Green manure guidance

Phacelia, Clover, Tares, Vetch.  We all know that green manures are good for our soil, but until now it has been difficult to find good information on what types to use and how to use them.

 

To address this Garden Organic has written a forty-page guide, ‘Sort out your soil - a practical guide to green manures’, with the kind help and support of Cotswold Seeds.

The guide discusses the benefits of green manures, the different species, when to use them and how to manage them. Garden Organic has been at the forefront of researching green manures and this book is the distillation of over 50 years of research and practical experience.

You can request a copy of the guide by calling 024 76308210.  Garden Organic suggests a donation of £3 to cover postage costs

Article provided by our partners at Garden Organic

Grants given to green groups

Ten community projects across Shropshire have been awarded a share of a £20,000 from the Council to help minimise climate change.  The successful projects for 2011 are:

• Ditton Priors Parish Council – awarded £3,000 for LED streetlights.
• Wyldwoods, Broseley – awarded £500 to insulate a workshop.
• Cleobury Country – awarded £3,000 towards a mini hydro power plant.
• Shrewsbury United Reformed Church – awarded £571 for loft insulation.
• Stretton Climate Care – awarded £1,840 for community awareness activity.
• Berrington Hall – awarded £500 for forest gardening activity.
• Willowdene Training – awarded £3,000 for a demonstration renewable energy kit.
• National Trust, Attingham Park – awarded £3,000 for a weather station and bee hide.
• Transition Town Shrewsbury – awarded £1,942 for community awareness activity.
• ReaVEN – awarded £2,647 for community awareness activity.

Councillor Ann Hartley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for CO2 reduction, said:

“This fund provides an excellent way to help community groups in Shropshire looking at addressing climate change and develop some really exciting projects that are helping Shropshire to become more resilient to climate change.”

Cutting Cocaine abuse by composting

Bolivian government officials have announced plans to dry up drug traffickers' coca harvests by turning seized plants into industrial-scale fertiliser.

Its been known for years to stimulate humans but now it appears it may help to stimulate plant growth as well!

A pilot project in La Paz has transformed tonnes of illegal coca into organic fertiliser, and the results look promising.

Every year Bolivia confiscates almost 700 tonnes of illegal coca from drug traffickers. The government wants to deprive criminals of their raw material for making cocaine.  The coca leaves, when mixed with household food waste, and chicken manure, creates a very high nutrient soil improver.

Shropshire Green Fayres

Shropshire is clearly a green and pleasant land with its lakes to the north and its hills to the south, many people come here specifically for the scenery and tranquility and so in many ways understandably there is a fair amount of environmentally-minded folk in the county.   We're so lucky too to have so many ecologically minded groups from Beekeepers to Ornithologists and cycling clubs to organic cake bakers and textile recycling charities.  

Truely the big society is already alive and kicking in Shropshire.

Shropshire has also been identified nationally as a hot spot for environmental consultancies, with big names like Entec and Enviros based here and literally thousands of indivudual consultants working for hundreds of smaller companies.  We must have more Geology PhD's per head of population that some North Sea oil rigs!

So its not suprising then that there is a growing number of Green Fair events taking place around the county where all these people get together to help promote their work.  They are great for networking and meeting other like minded community groups with which to do joint projects. 

Probably the two big ones are the Shrewsbury Green Fayre which takes place on the first Saturday in July every year at the Shropshire Wildlife Trust and the Ludlow Green Fayre organised by Ludlow LA21 group which takes place each August Bank Holiday around the Castle Square in the centre of Ludlow. 

Both of these events have been running for many years now and attract in excess of 2,000 people each year. 

 

Another huge one is the Clun Green Man Festival which merges the environmental theme with ye olde english morris dancing and a traditional reinactment of the British pagan folklore about the Green Man chasing away the Ice Queen and banishing the Ice Age winter.  

Last year we went to the Wyldwoods Green Fayre which was a new one for us, at the Wyldwoods City Farm / environmental education centre in Broseley.

Another one which is a relatively recent addition to our calendar is the Wem Green Fayre which takes place on the grounds of the Thomas Adams School and is growing in popularity.

We've also attended Green Fayres in Welshampton and Oswestry in the last couple of years. 

If you know of any more, please let us know, we are always keen to attend such events and help raise the profile of home composting.  We always need more people to help out at these events too, so if you have a few spare hours on a weekend let us know.  Equally if you're area doesnt have a Green Fayre or similar type event yet, and you fancy it, lets organise one hey?

Digestate approved for organic farms

Compost and digestate derived from household food waste can now be used on organic farmland, in a move which could benefit both organic waste recycling companies and organic farmers.

The Soil Association’s certification body has just announced that it will permit the use of composts and digestates derived from household food waste on farms which it has certified as organic.

 The announcement follows a detailed review by Soil Association Certification of the risk of potential GMO contamination. The Association for Organics Recycling (AfOR), the Waste & Resources Action Programme and environmental consultancy Resource Futures were also involved in the review process.

The review concluded that the risks are currently “extremely slight” in material sourced from households – although the Soil Association Certification will continue to review risk levels on a regular basis.  The announcement is expected to benefit both organics recyclers - by opening a viable end market for their outputs - and organic farmers who will benefit from the use of nutrient-rich food waste derived compost and digestate.

Jeremy Jacobs, chairman of AfOR said: “At the moment if you are in organic farming, you can use animal manures and garden waste compost but up and until now you couldn’t use food waste or anaerobic digestate.  So this is a boon to organics farmers and it is another outlet for composters - it is a win, win situation.”

Pontesbury Gardening Association

The Pontesbury and District Gardening Association are a not-for-profit group which aims to encourage gardening in all its forms.  Based at the Trading Post on Station Road they open every Saturday morning from 9.30am to 12.00 noon, from February until November, selling garden material to members and offering advice for free.

Our very own Master Composter Rob Dixon, is the Chairman of the Society and spends many a Saturday morning offering compost advice at the club.  They also organise events and coach tours to go and look round nice gardens.  Membership costs just £2 per year or £1 for retired persons.  For this you get access to all the gardening seeds and tools which they can bulk buy to enable discounted prices for members.

They also organise an annual show on the last Saturday in August where entries are accepted from all gardeners. There is a social evening on a Thursday evening each May when anyone with an interest in gardening can come along and meet like-minded people. There are also plant sales and exhibitors of interest to gardeners; refreshments and entry is free.

The club are based at The Trading Post, Station Road, Pontesbury, Shropshire, SY2 5TZ. For more information contact the Chair and local Master Composter, Rob Dixon on 01743 791901

Lambing Live in Shropshire

Every year a dedicated band of Master Composters from the Oswestry area attend Spring Lambing Day at Walford & North Shrops College Walford's Baschurch Campus.

Its organised by Walford & North Shropshire College who as an agricultural college run an extensive farm as well. At the event you get to see real live new-born lambs – you may even see a lamb being born if you are lucky!  Along with the traditional farm animals they have like a mini zoo too! Theres over 90 species from Snakes and Chinchillas to Meerkats and Alpacas!  They also have a Dog Agility Display, Chicks Hatching, Equine Display, Climbing Wall, Face Painting, Vintage Machinery and much, much more.

The feedback from this years event was that it was another rip roaring success, glorious sunshine and a very well attended event.  For more information on the event visit their website www.wnsc.ac.uk

Shropshire Potato Days 2011

Shropshire is fast becoming a hot bed for the humble spud, thanks to some enthusiastic folk from the Shropshire Organic Gardening Society there is now an annual event every February in Nescliffe.  It attracts people from all over Shropshire and beyond who want to get their earlies in early and it not only sells over 50 different varieties of earlies, second earlies, maincrop and salad potatoes (most of which have been grown organically) but also features related activities all with a potato theme.

We normally go along and do a stall on home composting at this annual event at Nescliffe Village Hall.  Though it may be somewhat preaching to the converted its a lovely day out and even experienced gardeners find they can also learn a little bit more about home composting. 

Our very own nationally regarded potato guru and Master Composter Major (retired) Andy McQueen is also able to offer expert advice on all potato matters.

Whats really pleasing to see now though is that the event is so successful its attracting literally hundreds of people and its getting busier and bigger each year.  Increasingly as enthusiasm for growing your own spreads there is a wide range of people attending. 

And due to the success of the Nescliffe event the Shropshire Wildlife Trust have started hosting their own version at their Shrewsbury HQ each year now too.  At these events you can buy individual tubers lose, like a kid in sweet shop, its fantastic.  Shropshire Master Composter Caroline Pond (posing below with a bag of spuds) who also works at the Wildlife Trust has been heavily involved in organising this event.

Volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters went along with our home composting display boards.  It was a really nice day, though it was freezing cold !  We spoke to nearly 100 people and I reckon three times that number passed through on the day, a fantastic success.  

On the same day there was also a really well attended Potato Day event organised at the market in Wellington, Telford by the Wrekin Co-operative Allotment Society which again apparently was very well attended.

So...we now have one in the north of Shropshire, one in Telford and one in Shrewsbury right in the middle part of the county.  I reckon to cover all bases we just need to get one organised in the south of the county now... Surely Ludlow with its national reputation as a centre of food excellence would be an ideal location for such an event.  Any takers?

FareShare (Manchester)

Another brilliantly inspiring project I witnessed on the Manchester market was the FareShare scheme which takes unwanted food and distributes it to those in need from womens refuges to sure start childrens centres.

Fareshare are a national charity which runs as a franchise.  The local Northwest franchise holder is a social enterprise called Emerge which offers sustainable waste management services, including recycling collections and eco-educational services.
 

Obviously they are limited, with the amount of fresh food they can take from the market (although they do run an industrial fridge freezer and refrigerated van).  So they also hook up with the big warehouses and food producers who supply the supermarkets to take alot of their unwanted stock off their hands. 

You would be amazed with some of the stock they have though.  Literally pallet loads of whole boxes of quality street, tinned soup, long life orange juice which has years left on its date and yet isnt of sufficient quality for the mainstream supermarkets.

Part of the problem of course stems from rediculously tight specifications laid down by the supermarkets which means a slightly dented tin of Quality Street goes from being worth a fiver to actually being (in there eyes atleast) a waste product which they would pay to dispose of.

Thats where FareShare comes in and transforms waste into something useful, simply by redistributing it.  Nationally FareShare now has projects in London, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol and Manchester is now keeping 20,000 tonnes of food out of landfill every single year.

For more information on the project visit their website by clicking here. 

Fairfield In-vessel Composting site

Last year I went to Manchester to look round one of the few remaining wholesale fruit and veg markets still left in the UK.  New Smithfield Market is owned by Manchester City Council and plays an absolutely critical role in the provision of good value fruit and veg to other markets, cafes, schools, restaurants and catering outlets in the Manchester area.

Its one of those proper old-school places where if you get up at four in the morning you can go and buy fruit by the tonne at bargain prices, and after a bit of haggling, get yourself some pie and mash or a full english breakfast at the onsite greasy spoon cafe and catch up with the local traders whilst the rest of the city still sleeps.

The main reason I was interested in this site was really because of the composting operation it supports.  Because obviously where there is fruit and veg, there is lots of spoilage and waste. 

In fact they compost over 3,000 tonnes of organic matter each year.  Mainly this is food waste from the market but in order to balance this out they also throw in all the cardboard boxes and they take horticultural waste from local landscaping contractors.

The operation is run by Fairfield Composting, a non-profit making social enterprise set up for environmental objectives.  On a practical level its appears to operate much like some of the commercial scale composting operations that you will have seen before.  Incoming material is delivered to the site, where it gets screened, plastics removed, and the material is then shredded and then added into the composting vessel.

Because they are dealing with food waste the process needs to be in-vessel (to get up to the temperatures required to comply with Animal Byproduct Regulations).   The unique approach this site uses though is the Vertical Composting Unit (VCU).  This is partly down to limited space on the site. 

The VCU is contained inside a tall structure like a silo.  This holds an insulated, self-aerating chamber.  Waste is loaded into the top and the decaying matter trickles down with gravity.  For those of a technical mindset, there is a interesting description of the process on the manufacturers website here.

It takes only about 7 days to produce the initial compost (though it is then left out for open air maturation for several weeks more).   All compost produced is certified to PAS100 standard and sold to local allotments, schools and indeed back to many of the landscape gardeners who bring waste into the site. 

Best peat-free composts of 2011

William Sinclair's New Horizon and Westland's Multi-Purpose have bagged the top award in the Which? Gardening container compost trials.

 

During the trials of 21 market leading composts, both Westland Multi-Purpose and New Horizon Multi-Purpose scored 80 per cent.  Managing Director, Danny Adamson said: "New Horizon has once again confirmed its leading position in the peat-free market.

New Horizons Multi-compost also won the 2010 award last year and this contributed to a 39% increase in sales last year.  So lets hope the recognition leads to more people opting for peat-free compost and of course making their own!

Vital Earth who have an operation in Shropshire also finished strongly in the awards although they slipped from the top place in 2010 down to 5th place this year is still a stong showing.  

WHICH? TEST SCORES

1. New Horizon Multi-Purpose: 80%
2. Westland Multi-Purpose: 80% 
3. J Arthur Bowers Multi: 74%
4. Levington Multi: 74%
5. Vital Earth Multi: 74%
6. Murphy Multi: 73%
7. Vital Earth Tub/Basket: 70%
8. New Horizon Growbag: 65%
9. Shamrock Multi: 63%
10. B&Q Tub/Basket: 53%
11. J Arthur Bowers JI no. 3: 50%
12. B&Q Multi: 49%
13. Westland Earth Matters: 48%
14. B&Q Peat-Free Multi: 46%
15. Westland Multi: 43%
16. Westland Container/Basket: 39%
17. Miracle Gro Peat-Free: 28%

For more information on the trials, visit http://www.which.co.uk/

Training on offer for keen composters

People with an interest in home composting and the environment are being invited to join an exclusive club.  A free training course is being laid on that is the first step on the road to becoming one of Shropshire’s ‘Master Composters’.

The free two-day training course will take place on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th April and there are still places available.  Its being arranged by Shropshire Council with support from Veolia Environmental Services, Telford & Wrekin Council and Garden Organic.

On completion of the course volunteers will be expected to complete at least 30 hours volunteering after which they will graduate as a fully fledged ‘Master Composter’.  Master Composters help promote home composting in their communities through talks, roadshows, promotional activities and acting as community champions for waste reduction.




For more information about the training taking place this year, please contact James at Shropshire Council on 01743 255989.       

Guidance on how to use compost commercially

WRAP has just published new guidance outlining good practice for the use of quality compost across a host of building, civil engineering, landscaping and regeneration projects. The Good Practice Guide for the use of BSI PAS 100 Compost in Landscape and Regeneration is available both online and to download from the WRAP website.

Based on evidence gathered by WRAP over the last four years, the Compost Good Practice Guide provides a wealth of information, helping to strengthen confidence in this natural organic growing medium, and increase its use.

The easy to use practical guide has been written to help both new and regular users of quality compost and understand how best to use this material. It outlines the environmental and business cases for using compost, and associated savings. 

Composting shredded paper

Alot of people are concerned about ID theft and so they shred all their correspondance and bills. Of course ID theft is a very serious matter and I can understand why people would want to protect their information. But I do wonder sometimes why people spend their time shredding entire documents when its only the first page which has an address or bank number on it!

Personally I do my banking on-line so I never get bank statements, but if I ever get the odd private letter I have a pretty secure backyard system; my compost bin! I challenge any would be ID theif to fish through my mouldy teabags and rotten veg peelings to find the scrunched up phone bills if they really want to!

The Council wont collect shredded paper with the recycling because:

• Shredding paper weakens it - the fibre length decreases and so the recycled product you make from it is like toilet tissue it has no wet strength and cannot be used for newspaper
• Its hard to collect - it could cause problems at the kerbside in particular becoming windblown and creating litter and complaints
• Its hard to process - it could pose problems at the paper mill clogging up the rollers and again if blows all over the place creating litter and possible fire hazard issues

Composting documents is not only a great way to ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands though it really does help make good compost. Paper generally is a good source of Carbon for your compost heap, it breaks down really well and helps soak up excess moisture if the compost heap gets too wet.

In particular you may find if you generate alot of kitchen waste this is incredibly useful resource to help keep the compost heap balanced. 

I know a few folk who reuse their shredded paper as bedding for the kids pets such as hamsters and even when its been used that is ok to compost too. The simple rule is, so long as the pets are vegetarian then their bedding is really good to compost. You should never composting waste from carnivores like dogs muck or cat litter because of the harmful bacteria present.

New AD plant planned for mid-Wales

Ten jobs will be created and 30 jobs safeguarded after full planning permission was granted to a Mid Wales company to build a huge Anaerobic Digester (AD).  Potter Waste Management has been given permission by Powys County Council to build at the Bryn Posteg landfill site in Llanidloes near Newtown.

The site currently houses the only landfill site in Mid Wales.  They already generate some electricity on-site by drilling boreholes into the landfill and capturing the methane in the landfill gas.  The site now has full planning permission to build an AD plant which is capable of dealing with up to 30,000 tonne per annum of organic matter.

Potter Group managing director James Potter said: "The digestion plant is a major step forward in the handling of waste for Powys. “It is the perfect, environmentally friendly solution to the county’s waste disposal issues and will also create much needed new employment for the Llanidloes area.  The biomass treated will come from Mid Wales.  At present this biomass is sent outside the region for treatment elsewhere."

The site will be able to accept household food waste, commercial catering wastes, farm wastes and slaughterhouse wastes for digestion.  The methane generated will be burned in a highly efficient combined heat and power plant to generate electricity which will be exported to the national grid, and heat, which will be used to pre-treat the incoming bio-waste.

The digested "sludge cake" a compost like output will be transported off-site and will be spread on local agricultural land as a soil conditioner.  The digestate liquor could also be used as a fertiliser on agricultural land.

Vital Earth back in business

The North Shropshire commercial composting unit near Market Drayton, Vital Earth Ltd. is fully operational after back-to-back fires disrupted operations in late 2010.   The site is used to compost the mixed garden waste, food waste and cardboard collected from households wheeled bins in North and South Shropshire.   



This demonstrates the complexity and risk involved with commercial composting, the exothermic nature of the composting process means it always gets very hot.   Because this site is an enclosed (in-vessel) operation it is specifically designed to get the waste very hot (to kill of any pathogens associated with the food waste).

Over 100 tonnes of compost was destroyed in the fire which broke out in the early hours of the morning and raged throughout the night.  It required 5 fire engines from Market Drayton, Newport, Wem, Whitchurch and Telford to put the fire out so it was obviously a pretty serious incident but fortunately everything seems to be resolved now.

The main 100ft long barn where the composting operation takes place is predominantly of brick construction and so it survived the fire intact.     

Steve Harper, managing director of Vital Earth Ltd, said the fire was due to smouldering compost and was quickly put out.  We have fully cooperated with the fire brigade investigation and put in place procedures to reduce the risk of future occurances.  We are now fully operational again and accepting deliveries of compostable household waste from Shropshire households once again.

Can I compost vegetable oil?

I often get asked this question beleive it or not.

Obviously vegetable oil, or indeed olive oil, butter, or animals fats are compostable technically in that they are of biological origin and so they are biodegradable and will therefore rot down, but my response to this is generally to discourage it.

In very small quantities e.g. if you have just wiped up with a paper towel and it has a little bit of grease on it, thats fine, this can be added to your compost heap and it will break down, but I wouldnt really recommend it.

In my opinion it is not sensible to add any cooking oil to your compost heap because its messy and greasy and there is a risk that it may attracts rodents or other undesireable creatures to your compost heap. On a technical point too oil can also displace water in a small compost heap and thus slow down the composting process.

There are also better things with you can do with it.

Small quantities of cooking oil or fat that’s gone solid at room temperature can be mixed up with porridge oats or bird seed to make a high calorie fat ball which is perfect for putting out for feeding garden birds in the winter.

You can also recycle used cooking oil, any type of animal or vegetable oils just by taking them (in a sealed container) to you local Council Household Recycling Centre. The cooking oil gets collected in big 1,000 Litre tanks and then collected and refined into a green biofuel to help make renewable energy which helps reduce CO2 emissions.

When is bin day?

Do you ever lose track of when your garden waste is being collected?  If you're like me you may have had the odd "senior moment" and put your bin out on the wrong day? Have you recently moved house?  Are you unsure about bank holiday arrangements? Well to help with this Shropshire Council has recently developed a new app on its website which shows you your waste collection dates.  Just enter your postcode and it will tell you when your rubbish, garden waste and recycling is collected.  To check your dates, just click here

Grass-Boarding

Much as this sounds like an extreme sport, its actually a technique for home composting which is worth knowing about, especially if like me you have acres of lawns which are regularly trimmed.  If you have ever tried to compost just tonnes of lawn mowings on their own, you will know it can be a thankless task often resulting in just a soggy green mess.

However there is some benefit in composting grass cuttings in particular they have a very high nitrogen content.  In small amounts, they can really act like rocket fuel for your compost heap helping to kick start the process and get it hot.

So if you do generate huge amounts of cut grass to accommodate them in a normal composting set up, there is a useful technique called "grass-boarding".   This is something I was first made aware of by the wonderful garden at the Centre of Alternative Technology where they demonstrate a number of innovative techniques like this which has helped them transform an old slate quarry into a veritable garden of Eden.

It’s a really simple technique which has the added advantage that it also helps recycle any of the old cardboard you have around the house.  All you need to do is lay alternate layers of grass cuttings and cardboard, like you're making a sandwich. 

You want to try and spread the grass fairly thin roughly just an inch or two deep in each layer, and then just gently place a layer of carboard between each layer.  In this way you'll avoid it getting squashed which will make the rotting process go anaerobic. 

The compost produced by this process is excellent because its completely homogenous and weed free.  Grass cuttings inherantly contain alot of moisture so the cardboard had another useful effect in that it can stop it going soggy as it breaks down.

Master Composters help promote discount compost bins

Volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters recently took part in a photoshoot with the local paper to help raise awareness of the discount home compost bins and kitchen caddies which are available through the Council. 

You can get a bin delivered for just £19.  For more details click here

Cheap kitchen caddy liners

Shropshire Council has announced that they are running a trial selling compostable plastic bags to South Shropshire residents.  They are made from cornstarch, so they fully biodegrade within the compost-making process, and being a light green colour they are easily recognised as being the correct type by the collection crews.

The idea is to encourage more people to recycle their food waste through the Councils collection scheme by making it cleaner and more convenient.    The caddy liners have secure tie-top handles which residents have said they prefer.

The liners are available from Shropshire Council's Corve Street offices in Ludlow, the Customer First Point in Church Stretton and Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre in Craven Arms. 

They are sold in rolls of 52. Priced at £3.99 per roll.

Councillor Mike Owen, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for waste, said

“We have listened to residents requests and responded by making the kitchen caddy liners available for just £3.99 from council premises in Church Stretton, Craven Arms and Ludlow.  The liners are fully biodegradable and are accepted in both the white sacks and green wheel bins used for the collection of garden waste, cardboard and food waste in South Shropshire."

The RIDAN Composting Unit

For sites that produce alot of food waste such as commercial kitchens, cafes and schools there is a real challenge in composting such large quantities.  With regulatory barriers, rising costs of waste collection and disposal many such organisations find this is a real challenge.  Thankfully though there are several products on the market which provide solutions to deal with large quantities of kitchen waste.

One of these is the RIDAN composter, which is manufactured here in the UK on a farm in Devon.  They are a great solution because they compost in-vessel (within an enclosed container) which means the whole mixture gets really hot and humid and thus it breaks the material down very rapidly.

Unlike some of their competitors though, they have a cost and environmental advantage in that they do not require electricty to operate.  The compost gets hot on its own through microbial action and you turn it with a rotary handle to keep it well mixed and help it pass through.

What I like about these units is that they are so simple, they havent tried to overcomplicate the process and have developed a low tech solution which means there is less complex moving parts that could go wrong.  The fact that they are not electrical also means they can be kept outside which is important for sites which may be contrained in terms of space.

Obviously when you are composting that much food waste, you have to add a bit of sawdust or other carbonous material occasionally to help get the Carbon:Nitrogen ratio right.  This also absorbs a bit of moisture which helps to stop it getting too sludgy. 

All in all, its an excellent product which can help businesses to reduce their waste as well as create a valuable soil improver to use on site.  I think as landfill tax and diesel prices just keep going up and up, in the longer term we're going to see more and more of this kind of unit getting installed in the area.

So far, we have installed two in Shropshire (to my knowledge) one is at Bishops Castle Community College and the other is at the cafe/environmental education centre at Fordhall Community Farm in Market Drayton.  Feedback from both sites has been positive. 

Using compost on green roofs

Harper Adams University near Newport, Shropshire has been putting compost to good use as part of a research project into green roofs.

The study is showcasing the quality of this compost as a growing medium.  They are making use of compost made in the Vital Earth In-vessel composting facility in Shropshire.  Vital Earth make compost from household kitchen and garden waste collected from residents in North Shropshire.

For more information on the Vital Earth sponsored green roof project visit their website.

How to compost video

Volunteer Master Composters from Shropshire and Telford have got together to try and make it even easier for people to get into home composting by making this short little video about how to compost your waste. You can view the video by clicking here

Composting wood ash

I dont know about you, but after the coldest winter in 100 years, I have one heck of a lot of wood ash which I have kept back for composting.

I know some people add it direct to the soil, but I reckon its better to put it into compost bin myself as like most things it seems to work better when "matured".  Also I have found that neat wood ash is very and can be detrimental to some plant species if its applied direct.  Wood ash also helps stop the compost going too acidic.

When wood burns the remaining ash is predominantly pottasium carbonate (potash) and sodium carbonate (soda ash).  These act as valuable liming agents, raising pH, thus neutralising acid soils. So soils that are acid and low in potassium will particularly benefit from wood ash. However, acid-loving plants such as azaleas will not appreciate wood ash.  The average ash is equivalent to a 0-1-3 (N-P-K).

Potassium is essential to plant growth being an important catalyst in photosynthesis and its essential for seed formation.  So I would thoroughly recommend that you add wood ash to your compost heap as part of a healthy balanced diet along with plenty of other compostable materials like leaves, flowers, garden waste, cardboard, shredded paper, tea bags, fruit and vegetable peelings. 

I would have to add though that ash from coal fires should never be added to the soil because it will contain traces of potentially harmful substances.  Also I would suggest you protect yourself as you would if you were handling household bleach or any other strong alkaline material. Wear eye protection, gloves and a dust mask.

Tour of Oswestry Garden Waste Composting Site

As keen home composters you may not even be aware that the Council runs a garden waste collection scheme.  Personally even though I try to compost virtually everything I possibly can at home, I do find it handy on the odd occassion for some of the tougher woodier stuff and for huge cardboard boxes and things like conifer which just doesn't home compost so easily.

So out of interest some volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters went to have a look around the farm near Oswestry where some of the garden waste collected by the Council ends up.  This is run by a very nice chap; farmer Jones.  He kindly gave us a personal guided tour and explained how it all works...

First we create the waste, by mowing the lawn and doing some gardening and put the contents into our wheelie bins for the Council to collect. 

All the garden waste then gets taken to the farm and weighed on the vehicle weigh-bridge. 

The vehicle then drives round to the tipping area where the entire back of the truck lifts up and allows all the garden waste to be tipped into a big pile.



This material then gets shredded down in a massive industrial shredder to create a less coarse mixture which gets put into big pyramid shaped piles called 'Wind Rows'.

These windrows get turned regularly using a tractor to aerate them and they start to rot down and get very hot in the process.  As the picture below shows the temperature probe in the middle of heap is over 60 degrees! That probably about twice as hot as your home compost bin will get to, and thats why its such an efficient and rapid process.



After a couple of months the waste is looking much more like what you would expect compost to look like; brown and earthy.  At this point he moves the compost indoors for its final maturation period. 

Once its cooled down and stablised, it can be spread onto the farmers fields.  The resulting product is an excellent soil improver which not only looks the part but is certified to the PAS100 national composting standard. 

In fact its so good that the whole farm is now using compost only and does not need to rely on artificial fertilisers any more.

Gleanings Event 19.03.11

What can be gleaned from Gleanings?

9.30am-3pm at Gleanings, Gravels Bank nr Minsterley.

‘A day in the life of a small holder’ - learn about the abundance of produce that can be harvested from the land; with bee keeping and basket making demonstrations, goats cheese and gourmet sausage tasting.

Includes delicious fresh local lunch and a gift to take home.

To book a place call 01588 674090.

Making a compost bin from pallets

To get started

You will need to (legitimately) get your hands on 4 pallets.  You can use any scrap wood but pallets are just perfect shape and size and are normally available free if you ask nicely from the back of large stores / warehouses who are more than happy to have a free recycling collection rather than have to pay to dispose of them.

At its most basic you can literally tie the 4 pallets together with string or garden wire and you're away (see this video of how to do that) but assuming you have some basic DIY skills I've included instructions for how to make a really good job of it below.

Step 1 - Clear the ground

 Pick a nice spot in the garden and clear the area where you're going to put the compost bin and, if necessary, level the ground using a spade.  

Step 2 - Secure to the ground

 Take a pallet and stand it on its long edge to form the back edge of the compost bin. I recommend you just push a stake through the two layers of the pallet at either end, using a sledgehammer to drive them firmly into the ground - about 20-30cm deep.

Step 3 - Repeat step 2

  Position the remaining two pallets at right angles to the first to make the sides, butting the corners tightly together to stop compost spilling through the gaps. Fix in place with stakes in each corner, as in step 2.

Step 4 - Tie it up

  To keep the structure stable, wire the pallets together at each corner.  If you want to do a really tidy job, trim the tops off the stakes with a saw.

Step 5 - Make a front door

  Wire the last pallet onto the front of the right side pallet to make a "gate". You'll need to open it when you want to get to the compost - and start filling your bin with garden and kitchen waste.