Hot composting takes the heat off peat

HOT composting is on the rise among ecologically-conscious gardeners as they turn their backs on peat.

Dobbies, the country’s biggest garden centre chain, said it had seen a rise in demand for hot compost bins, as space-poor gardeners look for smaller bins to make their compost and to move away from environmentally-damaging peat. The Royal Horticultural Society has recently launched a hot composting range and said sales of the bins, which cost from £100, had risen six-fold.

Hot compost takes up less space than a traditional “cold” compost heap and also creates useable compost much more quickly, in weeks rather than months, but tends to be higher maintenance and a little more complex to set up.

Guy Barter, the RHS’S chief horticulturist, said: “Composting is perennially popular among gardeners but many are being drawn to hot composting because of its ability to turn garden and kitchen waste into soil improver in half the time.”

Figures released last month by the Horticultural Trades Association showed that wood-based compost had become the most common type sold to amateur gardeners, overtaking peat for the first time.