The  new compost demonstration site at Stokes Wood Allotments  is on course to be completed ready for an official opening to celebrate Compost Awareness Week on 5^th May. The site will house a wide range of compost bins suitable for use when home composting including Blackwell bins available through Council Schemes,

Tumbler bins including  a large Mantis,

a Rowlinson bee-hive bin suitable for a smaller garden 

Hotbins, Green Johana  and a Jora food composter  as well as a range of wormeries.

There will also be a section on making plant and compost based liquid feed including aerated compost tea.

The Rowlinson Beehive  composter was kindly donated by GardenSite has been installed..  https://www.gardensite.co.uk/garden-structures/composters/     Composters from GardenSite"

CAW Launch

As part of the launch events there willbe:

• a  painted compost bin activity where bins loaned to and painted by local schools will be displayed,
• a compost safari workshop and
• an opportunity to make compost Seedballs to be thrown to plant wild flowers in difficult to reach  areas  and school grounds.  
• More details to follow.

Compost Seedballs

Seed or earth balls are used for “seed bombing” where the balls are thrown or dropped by hand   or from the air into the area where they are to germinate .

Sowing Seedballs directly in the field is a technique used in ancient Egypt and  by North American First Nations’ tribes and is now being used  for the large-scale regeneration of land.  

Seedballs dropped from the air mat contain the seeds of trees to create forests while those thrown by hand  are often used for planting wildflowers in abandoned vacant and neglected areas of towns and cities. They also provide a means of sowing wild flowers in school grounds and allotment sites.

Clay based Seedballs

The conventional Seedball is  made by  rolling the  seeds in a ball of  compost which is coated with a layer of  wet clay  or,  in a variation of the method, the seeds, compost and clay are all mixed together when making the ball. The compost and clay act as a carrier for the seeds so they can be thrown into inaccessible areas. Each seed ball provides the seed(s) with a mini ecosystem. Where the balls are made commercially, they are normally about a 1cm in diameter a size which makes scattering, but home-made versions tend to vary and are often larger.  The clay provides a  shell   protecting the seed and nutrients  in the compost from  predators e.g.  as birds,  ants and rodents.   However, as this technique  will normally require the purchase of clay there is an alternative  suitable for allotment sites and schools using flour instead of clay. 

The completed balls  are then placed or more often thrown into the garden or  ground where it is hoped the plants will grow. There are techniques where the seeds are spread form aircraft, but my view is that this is unlikely to be used on  allotments or school grounds and  domestic gardens,  so no further details are given here.   Seedballs can also be used for planting in pots and raised beds.  The seeds will remain dormant until their environmental needs are met. When enough rain has permeated  the clay, the seeds germinate with the initial growth of the plant being helped by the nutrients and minerals in the compost.  After about three weeks the first seedlings work their way through the seed bomb and root into the ground below.  As they grow the seed bomb begins to dissolve. There are variations to the basic recipe one used by  Seedballs (https://www.seedball.co.uk/ ) are made with the addition of  chilli to help protect  the seed from predators.

Flour and Compost Seedballs

Home, school and allotment composters may like to make seedballs using their compost without having to purchase clay. Flour Seedballs  provide an easily made and cheap alternative to the tradition clay encased ball. These are more likely to disintegrate if thrown  spreading the seeds and ensuring a wider coverage of the area and seed bombing might be more fun for children. However, it does mean that the seeds will lose their compost packing  on impact and germination may be better if the seeds are put on the soil, raised bed or flower pot.  More information on www.carryoncomposting  Using Compost

Spring is a popular time for people to take on a new allotment or decide to remodel their garden to perhaps create a wild flower area. Where this will involve removing a lawn or grass path producing turves a Turf Mound or Turf wall is an option. 

Adding large numbers of turves to the compost bin would occupy valuable bin space and slow the composting process as well as risk  introducing perennial weeds to the bin which is not desirable in a cold composting system.  A turf mound   provides a simple means of turning turf into a very useful loam. On an allotment this has the advantage of enabling turves to be stacked to slowly decompose while the rest of the plot is being dug. 

The procedure is simple stack the turves grass side down with the turves in each layer being laid in alternative directions.  This helps keep the stack together. A space can be left between the rows to enable air to penetrate the heap.Some sprinkle a little lime,  blood, fish or bone meal between the layers.  

The mound should be covered with a dark plastic sheet, tarpaulin or old carpet to protect form the rain and  light.  The loam will normally be ready for use in six  months to a year although some leave it for two or more years. The key point is that the grass, weeds and roots have died away.  

A page has been added to www.carryoncomposting.com  on  composting cardboard and paper. While these  provide a readily available  source of carbon  in most home composting systems  the volume of waste paper produced by a household is often such that it cannot all be composted using a single bin. It is also the case that where paper material is recyclable it is a likely to be a better  environmental option to recycle most of it  while retaining just sufficient to maintain the appropriate Green/Brown ratio for home composting.  However, before deciding to send all the excess cardboard and paper for recycling the use of additional composting techniques should be considered where there is enough space.

Other possible methods that could be adopted are trench, sheet and Lasagne composting the latter providing a cheap means of filling a raised bed.

In deciding on whether to compost or recycle paper and cardboard waste the are occasions when  home composting is the route of choice. One such case is  where cardboard has been  contaminated with food materials which would contaminate the recyclable waste stream if put into the kerbside collection system operated by councils e.g. greasy pizza boxes. Home composting is much better than the alternative of sending it to landfill.

Home composting can also deal with some types of paper, such as tissues and shredded paper, which in many areas cannot be recycled or composted via the council kerbside collection and would have to be fed into the council landfill system. The item looks at the speed at which different types of paper decomposes when composted.

Time to wrap up the wormeries.

First evidence of snow othis winter. The wormmeries need protecting from frost to avoid frozen worms. One of these two is being moved to an outbuilding the other protected by bubblewrap which I have found works well in the East Midlands. I tend to apply three layers and keep the top removable so as they can still be fed.

More on our wormery page