a wormery or a small compost bin. And you won't have mountains of compost to deal with either. What you put in is not what you get out in volume terms, as it will reduce to about a third and you can then use that in potting plants or hanging baskets."
Common composting pitfalls are:
The compost is too wet. If that is the case you're not putting in enough dry stuff such as cardboard, shredded paper or dry leaves.
If your is compost is too dry it is because you are not adding enough green material such as grass clippings and veg peelings.
If your compost smells it is because there is too much grass in the mix. Cooked foods can also smell and shouldn't be added.
If you're a lazy gardener, you can wait six to eight months to see compost but if you want to speed up the process mix it with a garden fork to aerate it a bit, or add natural accelerators like nettles or comfrey.
People in England throw away a staggering four million tonnes of waste each year that could have been composted. By chucking eggshells and vegetable peelings, and even the contents of the vacuum bag, into a bin separate from the rubbish, we could save an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions every year. Learn more online at www.recyclenow.com/compost.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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