Gardens and gardening 2025

It's for ten pin bowling my friend, saving up for the bowls 

Eddie xx 

The below is a reply to one of Eddie's posts in the Chat thread. As it's a heavily loaded gardening theme I decided to put it here.

Hi Eddie, it's good to see earthworms making a comeback here. I have 4 compost bins made from wooden pallets. At the front of each I have runners going the length into which I slide slats taken from broken down pallets and that stops the contents sliding out the front. 

I used to be vice chairman of the Northern Ireland Vegetable Association and I gave a talk on making compost one night. What many people don't know is that compost should be made from 50% green waste and 50% brown waste, brown waste composed of cardboard (non shiny) and shredded thin twiggy sticks. 

I also have a pile of fallen leaves from my garden and the fields opposite where I planted 1,500 willow trees. They're surrounded by a bin made from chicken wire with bamboo canes at the corners.

Going out to the garden and plot shortly Eddie. Have a good day.

Tvman x

Hi Tvman Well you learn something every day. I have often thought about making compost but didn’t know where to stay and I would never have thought of putting twigs or wood in it, leeves yes but would never have thought of wood, so thanks for that!

I’ve got my cup ready for a toast to William (Ulls) cheers

Hi tvman, I tried making leaf mould compost, you need a skip full of leaves to make a bucket of compost, it's wonderful stuff though, and just a little add on to your compost advice, its a good idea to turn it over, if it's a large amount once a year is fine, a little more often with smaller ones, never let it dry out and keep it covered, as my friend tvman will concur, homemade compost is the best.. I used to have a compost bay in a greenhouse to sped up decomposition which generates enough heat to start sowing a little earlier.

Eddie xx

Absolutely Eddie, I try to turn mine once a month. How it works is that there's a warm inside caused by decomposition (if you leave a pile of grass clippings and go back to it 3 hours later, it'll be warm/hot in the middle). Same in your compost heap. In the hot middle there are wee beasties that love the heat, beavering away, munching and breaking down the stuff and in the outer layers there are other wee beasties that prefer cooler temperatures but they don't do as good a job. So when you turn your compost heap and put the wee beasties in an area where they're not happy, the heat loving ones all migrate to the middle and vice versa (I should really call them extremophiles). 

Of course you can buy recycling barrels that you turn frequently to mix up the contents and the added advantage is that there is a tap that you open to give a dark liquid that you can use as a liquid feed but it must be diluted before use. 

You're right about the leaf mould reducing to a bucketful but it can be used as a mulch and is good that way. My aunt had a big garden with a few trees and she used to rake up all the leaves and put them in black bin bags. She gave them to me, I took them home and pierced holes in them and put them to the side for 2 or 3 years before using them. 

Tvman x

PS how did you get on yesterday in Sunderland? I think it was.

The wood, or brown material, needs to be shredded in order that it breaks down quickly. I'm sure you've bought compost to find that it's slightly woody.