Really cold composting

Hi. I write this just after a really crazy half hour of weather. The road outside my house was suddenly covered with snow. I’ve had a question about really cold composting. How cold can it get before you have to stop composting? The composting process really slows down in the cold because composting creatures become almost inactive or completely dormant. But you can keep things warm for them by providing lots of insulation around your bin. In most warm climates like Britain’s this is hardly necessary as the totally dormant phase of composting is actually quite small – and with warmer winters getting smaller. However in Canada some people regard it as a challenge to keep their compost going all winter. Take this guy. I love this video – its simple and explains pretty much all you need to know about the insulation process. Does have deliberately annoying music though so turn down your volume.

Hope you enjoy.

Hi again

Hi again. Apologies for not blogging much recently…mmh… since May! Back in the game now but I’m widening the blog to include non gardening topics close to my heart too. To start with just thought I’d let you know that I’ve written an article for The Garden (the magazine of the RHS) and it should be appearing any minute now. If you read it and have any questions I’ll try and answer them or post some links up. To start with check out:

http://www.homecomposting.org.uk/

Be back soon.

Hats off to Gardeners Worlds’ Alys Fowler and Garden Organic’s Bob Sherman for helping to plant an allotment at the proposed site of Heathrow’s new runway.

Check this out. Gardeners World presenter Alys Fowler and Garden Organic Bob Sherman have joined forces to plant an allotment at the site of the proposed 3rd runway at Heathrow Airport. I am so pleased we have a new garden presenter prepared to step out of the gardening arena to comment on wider environmental issues.

Babs2Hay and Cardiff

Barbara Haddrill is taking her talk about her book Babs2Brisbane to the Hay Festival and Cardiff Borders next week. Hay on Thursday and Cardiff on Saturday. Babs travelled overland to Australia to be a bridesmaid at her best friends wedding because she wanted to avoid flying for environmental reasons. Her talk is inspirational – suggesting how much we can all do to make a difference. For more details visit www.babs2brisbane.com.

Make your own wormery

The easiest recycled wormery I’ve come across is at the Yalding Organic Gardens in Kent. It’s made with three fairly large polystyrene boxes – the type used for packing vegetables or fish. Ask around your local market for spares. Quite often, they’re left at the end of each day for waste collection, so it shouldn’t be a problem finding some. Each box usually comes with a lid, but you only need one: discard the others or use them as seed trays.

Make a hole in the centre of the bottom box, 2.5cm (1 inch wide. Place the box on two small columns made of some scrap material like old wood, bricks or concrete blocks. The hole in the bottom box allows excess moisture to run out. Place a small container underneath and then dilute the liquid that collects and use as a plant food. It’s powerful stuff – use ten parts water to one part worm juice. Take the second box and make seven or eight holes in the bottom. These holes are for the worms to climb up and down between the boxes so they need to be at least worm-sized (remember that baby worms grow fatter every day!). Place this box on top of the first. Take the last box, make the same number of holes and place on top of the second. Put the lid on top.

To start, place kitchen scraps and small amounts of scrunched-up (not flat) cardboard in the bottom of the first (single holed) box (or some shredded bills mixed with a few leaves) for bedding, along with 100 tiger worms. Keep on filling with kitchen scraps and a little bit of cardboard and paper. When the box is full, place the next box on top of it (one with several holes) and start filling it. When that is full, do the same with the top box. The worms will move through the holes between layers in search of food. By the time the top box is full of food waste, the bottom box should be full of worm casts. Take it out and empty the contents (being careful to lift any worms you dislodge back into the wormery). You can put it straight onto the soil or use it as part of a mix for potting compost.

For more info get hold of The Little Book of Compost.

You can get worms from http://www.greengardener.co.uk/wormeries.htm (prices start at £15.00), http://www.recycleworks.co.uk/worms-for-composting-c-288.html (prices start at £11.00), http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/shop/foundproducts.lasso?-nothing&-operator=cn&product_name=worms&-session=shopper:56859BDC0f0a8148F3Rpg13F9513 (prices start at £12.50).

Shameful police action against climate camp

The G20 Climate Camp was a peaceful well organised non-violent protest – at least on the side of the protestors. Watch this shameful, unnecessary and unprovoked attack by police and listen to the collected calls of ‘shame on you’ and ‘this is not right’. This is not right. The protestors are holding their hands up in the air and are doing nothing to provoke the police. This really is shameful shocking footage. Why has this not been shown on the BBC?

Babs 2 Brisbane gets Telegraph coverage

Those of you who have been following the story of Babs Haddrill’s overland journey from Wales to Australia will find the following links interesting. Her story is featured in The Telegraph today. And also in the Shropshire Star. Check out Barbara’s website www.babs2brisbane.com.

White House gardening starts in earnest

Michelle Obama has started growing vegetables in the garden of the White House. She was seen starting the organic kitchen garden this week. Michelle wants to put healthy eating top of the agenda in America and the Obama’s hope to become locavores – eating food that comes only from their local area. Local freshly picked food eaten straight from the garden is much better for you.

Come along to Babs 2 Brisbane book launch in Machynlleth

If you’re in the Machynlleth area on Wednesday March 18th come along to the book launch for Babs 2 Brisbane at the Tabernacle and listen to Babs talk about her amazing overland journey from Wales to Australia. Includes unseen footage of her journey, music and a chance to ask Barbara questions about her trip.

Babs 2 Brisbane book launch
March 18th
The Tabernacle, Machynlleth

Daytime drop-in session
Meet the author and watch film, hear music and listen to book readings through the afternoon.

2–2.45pm Travelling music duo on the accordion and fiddle.
Barbara Haddrill reads
‘tasters’ from her book.

2.45–3.30pm
Film footage from the journey.

3.30–4pm Travelling music duo on the accordion and fiddle.
Barbara Haddrill reads
‘tasters’ from her book.

Evening 7.00 – 10.00 pm
Music on arrival by Finikity Charos,
aka the Gypsy Band.

Introduction by author Barbara Haddrill.
Music from Slater’s Arms Folk
Session musicians.
Short film – Landscapes of the journey.
Aussie inspired music by Moonshine Claud.
Short film – People and Transport.
Music about travelling from
The Blithering Idiots
Barbara Haddrill reads an extract
from her book.
Questions and Answers
Music from Ember.
Book signing

Low carbon drinks and local snacks available.

Babs 2 Brisbane launched with Express coverage

Barbara Haddrill’s Babs 2 Brisbane – the story of her overland journey from Wales to Australia to be a bridesmaid – has been published and is receiving widespread coverage. Last friday John Ingham featured it in his environmental column in The Daily Express. Babs 2 Brisbane is an amazing book. Even if you are not that interested in overland travel you’ll find it an interesting account of the type of decision making you have to make as a committed environmentalist. What is the right thing to do? Fly or not to fly? If you are interested in travel you’ll enjoy the story and be interested in reading up on how to make the same or similar journeys yourself. You can get copies at www.cat.org.uk/shopping and find out more about Babs at www.babs2brisbane.com.

The Organic Garden out in paperback

Blimey. It’s been a long time since I blogged. I’ve even missed the launch date of my own book! The paperback version of The Organic Garden came out last week. Hurrah. It’s exactly the same content as the hardback but as the hardback is no longer available but for a handful of discounted copies at www.cat.org.uk/shopping it’s great to have it back again. The book took about 18 months of hard work to get together and I’m really pleased Collins decided to reprint – especially at the moment with the economy as it is. You’ll actually find it full of home made garden solutions and a great resource if you want to start gardening organically and don’t want to spend lots of money. I’m very much into recycling, DIYing and using natural resources when they are available. I’ll put some extracts up over the next few weeks to give you a feel for the writing style and content, and hopefully provide inspiration as spring comes along! The book costs £12.99 and is available from all good retailers. Bye for now. Allan

Gardening Which? gives thumbs up to peat free compost

Gardening Which? magazine has given the thumbs up to a peat free organic compost. In their yearly analysis of the most widely available composts on the market they gave their Best Buy Award to New Horizon Organic And Peat Free Growbag. It performed slightly less well overall against the best peat free alternative assessed by Gardening Which? but in some categories – for example in growing potatoes – did better. Overall it scored 74% compared to 83% for the peat based alternative. With only a year to go till manufacturers are obliged to produce potting compost that is 90% peat free the race is on to deliver a truly great and widely available bagged organic compost. Of course you can make fine organic peat free compost at home using various recipes, so you don’t necessarily need to use bagged compost. But for those who need to get started without a ready supply of home made compost a bag of New Horizon looks like a pretty good alternative.

Paperback edition of The Organic Garden on its way

Collins sent me a copy of the paperback edition of The Organic Garden through the post the other day and I’m pleased to say it will be published on March 5th. Its the same content as the hardback edition so if you already have a copy don’t be confused by the new strap-line – Green and Easy. If you want a hard back copy of the The Organic Garden there are still a few available at a discount from www.cat.org.uk/shopping. The paperback edition of The Organic Garden will cost £12.99.

Eat the view – White House lawn set for radical makeover?

Check out the website of an American campaign group who would like to see Obama dig up the White House lawn and plant it up with vegetables. Who knows it could happen. Obama hasn’t proposed any radical gardening policies yet but he (being a lover of history) must know that some of his great predecessors were gardeners.

Carol Klein defends organics in Guardian article

Carol Klein has spoken out against those who do down organics in order to promote chemicals. Her comments appeared in her regular column in the guardian which you can view on-line at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/10/carol-klein-gardens-organics-lifestyle and come as the back lash against organics gathers pace in the gardening media. The attacks on organics seem to have got worse since the European Union announced that they wanted to ban many commonly used chemical garden remedies. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog most gardening magazines rely on the advertising revenues provided by chemical companies but it seems that the editors of some magazines have decided to take a hard line editorial stance against organics to support the chemical companies in their time of ‘crisis’. Don’t they know that the chemical companies will simply switch the attention of their sales teams to developing world nations, where safety regimes are less demanding. I think its time Europe insisted that all the food it imports is grown with the same rigorous safety standards and worker rights standards it sets for its own people. There should be a universal right to be free from poison.