Happy Compost Awareness Week!



I potted these up yesterday before I realised it's Compost Awareness Week - how timely :) It's a variety of comfrey called Bocking 14, a strain developed during the 1950s by Lawrence Hills, the founder of Garden Organic. Bocking in Essex was the home of the organisation's HQ at the time.

Bocking 14 is sterile, so it's not as invasive as its parent Russian comfrey, though I'm still going to think carefully where I finally plant these as its root run is pretty extensive. With my new raised beds plus an extra bin to fill, I need to make lots more compost. This comfrey is my first step towards keeping the mouths of my hungry compost bins filled. I'm also planning on making better use of our lawn clippings balanced out with lots of extra shredded paper to stop my compost becoming a green slimy mess.

John Harrison has written an excellent guide to comfrey and its uses - well worth a read.

How do you keep your compost bins well fed?

Additional reading:

You may also like last year's post on Talking Compost at Holt Farm about how they make their own organic compost mixes.

Update: Head Gardener James is doing his "Slugs, Bugs, Trug and a Pug" talk this Friday at Holt Farm in support of Horatio's Garden for SSIT. So now's your chance to find out how they do it first hand AND for a good cause :)

Comments

  1. LINDA'S7 May 2013 at 12:44

    awesome post as always

    ReplyDelete
  2. Esther Montgomery7 May 2013 at 13:54

    I'm rather pleased with how our compost turns out. I put it down to the worms rather than me. We have one of those bins where you put vegetation in at the top and compost comes out at the bottom. I like the way the best has no smell and the second best has a delicious lemony scent. The problem I have with it - that my plants are packed so tightly together there's no room for digging it in. We used to use all our compost at our allotment. Now, allotmentless, it's released for our garden - which needs it for it has very poor soil. But the only way I can give it to the plants is to dig them up gently bung compost in the hole, stir it around a bit with the other earth there and put the plant back. For while I tried merely spreading it over the surface and watering it in the hope the goodness seeped down but it made a shell like crust on top of the soil - so I stopped.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pauline7 May 2013 at 15:12

    We have 3 large wooden sided compost bins, but still never have enough! One is being emptied at the moment, one is cooking away merrily by itself and should be ready to spread in the autumn and the third is being filled in layers. We keep all the brown dry bits that we have cut down in early spring and now that grass cutting has started, we are now able to layer them. any papers that we shred get mixed in, waste from the hoover, all cardboard gets torn up,and of course every day, the vegetable peelings, tea bags, coffee grounds etc. This is what they call a cold heap, but even so, it is ready to use in a year, lovely crumbly sweet smelling stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Flighty7 May 2013 at 15:32

    I have a handful of comfrey plants which I leave to flower for the bees then cut right back and add to the compost heap. I do that several times a year, and is one job where I always wear gloves!
    I add just about everything to my heap which only gets emptied once a year. Flighty xx

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pookledo8 May 2013 at 07:18

    I'm having a similar problem with my compost. Two bins was perfectly fine when I was just container gardening but the bank holiday weekend has left me with 3 raised beds to fill. I've emptied all my containers and compost that is ready into bed number 1, but still need more. I've found a good supply of shredded paper though and the grass needs mowing so it's time to get into production!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Catherine8 May 2013 at 18:18

    My compost is greatly helped by the guinea pigs! It used to always go slimy no matter what I tried, but since the addition of the guinea pig waste it comes out beautifully crumbly, and much, much quicker to boot :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous13 May 2013 at 07:53

    I've started mowing the lawn like a crop, so I don't get a huge amount of grass all at once, but can feed the bin with it more gradually.

    ReplyDelete
  8. VP2 June 2013 at 09:13

    Linda - thanks for this and all your comments by email :)

    Esther - try mulching in the autumn - the worms should help drag it down into the soil over the winter

    Pauline - there's never enough compost is there?

    Flighty - good tip re wearing gloves, I hear comfrey's hairs can be a skin irritant

    Pookledo - welcome :) Shredded paper + grass clippings is my cunning plan!

    Catherine - I used to collectmy next door neighbours guinea pig + rabbit bedding. Superb stuff, but alas their pets are long gone :(

    Helen - that's a good idea :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from you and welcome thoughtful conversations :)

Comments aiming to link back and give credence to commercial websites will be composted!

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it ...
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl...
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape...
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing ...
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the...
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee...
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi...
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso...
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter, ...
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener...
Read more