As Compost Awareness Week comes to an end, I thought I'd take the opportunity to partake in a spot of awareness-raising of my own ....and well...show you some of my compost.
And here's a closer look....starting with the new bed I planted up this afternoon with some fantastic soil improver, courtesy of three chickens who love to poop and a compost bin called Plastic Dev that can take it! After a year of breaking down, it's lost all its fragrance and simply looks like good quality compost, which I mixed with earth from the garden and spread onto the bed, ready to transplant some day-lilies from an overgrown part of the garden.
And on the subject of poop, here's our first wormery compost, thanks to our first batch of worms who have munched on all sorts of crud such as pasta, mashed potato, rice and Weetabix leftovers, which I began diverting from landfill just over two years ago at the beginning of the blog.
It's been put to great use around the garden, mixed up with horticultural sand and earth to create a potting compost for seedlings, including the courgettes that you can see in the centre of this picture, which are now beginning to flourish.
In fact the corner of the garden that you see here, is our postage stamp veg patch, which is also packed with "home-grown" compost produced by the double act affectionately known as Plastic Dave and his Bokashi Side-kick, which sorts out the meaty chunks of waste that Dave can't possibly touch, for fear of being surrounded by vermin. To keep the mix in good order, Dave sometimes gets Dev's portion of chicken poop and Dev gets the veg peelings in return,. This has indeed sorted out Dave's sloppy ways and put an end to Dev's dry wit!
I just hope that after a good start to the growing season, they get on with converting all the "rubbish" we put in there into even more lovely compost, because the pressure's on....especially as the images you've seen here are not of a beautiful suburban garden. Indeed no! They are simply snapshots of a garden makeover that's currently in progress.
We're busy replacing part of our dead lawn with a small central paved area, surrounded by lots of interlinking beds, which will triple our growing area and help upgrade our "snacking garden" to one with more edible substance!
So Dave and Dev had better get on with it, especially as the landscaping will be finished soon and I'll be itching to get on with more planting.
Well, that's my contribution to Compost Awareness Week. If you fancy a crack at composting, vermiculture (wormeries to you and me) or using a Bokashi, have a peek at Week 5 of the Rubbish Diet Challenge, where you'll find much more info as well as links to a whole range of useful resources. And if you're already making good use of your own crumbly stuff around your garden, do share any links to your photos or blogposts in the comments below. As you can see, this garden is very much a work in progress and I need all the inspiration I can get.
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Compost Awareness Week is an annual event, promoted by Recycle Now and whether you're new to composting or an experienced composter, it's always worth checking at this time of year if your local authority has launched any offers on composting equipment. For example Suffolk residents can take advantage of the deal offered by The Suffolk Waste Partnership and Evengreener. For more information see: www.suffolk.getcomposting.com.
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