Anyone else with a compost bin or two will know exactly what I mean when I say, I really couldn’t do without them. I love their magic. I love the way they make organic waste disappear. I love how they make something new from something old. And I particularly love how they cope with novices, just like me.
I call myself a novice, even though I’ve been composting since my nan charged me with the responsibility of taking the kitchen peelings to the compost heap when I was just a young lass.
So when I bought my first house as a thirty-year-old, even with a small garden, it was an automatic reaction to buy my first compost bin too. Sixteen years later, in our family home, we now have three bins and a wormery,
Our method has simply been to throw stuff in – peelings, dead plants, garden clippings, loo roll tubes, teabags, coffee grounds, gone off fruit. Then by some miracle, it turns it into a form of compost that we spread around the shrubs or dig in around the garden.
I’ve also called myself a novice because I’ve never really stopped to think how I could make that compost better, not until last week when I enrolled on a local Master Composter course, hosted by Suffolk Waste Partnership and Garden Organic, which is the national gardening charity that manages the scheme.
Master Composters are volunteers who help share the benefits of home composting within their community. The scheme has been operating successfully in Suffolk since 2007, giving residents the tools and knowledge to not only make better compost at home but to confidently help others.
It was great to join 13 other residents from around Suffolk who are now part of the 2015 alumni, people from all sorts of backgrounds and with different levels of experience. I’m now looking forward to catching up with them again at various events around the county.
Meanwhile, back in my own backyard, having been introduced to some great quality compost at the weekend I was keen to check out my own compost bin offerings. Opening up the inspection hatch, it’s definitely mid-process. I reckon with a little stirring that’ll be much better in a few months.
If you’d like to find out more about home composting, visit www.homecomposting.org.uk, which also includes more information about the Master Composters scheme. I can also recommend a great blog, www.the-compostbin.com written by Sarah – aka Compostwoman – who’s a Master Composter volunteer in Warwickshire. And if you’re in need of a compost bin of your own, check out www.getcomposting.com.
THAT RUBBISH WOMAN 