02/04/2010 by andy.

Aiding carbon sequestration, providing a valuable growing medium and reducing landfill all in one, compost making is the original Black Art and local councils are very keen that more of us should be doing it. But what makes the difference between two hundred litres of dark crumbly goodness and a bin full of smelly old muck? Nicky Scott breaks it down for us.

I’m terrible at making compost - there, I’ve said it. It’s not for want of trying, though. Within my first few years of composting I’d read five books on the subject, and each one left me more confused than the last. Would this book be my salvation?

After a fairly technical and slightly daunting introduction the book settles down into the familiar instructions of how to make good compost. To my surprise, however, the how-to chapter is very short at just six pages which, to be frank, is probably all the space that the guts of this very simple process needs. Other authors have taken half a book to cover the same ground (perhaps that’s why it can seem so confusing) but Scott pushes on immediately to discuss types of bins, making leaf mould and composting with worms. There is also a detailed section on how to use your finished compost (an option curiously overlooked in some books), including simple recipes for making up potting mix, cutting mix and seedling compost.

Throughout, Scott takes a refreshing pros-and-cons approach which points out the drawbacks of each option as well as the benefits, and although commercial options are discussed thoroughly the build-it-yourself option is never overlooked. In keeping with Green Books’ ethical stance there are also sections on large-scale composting, community composting schemes and composting in schools. There is also an A to Z which, although perhaps not terribly useful given that the book is indexed, is worth looking through for a few gems that weren’t included elsewhere in the text (such as how to compost old cooking oil, and the fact that custard is one of the most difficult materials to compost).

Unlike the other composting titles I have read, Scott’s unusually thoughtful treatment of this well-trodden subject has not made me feel enthused and ashamed that I am not composting every scrap of material from my home and garden. Instead I feel enlightened and ready to replace my monster bin with something more suitable, to rethink my worm bins, and to take a more realistic attitude to how I make compost. There’s a difference.

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05/04/2007 by admin.

It’s been nearly a year now since the polytunnel went up (and what a learning curve that’s been!), and it’s time for the annual bath. Like everything else under the sun that gets rained on, tunnels eventually accumulate a coating of algae - nasty green gunk that’s always worse on the north side. This can reduce light transmission into the tunnel by a fair old amount; I can’t find any actual figures for this, but both my eyes and my non-linear light meter could detect the difference with no trouble at all so it must be quite a bit.

On the outside of the tunnel the only thing that matters is to shift the algae, so a very dilute soapy solution is fine. On the inside, however, it’s not possible to rinse the surface off so well without everything being awash, and whatever you use will end up in the soil; for that reason a naturally-derived bactericidal and fungicidal cleaner (such as Citrox or Armillatox) is a better idea.

So out the clan Hedge went, along with No. One Son’s friend Ed the Fashionably Late, armed with various technical equipment such as a mop and bucket (not much seen around ours as WP’s opinion is that Dull Women Have Immaculate Homes). The digitametronic camera came too, fulfilling its allotted role in proceedings by running out of battery power just as the first shot was lined up. “It’ll only take five minutes,” I opined, as we foolishly entrusted the hose to No. One Son.

The lower reaches of Mt. Polytunnel were reached easily enough with the nice soft nylon brush I very occasionally use for the car, and hosed down straight afterwards (along with anyone standing even remotely close by) by N1S. The upper section of the tunnel is a bit harder if you have anything larger than the smallest models of course. There are various strategies for dealing with this, but my favourite idea was to “floss” it with a sheet dipped in the cleaning water and wrapped round a knotty old bit of rope, which is dragged from side to side over the spine of the tunnel as you might dry your own back with a towel.

The technique itself worked really well, although we needed to put elastic bands round it at intervals to stop it from slipping; what made it a bit more difficult (once the fifteen-minute argument about how the sheet was going to be secured had been settled) was that the two tunnel-flossers couldn’t see each other and were both shouting at once, so that they ended up pulling at the same time causing the tunnel to creak alarmingly, and also causing me to shriek like a girl. Eventually I had to stand astride the wall at the top end where they could both see me, shouting “Left! Right! Left! Right!” like the oarsmaster on a slave galley.

Once we got into the spirit of the thing cleaning the polytunnel was quite easy, bar a bit of poking around with a mop at the seams where the film was originally folded by the manufacturer. Actual duration of my “five minutes” was around two hours, but it’ll be quicker next time as now we know what we’re doing.

…er, don’t we?

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