Idiot's Guide To Composting Please!

londonsurrey

Hens! The more I hear about them, the more tempted I am. Apparently, they weed as well.
Mind you, I assume that they devour veg whilst doing the weeding?

It's all a pipe dream, mind you, as I have a dozen cats.

Eenymeeny

Slightly off topic but has anyone seen any cheap grobags please? Thinking of using them on my awful clay soil until my lovely compost is ready;):D
Any other (helpful!) suggestions would be very welcome:)

londonsurrey

Green manure is what you need, and this is the perfect time of year for it.
You sow the seeds, watch them grow, then dig them in. It's grow-your-own compost!
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/gardens/article4611726.ece

Apparently, field greens and grazing rye are the ones for clay soil.
They will add nutrients, as well as help break it up.

Eenymeeny

Hmm very interesting, I haven't come across this concept before, might try it at the bottom of the garden where I haven't managed to make much impact yet.
You have a lot of knowledge LondonSurrey, thanks a lot :T

londonsurrey

You're welcome. I'm inherently lazy, and elegant systems that make use of existing conditions(i.e. less to do!) will naturally catch my interest.

It's a question of what you want to achieve in the end. Ironically (I learnt this the hard way) we are told that rich soil is good soil. But what happens is that rich soil encourages weeds, and there are some plants that actually like poor soil.

So if you would like to enrich the soil, then of course composting etc is the way to go, especially if you are eventually growing veg. However, if you have this nice patch of garden waiting for the compost in the meantime, you could take advantage of it to grow all kinds of things, for instance a wildflower meadow.

The weird thing about a wildflower meadow is that to keep it "healthy", you have to REMOVE the dead plants each year, to stop it forming an additional layer of humus, which will encourage weeds, and stop your desired wildflowers growing.

I found this out after years of composting, enriching, etc. In the meantime, my husband died, I grieved, then started dating a horticulturalist. I casually mentioned (ok, I moaned and complained) about how flowers that I adored, like poppies and nigella never came back in my garden. New paramour (what do I call him? You can't really have a boyfriend at 40, can you? One has boyfriends as a teenager!) pointed out that they like impoverished soil.

I then realised that I'd spent TWELVE years creating the perfect garden for nettles, etc, who love rich soil (they were taller than me as I spent a few months with a sprained knee and wasn't able to garden), whilst my precious flowers were being virtually poisoned. DOH!

londonsurrey

Keyhole gardens, little islands of greenery rising up in the middle of African red earth. It's the third picture which best illustrates the contrast between the mini oasis and the dry red earth:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7432972.stm

You might like the idea of them. They're a raised bed, built round a cylindrical compost heap. You pour water (if it's "dirty" water, like from boiling potatoes, then even better!), and the water leaches out nutrients from the compost into the veg patch. It's basically a veg plot with built in BabyBio.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=keyhole+garden

Eenymeeny

Thanks again, I haven't heard of these before. You've given me an idea of what to do with a raised bed which is 'lying fallow' at the moment. (Doused with round-up as it was a mountain of brambles when I took over the garden!) I think that there are vine weevils in there and I dread what I am going to find buried there when I get around to it!

3v3

londonsurrey wrote: »

Hens! The more I hear about them, the more tempted I am. Apparently, they weed as well.
Mind you, I assume that they devour veg whilst doing the weeding?

It's all a pipe dream, mind you, as I have a dozen cats.

Hens and cats get along well
Hens weed for you
Hens even dig up your plants for transplanting
Hens can be kept of veg patches with netting (just like the wild pigeons )
Hens give delicious rewards :drool:
Hen waste is a fantastic compost activator
Hens provide animation in the garden and are very amusing.

I'm biased

lostinrates

londonsurrey wrote: »

Hens! The more I hear about them, the more tempted I am. Apparently, they weed as well.
Mind you, I assume that they devour veg whilst doing the weeding?

It's all a pipe dream, mind you, as I have a dozen cats.

My hens hate slugs and snails.....some are even a little scared of them. Neither do they weed, but they do help pick berries.


My very keen hunting cats and the chickens get on fine...get large fowl (I adore cochins) or a fiestier large breed and it would have to be a brave cat. My cats have brought in a woodpecker, rabbits, etc...but never a chicken! even when a ccidentally locked in with the hens (including smalled fowl and chicks:eek::o) over night. (chickens are actualy very protective of their young)

Eenymeeny

Ahem, I'm afraid that I'm back...:o
I've quickly realised that I have a lot more 'brown' stuff than green.
Any tips to increase the green supply please as we will be cutting the grass less now and this is my main source?
(I had thought of donning a balaclava and kidnapping my neighbours 'green bins' during the night, but is this taking things a little too far do you think?)
Thanks