Home made compost – a gardener’s gold!

Well, one of my customers has three large timber framed compost bays within their even larger garden.

When I started my gardening services there two years ago, it was the first thing I noticed, well, beyond the plants and friendly chats with the house owner, of course!

The ‘decomposing’ material had been sat there for years, within three connected timber slatted bays built several years before. The slatted sides allowed air to ‘hopefully’ enter each bay to assist with the decomposition of the material within them.

Although appropriate material had been added to it each year, its thick layers of grass clippings and Autumnal leaf fall squashed down and compacted as tightly as possible by previous gardeners, had prevented air from getting into the material to assist in the decomposition process.

So, my plan was to dig through each bay, mixing it all up, providing air spaces within the bays of material to help to speed up this process.

And by doing this a few times during my first year there resulted in the most finest and decomposed organic material one could wish for!

Yes, Gardener’s Gold!

Repeated digging through the organic material in each bay helped it to decompose.

Barrow loads taken to borders to spread.

A thick 4 inch (10mm) layer spread over planted borders.

The effects of adding a thick layer of compost has benefitted the plants by

• retaining moisture within the soil surface
• improving the soil structure through worm activity pulling the compost into the soil
• providing a food source for beneficial worms, woodlice, slugs and other invertebrates
• adding nutrients to the soil so benefitting the health of plants
• reducing the amount of weed seeds from germinating

And, following the work done during Spring 2024, the process of creating more compost continued through the year and Autumn, filling up the compost bins to create even more to use in Summer 2025.

now for a cup-of-T!