Compost Heaps

Autumn is a good time to begin composting, keeping in mind the older it becomes the better it will be, whether your using up last year's compost around the garden or repairing any damage that may have occurred to your compost area, now is a good time to start preparing for next year. 

There are many different compost areas available for purchase from various sources garden centres etc, from plastic squares or hexagons, with interlocking sides that have holes in.

Ideally, should  not be placed in view from the areas you are going to sit and enjoy looking at the garden from.

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You could make your own.  You can use old wooden pallets up on end to create the sides and simply nail them or screw them together.  It is important to line the sides with a membrane, before filling it with compost.

Find a suitable area in your garden to construct it, ideally somewhere you can get to every day of the year, but not necessarily in sight.

When you have chosen the site, you need to dig a hole, just short of the width of the pallets and about 12 inches deep.

So when you throw your first lot of vegetable peelings, collected leaves and grass clippings, it will already be below ground.

By creating a hole first, this enables the compost to break down much faster, as you add to it during the year.

In Victorian days, the gardeners would use this method and then grow rhubarb in an adjacent plot, to the compost heap and this would enhance the ground, around it dramatically.

The success to a good compost heaps is not to put too much of one thing in at once, so you in fact build it up in layers, this method results in a much better break down of the raw ingredients.

So if you are mowing and you have too much grass, then it is best to put a 5 inch layer in and then a layer of something else, before the next 5 inches of grass can go on top.

If you get masses and masses and masses of leaves in the autumn, is probably best to build a separate leaf heap.

Shredded paper, sawdust, wood shavings, old wetted newspaper (Not glossy magazines), cold ashes, vegetable waste,tea leaves,tea bags,coffee powder, annual weeds, grass cuttings, woody plant material (finely cut up), leaves, spent flower heads, old cut flowers, the odd spadeful of soil, sweepings from pathways, etc. can all go in to make good compost.  If you have pets for example you could clear the old straw or remains from the hut, cage and put into compost heap.

If you have a lot of leaves, put your lawn mower on a high setting and collect the leaves into the grass bag and place shredded leaves onto the compost heap.

It is important not to put in perennial weeds, such as dandelion, couch grass, convolvulus etc or food waste as the roots will survive and then you will be digging that back in, in the autumn.

If you use a compost bin, you can still use the same method of a hole, underneath it.

It is important that all of us compost what we can as it is a form of recycling.

If you have masses and masses of leaves start a second compost heap just for leaves and create great leaf mold for the following year, it can be used for planting and mulching.

Go for it, why not build your own composting area today!!