Heart and soil
Having a compost bin doesn’t have to be an unsightly business!
Ihadn’t been in my new house and garden more than five minutes – or the length of time it took to cook one meal – when it dawned on me that there was something seriously lacking.
It wasn’t rolling acres or hours of direct sunshine: those I was reconciled to. It was not mature planting and elegantly designed spaces: those I will address with time. What I wanted, needed and had to have most of all, was a compost bin.
Now, I know that food waste and peelings can go in the brown bin, and one can pay for green waste collection in these parts. But I find it indescribably annoying not to have an immediate repository for a handful of dead-headed material or gone over annuals when I’m working in the garden. And when it comes to kitchen waste, my culinary enthusiasm and large household mean that mountains of carrot peelings and apple cores issue forth. And it breaks my gardening heart not to see them converted into a handsome boost for the equally hungry soil.
But the problem comes back to the fact that, in a small back yard, there’s nowhere to hide. And I don’t really want to look out on a green Dalek compost bin, effective as they are. So, in pursuit of an equally effective and better-looking solution, I bought a wooden bin with a hinged lid, making sure to pick the thickest wood I could find – compost, after all, being in the business of degrading organic matter.
I assembled it by sliding (OK, vigorously hammering) the planks into vertical notched posts. Theoretically, one can lift the planks back out to access the compost. In reality, the fit is so tight that when the wood gets wet and swells it’s never going to budge. But when the happy day comes, I’ll just turn the compost and fish it out from the top.
Starting from scratch over winter, the decomposition progress has been slow. But with warmer weather it should start to pick up nicely. What’s more, the not-unattractive wooden cube is conveniently at the right height to use as an occasional potting bench and the section of lid that doesn’t lift up can be used as a plant shelf. A win-win situation!