Page 40 - ALG Issue 3 2016

Let’s talk composting...
For your compost to work, you must ensure that you get the right balance of composting materials. Composting materials are split into green and brown. Green materials include uncooked kitchen waste, grass clippings, fruit and vegetables and leafy plants. Brown materials include woodchip, shredded paper and card (not too heavily printed), leaves, prunings
and hedge trimmings. Sometimes green and brown materials are split into nitrogen components (green) and carbon components (brown). You should aim for a split between brown and green materials to be between 25 and 50 percent green materials and the rest should be brown materials.
It is important not to add cooked or raw meat, bones, sh, bread, plastic, metal, infected or diseased plants to your compost heap. There are other things which should not be added, which you can see on the NAS lea et called ‘compost, bon re and waste disposal’. However, you should also ensure that you do not add too much water and that you have a good amount of air by turning your compost heap regularly (every few months or so).
Some people are lucky enough to have two compost heaps,
raw vegetables (excluding onions, shallots, leeks and garlic),
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one which has been composted from last year, and another with new compost materials which will be ready for the year after. However, space does not always allow for a compost heap, let alone two, in which case a wormery can be used instead. There are particular types of worms that you will need to buy in order to make compost, which can be bought online or via phone for a reasonable price. You can feed your worms
Yorkshire Worms.indd 1 22/06/2016 09:21
cooked vegetables, fruit (excluding raw citrus peel), shredded paper and cardboard and small amounts of leaves and garden waste, to name a few. You should only add water to your wormery if it appears dry, but you should be careful not to waterlog the wormery as this can restrict air supply for worms. Beth Cowan
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