the results, this book will help you to work out what you need to do to achieve your aims.
Composting need not involve much work. Heap suitable materials into a compost bin and let nature do the rest.
Compost is such wonderful stuff that it is often referred to as “black gold.”
There is a chapter on composting containers and where to put them, a chapter devoted to worm composting, and one on other techniques and treatments with full instructions on how to proceed. There is also a chapter focused on the helpful creatures that live in your compost and how they do their work.
“Can I compost it?” is a frequently asked question. At the heart of this book is an invaluable chart to refer to when you are unsure if a particular item is suitable for composting. This list might also encourage you to compost and recycle items that you might not have thought of before (see “What can I compost” here).
Making compost, leaf mold and so on should not be an end in itself. The recycling process is only really complete when the product is put back on to the soil (or into your pots and containers), and the plant foods it contains are used again by growing plants. This book also includes advice on how to make best use of the products you have made.
A handful of worm compost will pep up a hanging basket.
GARDEN ORGANIC
This book has been written by a team of experts at Garden Organic, the UK’s charity for organic gardening. The organization, founded as the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) by Lawrence D. Hills, has been promoting organic gardening in homes, communities and schools since the 1950s.
Compost-making is at the heart of organic gardening, where the aim is to minimize the need to use outside resources and materials, and reduce the risk of polluting the wider environment. Developing biodiversity in the garden is also a key feature of organic gardening. Treating the soil with compost helps to increase biodiversity in the soil, which helps to maintain soil health. It has even been shown to help plants resist some pests and diseases. No surprise then that Garden Organic has been promoting composting for over 60 years. The charity works with individuals, communities, schools and care providers, helping them with practical advice on how to develop gardening projects and grow organically. We also house the Heritage Seed Library. This collection conserves rare vegetable varieties that are no longer commercially available. To support the charity or become a member visit www.gardenorganic.org.uk.
Garden Organic has been a major player in the modernization of home composting. Its work – giving advice and training advisors – has helped thousands of people make compost successfully. Garden Organic also established the Composting Association for large and industrial-scale composting. Now an independent organization, the Organics Recycling Group works with the huge industry that composting has become.
The biodynamic garden at Ryton Gardens.
The Cook’s Garden at Ryton Gardens grows an amazing array of decorative and edible plants.
An overview of Ryton Gardens – demonstration organic gardens in Warwickshire.
People have been making compost, in some form or another, for thousands of years. But in fact what they have really been doing is simply replicating, in a rather more organized form, what nature has been doing for a great deal longer. You only have to “kick” your way across a woodland floor to see the quality of nature’s compost! So, composting is a process that is as old as time, but it is also totally up-to-date, ticking all the boxes for a sustainable, twenty-first century lifestyle.
COMPOSTING FOR GROWING
A plant takes up minerals from the soil as it grows. When it dies it decays and is taken back into the soil by worms and other creatures. The same happens to animals. This is how nature recycles nutrients, so the land continues to be productive. Until the advent of “artificial,” man-made fertilizers around 60 years ago, this was also the way gardeners and farmers kept their land fertile. Then the majority abandoned recycling and compost-making in favour of the “granules from the bag.” Of course, the plant and animal wastes that had once been recycled in farms and gardens had to be disposed of somehow. Burning and dumping waste in landfill sites were two popular options – both with environmental drawbacks.
This became the common practice, apart from those committed to organic farming and gardening. Lawrence D. Hills, founder of Garden Organic, was one of those who were not convinced that the “chemical” road was the one to follow for long-term sustainability. In the twenty-first century, his fears appear to have been well founded.
Every part of the garden will benefit from the addition of compost.
Worms will work their way through a huge variety of compostable waste, turning it into a valuable resource.
COMPOST AS WASTE DISPOSAL
In the 1990s a number of apparently disparate issues came together – and the result was compost! Environmentalists called for strategies for waste minimization and recycling, proposing a target of 25 percent for household waste recycling by the year 2000. Local authorities realized that recycling bottles, paper and other items alone could not meet this target. They began to consider how to deal with the “putrescible” fraction of the waste (items such as kitchen and garden waste that can rot and smell), which made up around 30–40 percent of the contents of the average garbage can at that time. One relatively low-cost partial solution to the problem was home composting. Since then composting has become a recognized method of waste disposal.
At that time Garden Organic was one of the main sources of practical advice on home composting. It set up a local authority membership scheme to deal with the flood of enquiries. Other organizations helped localities minimize waste and make best use of resources. Home composting programs enabled local authorities to encourage home composting, in particular offering low-cost compost bins to householders.
EDUCATION AND SUPPORT
It became clear that more education and support was needed if the local residents were to compost
