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Waterfall Gardening

IMAGE BY BEN KERCKx FROM PIxABAY

HoW to MaKe YouR

oWn coMpost

By Ann Arnott

i t’s wonderful to see that as the days get longer, the 2. You need either a dedicated space in the garden or
leaves, these need to be thrown into a separate container.
plants are starting to produce new shoots. Getting
outdoors into the sunlight is a blessing and many of us
will be busy preparing our gardens during this time to one of those fancy compost bins where the
main event will take place.
be ready for summer. However, for a lot of people affected 3. You need a mixture of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’.
by the lockdown, cashflow has become a huge problem 4. You need moisture.
and so we can’t just rush out and stock up on compost 5. And you need the compost to generate heat.
and fertilisers to give the plants the boost that they need.
WHAT ARE ‘GREENS’ AND ‘BROWNS’?
The answer to improving the soil quality, of course, is to ‘Greens’ are your kitchen scraps, green grass
maintain your own compost heap when cashflow is tight. cuttings, annuals recently pulled out of your flower
beds, and new cuttings off shrubs. These have
You may ask: what’s the secret to making good a higher content of nitrogen, as does manure,
compost? There are a number of factors that have to which is why it’s also classified as a ‘green’.
be considered when embarking on this exercise.
1. Firstly, in your kitchen, you need a special bin, bucket or As plant material dries out and becomes brown, the
large bowl that can be closed with a lid, where you can nitrogen content diminishes. That’s one of the factors that
throw all your wilted and leftover veggies, rotten fruit, determines whether the ingredient is ‘green’ or ‘brown’.
peels and egg shells. If you have coffee grounds and tea Dead leaves, dried grass, wood products, newspaper

26 Waterfall Issue 10 2020