Rotten Rotters Musings of a Composter

We’ve all been there. We’ve all read the marketing blurb for a shiny new plant variety, and decided that we had to have it. We may have been good, and waited for a few days, to be sure that we really had to have it, but we’ve all paid money for brand new plant varieties for the garden. And then we find out that they don’t quite live up to the hype. You don’t hear about ‘early adopters’ outside of the tech world, really, but that’s exactly what we are, and a certain amount of disappointment is inevitable.

An ideal seed compost is able to retain water, whilst at the same time letting excess water drain away to provide an environment that is damp but not waterlogged. It allows penetration of plant roots and is able to anchor plants, but has space for air. Its texture is consistent, and it is free from pests, diseases and weeds that would compete with the seedlings. As we have seen, it doesn’t need to contain many nutrients if seedlings are going to be pricked out; seedlings growing in modules will either need enough nutrients in the compost to support them through their first weeks of life, or suitable supplementary feeding.

One of the big differences between now and the time before gardeners relied so much on peat-based composts is the rise in container growing. An army of modern amateur gardeners has to put up with small gardens, and possibly with no soil at all. Growing plants in containers allows us to garden wherever we like, and even to grow plants that would not thrive in our soil. Some plants are grown in containers to keep them under control; others so that they can be moved indoors in winter to ensure their survival.

Ericaceous compost

Whenever I see demonstrations of composting on TV I’m always impressed by three things – the size of the compost heap, the endless supply of compostable materials to put on it and the enormous vigour of the gardener in charge of the heap.

When the sun shone on Saturday morning, and the rain promised to delay until midday, we hatched a plan to build two more of the raised beds in the garden. One half of the garden – 6 beds – was completed last year, leaving 6 more to go. We don’t have space for them all until we take the old shed down, but we found room for two next to Ryan’s workshop.

Gardeners are privileged to witness miracles on a daily basis – seeds germinating, buds unfurling and bees pollinating flowers. No less miraculous are the quiet miracles that take place in the compost heap, where tiny organisms turn waste products into compost, allowing the cycle of life to begin again.

I’ve got a brand new compost tumbler… and the Wurzels stuck in my head:

If you’ve got a small garden then you might find it difficult to find space for a conventional compost heap. A possible solution is a worm compost bin, which takes up far less space because an army of worms does most of the composting work.

A container garden can be a delight, but it can also be expensive – the pots themselves aren’t cheap. If you have a water meter then you have to factor in the cost of keeping your pots watered, and you need fertilizer as well. It is usually recommended that potting compost be replaced every year, and if you’re buying good quality peat-free compost then the cost starts to add up.

I’m a firm believer in composting. In the years in which I haven’t really had a garden, I have mourned the loss of valuable resources as I sent my compostables off in the municipal collections.

I hopped up to London a while back to be a guest (along with Jeff Lowenfels, author of ‘Teaming with microbes’) on ‘Sow, Grow, Repeat’, the Guardian’s gardening podcast. Wearing my Master Composter hat, I was chatting with Alys Fowler and Jane Perrone on the ins and outs of composting. Find out more about Bokashi, the weird things compost nuts add to their heap and the microbes living in there!