The best compost may be the stinkiest

Pip Hawke’s primary gardening goal is to teach growers how to make quality bulk compost – but some of her ingredients may not be for the faint-hearted.

The “Queen of Compost” says a key ingredient to success in the vege patch is producing your own rich compost. She has sheep and chooks, fish frames and heads, all providing good food for the plants.

“I used to be useless at growing compost, and now I call myself the queen of compost. It’s such good compost and I don’t dig my garden. I’ve gone in for the no-dig garden. I’m always adding compost and mulch to my plants.

“I save every leaf that falls off every tree on the property, and we have some big plane trees down the back. We scratch up everything when it’s falling. So we have a massive pile of dry and it pretty much all goes back into the compost.” And then the grass, fish heads and bodies, and sheep guts when one is killed.

The key is to get the mixture and moisture right.

“I do a layer of grass clippings, a layer of dry matter, I’ll do some comfrey to bring in a bit of heat, I’ll sprinkle in a bit of blood and bone, but all the time I’m putting water in every single layer and I think that was the thing in the past that has let me down because I didn’t have it moist enough. I get the hose and if we’re doing it together, one of us will get the hose and put water on each level while the other one is forking in.

“We make use of our lawns. People will fertilise their lawns and spend all their

time growing it, and it gives them nothing back. They just want to make it look good. I want to grow that grass and use it in compost.

“So after mowing the lawn, I’ve got this big pile. And then a pile of dry.

“All the prunings from our trees we put through a mulcher so that’s saw dust. And I’ve got a brother who cuts firewood for lots of people.

“He chops down trees or chops up trees for lots of people, and he has a lot of saw dust, so he’ll give me a trailer load of sawdust often. So I have those two big piles sitting out there.

“We’ve got a couple of fishermen friends and when they give me a couple of buckets of frozen fish heads, I’ll defrost them and get some seaweed and add that in. I grow comfrey through it, and we’ve

got a bit of stinging nettle to go in there as well. If we’re making big lots, and we’re making such big lots, it’s very quick when you’re using comfrey, it seems to heat up really well. Once the bin is full, we cover it over with a piece of black plastic and let it do its own thing.

“And we’ve got sheep and chooks, so when we kill a sheep we’ll throw the guts in.”

BRUCE MACKAY/STUFF “We’ve got a couple of fishermen friends and when they give me a couple of buckets of frozen fish heads.”