Page 46 - ALG Issue 3 2020

East Midlands
Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland
REPRESENTATIVE
Mr Paul Howgill
37 Meredith Road, Rowley Fields, Leicester LE3 2EP
07803 828 777 allotmentbaron@aol.com
MENTOR
Adam Murphy
East Midlands (North) 0845 4786 352 amurphy.nas@gmail.com
Welcome to our new members...
Brassington Allotment Society
Forest Folk Allotment Society
Horseshoe Allotment Limited
Old Park Farm Garden Holders Association Polebrook Allotment Association
Ruddington Parish Council 11 Individuals Memberships
Composting demonstration site celebrates its first year
Calls to 0845 numbers cost 3p (ex VAT) per minute plus your telephone company’s access charge
The Composting Demonstration site
at Stokes Wood Allotment, Leicester, has now been operational for a year, providing a community composting service to plotholders and reducing the need for bonfires and waste being sent to landfill, as well as operating as a demonstration site showing a wide range of composting bins and techniques for home, allotment and school use. The site has a T23 and T26 waste exemption, permitting aerobic composting and treating food in a wormery.
The Stokes Wood Allotment plot
offers one of the largest displays of working composting bins, plant food and compost tea makers in the East Midlands. With the adjacent pavilion/ meeting room, refreshment facilities and outside breakaway area with a permanent gazebo, the allotment site provides an ideal venue for composting workshops, talks and awareness training for Allotment plotholders, Allotment Societies, Garden Clubs, schools and householders. In addition, the site can serve as a focus for other activities, such as taking a key role in the 2019 Leicester Pumpkin Rescue with pumpkin carving, pumpkin lunch and a pumpkin smash, where a local school and others smashed and started to compost over 100 pumpkins. This event was featured by the BBC.
buying subsidised bins under the Council schemes, as well more technical and expensive bins, to compost successfully using a range
of techniques. These sessions have been put on hold until the measures
to control the virus are relaxed, but
the society welcomes enquiries and expressions of interest in anticipation of being able to start the course before the end of the year.
The site also has a range of wormeries including stacking, single chamber and dog poo wormeries, and a display showing the making of liquid plant feeds
tour of the demonstration area, a composting talk or workshop session on topics such as making liquid feed, and refreshments in the large pavilion on site and the outdoor seating area.
COMPOST MENTOR
Community Composting is based on a bank of pallet bins together with a weed desiccation rack and drowning buckets, allowing most perennial weeds to be pretreated before composting. There are a wide range of composters for home and school use, including plastic ‘Daleks’, Compost Master, Tekplas
and the larger Aerobin 400, wooden beehive and lacewing bins, tumbler bins including a large Mantis tumbler, a smaller dual chamber Meridan suitable for use in a smaller garden and barrel tumbler bins. There are also a range of compost bins suitable for composting cooked food, as well as other organic waste. These include two Hotbins, a Jora tumbler, a Green Johana and a Green Cone. The site also has a range of wormeries including stacking, single chamber and dog poo wormeries,
and a display showing the making of liquid plant feeds e.g comfrey, nettle and compost tea. During events and training sessions, a display showing the making of aerated compost tea and the use of Bokashi composting can be provided.
For information on training, compost related talks or site visits, please contact Carryoncomposting1@gmail.com.
There are further details of the demonstration site at: http://www. carryoncomposting.com/142941482.
THE RANGE OF BINS ON
DISPLAY
COMPOSTING
It is also hoped to offer Compost Mentor training in junction with the NAS nationally, for those who require a deeper knowledge and experience of a wider range of techniques and skills. The programme will provide a broad knowledge of composting techniques and included modules on specialised areas, such as hot composting, composting cooked food and catering waste, community composting on allotments, and community gardens, liquid feeds etc. The programme
will provide Allotment Societies, Community Compost schemes and schools the option of having a trained Compost Mentor on their sites to encourage and advise on composting and help reduce waste being burnt or sent to landfill.
It is anticipated that this session will also be offered online once the pilot scheme has been completed.
AWARENESS TRAINING
It was proposed to introduce a pilot training programme during the summer, providing basic composting awareness training to help new allotment plotholders from across the Midlands, as well as householders
SOCIETY VISITS AND
TRAINING
WORKSHOPS
Visits from other societies and schools can be arranged to include a guided
46 Allotment and Leisure Gardener