Simon Akeroyd - Perfect Compost: A Practical Guide

PERFECT COMPOST

Simon Akeroyd

This book will encourage you to try composting at home. Not only does homemade compost make a great soil improver, it is also a practical way of managing your kitchen and garden waste.

Despite all the known benefits of gardening, recycling and creating a sustainable planet, according to a 2014 survey conducted by the UK waste management company Business Waste, 97 per cent of the population have never composted or had a compost heap. This is a great shame, particularly as we are a nation of gardeners, with gardening recognised as the nations number one hobby.

There are a number of possible reasons for this lack of composting among British households, but the main three are as follows. Firstly, people perceive it as hard, time-consuming work. Secondly, they dont think they have enough outdoor space. And thirdly, they think it requires skills that they dont possess.

Additionally, very often composting is seen as one of the dark arts: an esoteric, magical process, as plant and kitchen waste is transformed into gardening gold that only the horticultural equivalent of an alchemist is capable of achieving. It is often seen as beyond the skills and realm of the average person to produce good compost in the garden.

This book aims to debunk these myths, and to show that creating compost doesnt have to be hard work or time-consuming, hardly requires any space, and is actually relatively easy. Whether you have a tiny courtyard garden or a huge country estate, there is almost always enough room for composting. Compact, modern compost bin designs mean they can be squeezed into the tiniest of spaces. In addition, using contemporary, sometimes beautifully coloured materials for your compost facilities can look chic and fashionable and help you to show off your green environmental credentials to your neighbours.

This book is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, we outline why it is a good idea to make compost at home. Reasons for this include reducing our environmental impact on the planet, saving time and money, and improving growing conditions in the garden. In the second chapter, we explore the different types of composting facilities you can install in your garden, ranging from large composting bays made from recycled pallets to compact, labour-saving types that can be rotated simply by turning a handle. In the third and final chapter we cover how to make compost, including the science behind the art and a list of the top 10 tips on how to create perfect compost.

Compost-making is very rewarding and youre doing something great for the environment, but, most of all, it is fun, and its definitely worth giving it a try.

Growing plants is good for the environment and yet, despite a general increase in gardening over the last few decades, green spaces are being lost all the time to property and land developers. In urban areas, owners are covering over gardens with concrete, block paving and patios, especially front gardens, which are often converted into driveways and parking spaces. This is damaging to the environment as it leads to a dramatic reduction in wildlife habitats and biodiversity, as well as a loss of garden plants, including the trees and shrubs that absorb excess carbon and pollution from the atmosphere and pump out clean oxygen for us to breathe.

Almost as importantly, fewer plants in urban settings, coupled with more gardens covered with these impermeable surfaces, will dramatically exacerbate the problem of run-off during the increasing rainfall we are currently experiencing, inevitably leading to increased incidence of flooding.

Adding compost to your front garden and keeping your personal space green and full of life rather than turning it into a parking space will reduce considerably the likelihood of flash flooding, since the organic material not only improves drainage but naturally absorbs water like a sponge, gradually releasing it as and when plants require it. Because of this, it is more important than ever that people are encouraged to make their own compost and use it to grow better plants, which in turn may well inspire other people to create gardens, to value green spaces and to reverse this trend of rapid decline in urban and city environments. A gorgeous front garden, packed full of healthy plants because they are growing in lovely homemade compost, is a wonderful advertisement to encourage others to grow plants, reuse their own green waste and create a greener planet.

Adding homemade compost to a front garden can create a lush, wildlife-friendly space, looks more attractive than a driveway, and is better for the environment.

The compost area is the engine room of the garden. A gardens sustainability and environmental credentials are definitively improved by recycling garden waste.

Sadly, in the past, many garden designers have treated composting as almost an afterthought, once all the niceties of designing and planting a garden have been done. Yet an effective and efficient compost site is probably the single most important aspect of managing a garden. It should possibly be at the forefront of every garden designers thinking process to create a living, breathing ecosystem, with any design based first and foremost around a sustainable compost site. And perhaps not tucked away around the back of the garden either, hidden away as a shameful secret. Thankfully, attitudes are changing. Great gardeners are great composters, and the two skills go hand in hand. Modern gardeners are often proud of their composting credentials and can make the compost heap a key feature in their garden.

Beauty is often said to be in the eye of the beholder, and for many modern gardeners composting is regarded as a thing of beauty. The smell of a well-decomposed compost heap has a gentle, sweet scent, albeit slightly earthy, that is as natural and enjoyable as that of many garden plants. At the same time, running your fingers through its friable texture can quicken the pulse as you think about the potential plants that can be grown in this naturally created substance. A well-turned compost comes in a range of rich shades, varying from dark chocolaty depths to intense light or almost golden hues which would give any designer trying to select dark brown or black planting schemes a run for their money. Modern composting facilities can also look cool, modern and chic, are bang on trend, and make a great talking point in any garden.

Probably the biggest incentive for households to start composting is that it can save you money. Millions of pounds a year are spent by people buying bags of compost from garden centres. Readymade compost is expensive, especially when used as a soil improver, yet you can make your own compost for free at home. Furthermore, you dont even have to expend the fuel or time driving to the garden centre to collect some. Home composting is simply transforming the kitchen and garden waste that youre already generating into something worth its weight in gold as far as the health of your plants, the soil and the planet are concerned. And it costs absolutely nothing. And also