To everything there is a season (‘turn, turn, turn’ – you’ll be singing that all day now, sorry). A time to live and a time to – let things softly and quietly decompose back into usefulness. This is the season of clearing up and making compost heaps, and tapping into the cycle of (cue some more singing) life. It all starts and ends in the soil, because the soil is the basis for all life in the garden. A healthy soil will be performing microscopic miracles under your feet; feeding your plants, fighting disease and giving a home to countless millions of creatures. So many that, did you know (and I’m still reeling from this), that a teaspoon of garden soil contains more organisms than there are people on the earth? Think about that when you’re cleaning the dirt out from under your fingernails…

Soil Biology

The complex web of interconnections in the geology, biology and chemistry of the elements in the soil are only just beginning to be understood – new discoveries about the chemical conversations between plants and their soil environment are being made all the time and the more we begin to understand what’s happening within the soil, the more mysterious and complicated it gets. We only see the monsters that patrol the soil – the moles, earthworms, beetles, slugs, centipedes, but just as important are the fungi, nematodes, protozoa, bacteria and numerous other microbes. Plants rely on a huge team of microscopic organisms, some of them, like fungal micorrhiza (and some nitrogen-fixing bacteria), actually living symbiotically within plant roots, trading sugars for vital elements that the plants need. This is the living part of the soil, but the dead part has a big part to play too. It’s made up from plant and animal remains – living things that have recently died and not yet decomposed into their chemical constituents. This organic matter is known as humus (not to be confused with a well known Middle Eastern dip). A soil rich in humus makes a comfortable home for all its inhabitants.

Making compost

There are two main types of compostable material – nitrogen releasing, or ‘green’ waste and carbon releasing, or ‘brown’ waste. These need to be added to the compost heap in roughly equal measures and should also be well mixed. If too much ‘green’ stuff is added the heap will become a stinky mush and if too much ‘brown’ stuff is put on it will take ages for the heap to rot down. So green waste is grass clippings, kitchen waste (i.e. veg and fruit peelings), weeds, top (leafy) growth and brown waste is stems, woody growth, paper and card.

The other vital ingredients to the compost heap are air and water. The heap needs to be moist, but not wet. Water if it seems dry, but cover with an old piece of carpet or a lid of some kind to prevent the heap from getting too wet, as this will slow down the decomposition, especially in the winter. There needs to be sufficient air getting into the heap for the beneficial bacteria to do their work. Too little air will result in the anaerobic bacteria taking over and making the heap into a nasty, stinky mess. This is why heaps of grass clippings with no other courser, fibrous additions become so horrible and slimy. Shred woody stems and tough leaves (like holly and oak leaves), as these contain lignin, which will take a long time to break down. Adding activators (substances containing bacteria that readily break down organic matter) such as manure, existing well-rotted compost, garden soil, or shop-bought activators like Garrota speed up the process. Regular mixing or turning over of the ingredients in your heap will also help. The ‘tumbling’ compost maker bins work on this principle and should make compost within 3 months or so. Your compost is ready to use when it is a rich brown colour. It should smell nice(!) and earthy.

What you can’t compost

• Cooked food and meat (which could attract vermin)

• Plastic, metal, glass etc

• Man-made fibres

• Dog and cat waste, as it contains dangerous pathogens

What you can compost

• Garden debris – prunings, tidy ups, vegetable garden waste

• Kitchen waste – raw peelings (but not potatoes, which may carry blight), tea bags, egg shells etc

• Household rubbish – cardboard, paper, loo roll, egg boxes (scrumpled up to add air to

the heap and give homes to insects and beneficial invertebrates)

• Contents of the hoover bag (unless it’s crammed with lego)

• Hair, wool, cotton, nail clippings (will take a while to break down)

• Wood ash (not coal ash)

• Vegetarian pet waste – if sawdust is used as bedding this will take a while to compost

Weeds can be composted (in theory) if your heap is hot enough to destroy the seeds or the persistent roots of perennial weeds. In practice, most of us have cold heaps that don’t reach the right temperature to kill weeds. I prefer to treat them separately and either burn them or let them rot in a bucket of water (think of it as revenge) before adding to the heap/making fertiliser. You can make a special ‘tea’ by leaving the young leaves of nettles or comfrey in a bucket of water for a few weeks – you’ll know when it’s ready by the horrific smell… then dilute it in a watering can and use as fertiliser. Yummy.

Grow sustainable plants

• Right plant right place; be kind to your plants and find out where they’ll be happy growing – preferably before you’ve watched them struggle about in the wrong conditions

• Grow from seeds and cuttings

• Look for pest and disease resistant plants

Look after the soil

• Practise crop rotation to keep the soil and crops healthy

• Don’t leave the soil exposed to the elements

• Try not to use chemicals

• Add organic matter

Other sustainable things to do in the garden:

Be careful what you buy

• Use peat-free compost

• Buy wood from sustainable timber

• Buy locally grown plants, rather than long distance imports

Attract wildlife to the garden

• Make a pond

• Put up nest boxes and overwintering boxes for insects

• Leave a logpile in the corner of the garden

• Don’t be too tidy

Recycle

• Recycle your plastic plant pots – or make your own out of newspaper or card

• Compost as much as possible – apparently up to a third of our domestic waste can be composted

• Use ‘grey’ water when you can

Conserve water

• Prioritise what you water – some plants are thirstier than others

• Increase the water retaining capacity of your soil by adding organic matter

• Water correctly – i.e. deeply, not little and often, as this stays near the surface and evaporates before it reaches plant roots

• Mulch the soil to help prevent water loss through evaporation

TEST A healthy soil will be performing microscopic miracles under your feet; feeding your plants, fighting disease and giving a home to countless millions of creatures

A healthy soil will be performing microscopic miracles under your feet; feeding your plants, fighting disease and giving a home to countless millions of creatures

TEST There are two main types of compostable material – nitrogen releasing, or ‘green’ waste and carbon releasing, or ‘brown’ waste

There are two main types of compostable material – nitrogen releasing, or ‘green’ waste and carbon releasing, or ‘brown’ waste

TEST Your compost is ready to use when it is a rich brown colour. It should smell nice(!) and earthy

Your compost is ready to use when it is a rich brown colour. It should smell nice(!) and earthy

TEST Leave a log pile in the corner of your garden to attract wildlife

Leave a log pile in the corner of your garden to attract wildlife

  • words:

You may also like

Go with the Flow

Sue Whigham shares some valuable new-to-gardening advice I’m sure that by now we should be used to the rain but I’m not entirely sure that we are. We had a dry, sunny day the other day and how everybody’s mood...

Farm Fables

Jane Howard gets to the bottom of why so many ponds have disappeared across the High Weald I have a new passion, almost an obsession, it’s about ponds. And there’s a distinct possibility I might become a bit of a...

Hedge Issues

Sue Whigham takes a meander along nature’s verdant and vital corridors Recently the BBC’s Today programme carried a feature about England’s hedgerows which created a lot of interest among listeners. On the strength of that, Martha Kearney interviewed one of...