Page 17 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2024/25

The Value of Compost
“Home Grown Compost.” A story about growing useful crops of vegetables and improving soil fertility.
Plants like to grow in soil with a good open structure, which assures efficient drainage in winter and a good supply of much-needed oxygen, food and water in the growing season.
There are different systems of recycling nutrients to make a soil improver. Turning compost every month sounds hard work, unacceptable and no longer suitable for me so I use a bin to produce compost but do not turn the compost.
I have a series of methods to improve soil fertility from the green waste in my allotment.
• The Compost Bin. A tidy system producing easy-to-handle Garden Compost efficiently.
• The open trench. Compost recycled from the summer weeds and green material set to benefit next year’s maincrop potatoes.
• The open special trench, to make good use of waste organic matter
and soil from the tomato plants in the greenhouse in preparation for the next year’s Runner Beans
• Reclaimed leaf mould, for enriching the seed bed.
• Mulching to preserve summer
moisture around the fruit trees and
along the vegetable rows
The Bin System that I use is not unique.
When the bin is given suitable food, it produces compost quickly. I loosen the soil around the bin to level it and encourage worms’ bugs and bacteria to find their way in. It is positioned in a sunny place at the corner of the plot that will
benefit from its contents
next year.
rainwater adding to revive the system and avoid it going cold it should be watered when building the heap and checked at later dates to make sure it does not dry out from the heat produced.
Use the “Garden Compost” to produce a worthwhile harvest, by digging one third of the plot every year and mixing in the
The first layer is made
of twigs pruned from the
raspberry canes and stems
of asparagus plants, which
aid drainage. The second
layer is mature compost
from last year ’s bin initiating
soil microbes to expand in
their vast numbers as the
contents of the bin begin to warm up.
During the summer months a continuous supply of “allotment surplus” and “lime-free soil” are added in alternate layers. “Allotment surplus,” is a mixture of soft growth and woodchips to generate heat and moisture. The alternate layer is soil mixed with a soluble fertilizer to sustain the compost and with shredded paper card to bulk it up.
These two mixtures are each spread evenly in the bin, a word of warning if the contents are not moist enough it will need
Cultivate potatoes, onions and cabbage in a simple rotation to support soil health
organic matter or better still if it can be found and is available, Farmyard Manure.
Cultivate potatoes, onions and cabbage in a simple rotation to support soil health.
Use the recommended quantities of lime and fertilizer to raise substantial and worthwhile crops and
maintain levels of nutrition in the soil. Summarizing this article fruit and vegetables grow better when “Home
Grown Soil improver” is applied.
Using a Bin is my preferred system. It is
not unique, but it includes many traditional and almost forgotten skills; mulching, reclaiming leaf mould, reducing any heavy work and making full use of green garden waste.
Ron Nutall
Simply Vegetables 17