Changeover

I have three compost bins for garden waste and kitchen scraps (other than the bits that go to the chooks). 

Today was changeover day. The bin on the right, which I have been filling for the last few months was watered thoroughly, then topped with a piece of old black plastic held down by lumps of wood. It won't see daylight for at least a year.

The middle bin was emptied at the end of last year onto the garden and is ready to be the recipient of new material for composting.

The left hand bin contains two-year-old compost (which used to be up to the top) and is about to be partly dug out to feed the broad bean bed, which I will sow on 7th May.

My composting method is a hybrid of hot and cold. To make hot compost you need a lot of materials all at once - enough to fill the whole bin in one go. This is hard to achieve in my relatively small set-up, when plant waste doesn't all arrive at the compost area at the same time of year. 

I have made hot compost a few times, using piles of stuff (wood shavings, grass cuttings, horse manure and rotted hay) from outside the property, as well as my own ingredients. 

It is an extraordinary process as bacteria get to work and heat the pile up to 70-odd degrees. You then turn it to redistribute everything and get the outside bits into the middle for more bacterial activity. Not only does it steam with heat on a cool day, but it shrinks almost in front of your eyes.

A hot compost can be ready to use in a few as four weeks in warm weather.

Cold compost is made by piling ingredients onto the bin as they become available. It takes much longer to produce usable compost (18 months to two years here), but for me it's a pragmatic approach.

However, when I have a big stock of composting ingredients, I layer them in the bin on top of anything else already in there and create a hot process for a while. I don't bother to do a full turn, and nor do I keep an eye on the temperature, but I do fork it about a bit after a week.

One trick to any good compost is to make the materials as small as possible, to create the maximum surface area for bacterial activity.

Some people have a shredder permanently set up next to their compost bins and absolutely everything gets put through it before composting. I don't have enough stuff to warrant the cost of a shredder, so I lay all the material on the ground and run the lawnmower over it repeatedly until it's all cut up and in the catcher. Then I empty it into the bin.

The other trick to good compost is water, and plenty of it. In fact much more than seems necessary.

Speaking of water, the much-advertised rain started (although hardly with a hiss or a roar) at 2pm. The forecast totals are right down and already (at 3.30pm) it has disappeared for now. It is better than nothing, but that is about all that can be said for it.

Today would have been my Pirate's 74th birthday. He's been nattering to me off and on all day. What a chatterbox...

25 years ago today we celebrated his 49th in Cairns. We had an appointment in the morning at the Oncology Clinic, and then with the cancer physiotherapist. 

There I was taught percussive massage, using my hands, which I was then able to apply to the Pirate's chest morning and night to get the fluid moving and help him cough (he had secondary tumours in his lungs).

We talked to the physio about our plans for the evening and were amazed and delighted with his suggestion to make it easier for the Pirate. He even supplied us with a letter to show anybody who questioned what was going on.

And so it was we arrived at the Cairns Convention Centre to see Billy Connolly live, equipped with a large hip flask filled with 20 year old Highland Park (single malt).

When the Pirate laughed too hard it morphed into a distressing racking cough. The whisky was prescribed to lubricate his throat and to relax his chest. It worked a treat. 

And to avoid worrying the people sitting around us, we spent the first 15 minutes after we sat down explaining to them all that he had cancer, that he would cough alarmingly, that the whisky had been recommended by the physio, here's the letter to prove it...oh and would you like a dram? 

We made a lot of friends that night, two of whom I am still in touch with. It was my Pirate's last big outing. He died seven weeks later.