This is the extent of the problem in my own garden, so far...
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| A thick carpet of maple leaves, and more are yet to come! |
So maybe you need somewhere to put the leaves you are going to sweep up? (Thank goodness I recently freed-up one of my compost bins).
Readers in the UK may be interested to see this website: http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/index.html
If you follow the "Buy a compost bin" link you will see a thing that asks you to put in your postcode, and this then shows you any subsidised schemes in your area for getting cheap compost bins. Such schemes are usually subsidised by your local Council, who have a vested interest in reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill -- they have targets to fulfil in this area!
The Blackwall 330 litre bin that is advertised at £17.00 is on sale in lots of places for about £35. This is like the one at the left in my picture above.
I wrote a bit about making leaf-mould in a blogpost on 20 October 2010, which you might like to read.
For further thoughts on composting, see also my earlier post called "Invasion of the Daleks" [22 Sept 2010], and my daughter Fiona's guest post called "Balcony Composting" [17 Oct 2010]. Fiona derived much of her expertise on this subject from a website called http://www.balconycompost.com/ which is worth a visit.
Wow you have a lot of leaves already! Ours are still mostly clinging to the trees, but with a birch, horse chestnut and beech in the garden it won't be long now - and we still can't get to all the garden to rake them up!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info; always good to know & interesting reading!
ReplyDeleteIf you need to speed up your composter's processing rate, try putting a little colony of red worms to work. This is the same type of worm used in vermicomposting, but whereas vermicomposting requires all kinds of attention and care and extra materials, the exact same worms can live in a large outdoor composter pretty much without maintenance---and they make our compost turn over three or four times as fast as it would normally. They're not supposed to survive temperatures under 40 F, but between the heat generated by the decomp and the insulation of a thick layer of leaves that I add in the autumn, they overwinter just fine in our composter (in zone 6).
ReplyDeleteHi Odile; thanks for visiting my blog. I fully support what you say about worms in outdoor composters. See my blogpost called simply "Worms", dated 09 Oct 2010...
ReplyDeleteI am in Peterborough and trying to get a cheap/subsidised Compost unit. My garden is too small for a compost heap and my budget is benefits for being long term sick. i am trying to grow my own fruit and veg organically and any info would be much apreciated. also if any keen gardeners in the area has any surplas equipment this would be put to very good use as I live in a sheltered bungalow in a community of 26 elderly/ disabled people thankyou for reading. Wendy
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