How to make and use compost : the ultimate guide

210 Pages·2009·9.37 MB·English

by  Nicky Scott

How to Make and Use
COMPOST
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE
NICKY SCOTT
How to Make and Use
COMPOST

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First published in 2009 by
GREEN BOOKS
Foxhole, Dartington
Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EB
www.greenbooks.co.uk
Reprinted with minor amendments 2010
© Nicky Scott 2009-2010
All rights reserved
First published in digital editions 2010
Design by Stephen Prior
Drawings and Illustrations by Nicky Scott except page 191,
‘Germination’, © Virginia Lee. Thanks to Garden Organic for allowing us to
use the drawings on pages 59, 94 and 168.
All photographs by Nicky Scott except:
Black and white section: pages 35, 42, 93, 118 and 144 © Amanda
Cuthbert; page 97 © Jane Hirst; page 157 (bottom) © Growing Our Future;
page 148 © Community Composting Network; page 160 © Ridan; page 164
(right) © Dale Unsworth; page 170 © Carolyn Anderson; page 47 ©
ARticulate.
Colour section: pages 1, 2 (top), 6 (top) and 8 © Amanda Cuthbert; page 4
(bottom) © Dale Unsworth; page 5 (top) © Carolyn Anderson.
DISCLAIMER: The advice in this book is believed to be correct at the time
of printing, but the authors and the publishers accept no liability for
actions inspired by this book.
All prices quoted in this book are accurate at November 2009.
Print format ISBN 978 1 900322 59 1
PDF format ISBN 978 1 907448 68 3
ePub format ISBN 978 1 907448 69 0
CONTENTS
Introduction 9
PART ONE
1 Why make compost? 14
2 How does it work? 20
3 Making successful compost 34
4 Choosing the right composting system 40
5 Composting with worms 68
6 Using your compost 82
7 Community composting 94
PART TWO
8 A–Z Guide 100
PART THREE
9 Composting food waste on a large scale 150
10 Composting in schools 168
Resources 178
Index 192
DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this book to the countless millions of microorganisms that
are so often maligned – it’s the same old story: a few bad bacteria give all the rest
a bad name. Like my Dad always said, about the advert that declares the product
“kills 99 per cent of germs – dead!”, “It’s the other one per cent that kills you!”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Dick Kitto for early composting experiences and for suggesting I spend
time at the Henry Doubleday Research Association, and thanks to Lawrence Hills,
Patrick Hughes, Pauline Pears, Alan Gear and my fellow students Pat, Ali and Margaret
for making it such a special time. Thanks to all the wonderful crazy people, far too
numerous to mention individually I’m afraid, whom I’ve met in the composting
world since the community composting phenomenon started, especially the
Community Composting Network team and members – and all those schoolchil-
dren, members of the public, friends, colleagues and workshop attendees who’ve
asked me awkward questions that I’ve had to go away and think about! Also thanks
to the Compost Doctors for their endless enthusiasm and dedication in finding
new ways to compost food waste. To Jim Frederikson from the Open University
and Phil Wallace for reading through the manuscript and suggesting changes. To
Terry Cooper for coming along at the last minute and giving some invaluable
advice. To Tian for all the Bowen therapy that enabled me to keep typing. Finally,
thanks to all my friends and family, especially Yuli, for putting up with me while I
was writing this book and coming up with lots of useful suggestions. Also to
Amanda, Alethea and Steve for having to dredge through my manuscript and beat
it into something intelligible.

INTRODUCTION
Given the right conditions, anything that lived recently, and quite a few
things that were living hundreds of years ago, can be composted.
I’ve been fascinated by compost and all that it does for decades now, probably ever
since I had a Saturday job at Powlings Compost in Ipplepen, Devon. Dick Kitto, who
owned the business, went out collecting all kinds of organic ‘waste’ products locally,
from blood and hair from the Harris Bacon factory in Totnes to spoiled fruit and veg
from the shops and market; all kinds of things were blended with used mushroom
compost, mixed and stacked into great heaps to compost down, and finally sieved
and weighed into little bags with the distinctive Powlings’ robin logo.
I thought it was great that Dick built a business from stuff that would otherwise
have been thrown away, and later on he encouraged me to become a student at
the Henry Doubleday Research Association (now Garden Organic). Whilst there I
started to learn how compost helps create and maintain healthy soils, why this is
the foundation of growing organically, and just why it is so important that we all
become organic gardeners.
We made large compost heaps, bulking them up with bought-in strawy
manures, and I loved the thrill of seeing that steam rising off them on cold spring
mornings. I was introduced to the compost toilet system there too. One of the
great things about being at Henry Doubleday’s was the constant experimentation,
and that inspired me to experiment with different composting and mulching sys-
tems, which I continue to do today: there’s always more to find out.
We are increasingly aware of the need to live within the resources of the planet
we live on, and composting has a big part to play. Everything that has been made
falls into one of two recycling loops. The first is a ‘technological’ loop for all metals,
plastics and other man-made substances. We can’t do anything apart from sepa-
rate this material out for recycling, but we can do a lot with the second loop – the
‘bio’ loop of biodegradable stuff.