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Author: Julie Halford

What are Browns and Greens in composting?

Posted on by Julie Halford

 Many beginners ask this question when they start out composting.

The terms Browns and Greens can be a useful description for the carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich organic materials that are needed to provide composting creatures with a good diet.   

These insects and micro-organisms have basic requirements for food just like the rest of us. If the balance is wrong they won’t be as happy and won’t decompose the organic material as effectively. But don’t let this put you off.  Anyone who composts is constantly figuring out how much carbon to add to the bin. It becomes an interesting hobby and – dare we say it – fun.  

Nobody is going to come round giving your finished compost marks out of 10 (unless that’s the way you roll) and it’s unlikely you’ll get a mob of angry worms waving placards at your door. (If you do, be sure to upload the footage on YouTube.)

The micro-organisms need protein (which is rich in nitrogen) for growth, and sugar(rich in carbon)for energy, much of which is released as heat.

Dead leaves and woody waste, such as twigs and branches, are rich in carbon, and green grass and green leaves are rich in nitrogen. So, we think of carbon as Browns and nitrogen as Greens.

An image of a very full Green Johanna composter

When it comes to garden waste, it’s easy to remember that dead leaves and branches are Browns while fresh leaves and grass are Greens. But confusion can arise when it comes to waste that’s not from the garden. Not every brown item is carbon-rich and not all Greens are green in colour. For example, coffee grounds and manure might be brown but they’re not composting Browns; they’re rich in nitrogen, so are classified in composting terms as Greens.

Nancy Birtwhistle says in her book The Green Gardening Handbook that she finds the traditional Browns and Greens compost terminology confusing, preferring to think in terms of Wet and Dry contents.

 Michael Kennard, of the food-waste composting organisation Compost Club, makes the same point in his booklet How to Hot Compost – The Basics. He encourages beginners to think in terms of nitrogen and carbon content (C:N ratio).

The ideal C:N ratio is considered to be 30:1 but it would be difficult to calculate this exactly as every item has a different ratio. Most plant materials are a mixture of both, but more carbon than nitrogen as they get older and tougher.  

A good guide is to simply add equal amounts of carbon to nitrogen, then observe and make adjustments if your compost lets you know something is wrong. For example, if it starts to smell, there’s too much nitrogen (and poor aeration). If breakdown is very slow, there’s too much carbon.

Here’s a quick guide to common organic materials for composting:

GREENS: NITROGEN

  • Food waste
  • Fresh grass clippings
  • Fresh annual weeds
  • Flowers
  • Plant debris
  • Seaweed/kelp
  • Coffee grounds/filters
  • Tealeaves, tea bags (non-plastic)
  • Natural fabrics (cotton, wool) 
  • Herbivore manure

BROWNS: CARBON

  • Dead leaves
  • Shrub prunings – twigs, branches, stalks
  • Cardboard – tape and stickers removed
  • Pine needles/ cones
  • Corn cobs (may have to go through the composting process several times)
  • Brown paper bags, scrunched up
  • Sawdust from untreated wood
  • Straw
  • Cardboard egg boxes
  • Wood chips
  • Newspaper and junk mail

Keeping carbon

A little planning goes a long way when it comes to having enough carbon content to hand.  Gardens usually provide plenty of nitrogen in summer and carbon in autumn. Many people bag up and store dead leaves in autumn so that they’re readily available throughout the year. Store these leaves and other carbon-rich content near your compost bin in lidded containers or tied bags so they don’t get wet and start to break down.  Then when you add food waste or grass cuttings to the bin, you can add your carbon at the same time.  

Grass mowings are a good compost activator but if a large amount is added at one time the compost can become too wet and the grass can clump together. So, add grass in thin layers, alternating with layers of dead leaves or paper.

Remember that chopping or shredding Browns increases the surface area in contact with microbes in the pile, which makes for faster breakdown. Smaller pieces also make turning the pileeasier.

A chipper/shredder can save time and effort or use a pair of hedge clippers to chop materials on a board.

 

When is my compost ready to use?

Posted on by Julie Halford

This was a question that two new owners of a Green Johanna were asking themselves in their first year of composting. 

Adam and Hayley decided to try composting with a Johanna last year following a few failed attempts with other composters.

They’re both vegans and wanted to produce their own compost to use for growing their own veg, as well as recycling their food and garden waste sustainably.   

  The standard test for when compost is ready for use is that it is dark brown in colour, crumbly in texture and has a pleasant, earthy smell like damp woodland. If you’ve been hot composting, the mature compost will no longer be generating heat. The original materials should not be recognisable. There may be a few items that have not fully broken down, such as sticks, bits of tea bags, corncobs, eggshells, fruit stones, compostable bags – these can be picked out and added back into the next batch of composting material.

 If there are other recognisable waste items and an unpleasant smell, the compost is not ready and should be left to continue breaking down.

Master composter Rod Weston, in his book A Gardener’s Guide to Composting Techniques, suggests a test to check if compost is ready if you are wanting to add it to soil immediately (immature compost added to soil can cause a temporary reduction in the availability of nitrogen and oxygen and create root-inhibiting organic acids).

The test involves putting a handful of compost in a plastic bag and sealing it for three days at room temperature. If when opened the contents have a pleasant earthy smell, composting is complete.

 Rod suggests that during the growing season immature compost is best used as surface mulch. If mostly composted it will finish breaking down in the soil. In autumn and winter it can be dug into garden beds. Some people prefer to leave their compost breaking down over winter to have it ready for the start of a new growing season. 

Horticulturalist and author Charles Dowding encourages a relaxed approach to the final product. In his No-Dig Children’s Gardening Book (also a good read for adults) he says that mature compost can be anything from ‘slightly lumpy and fibrous to quite fine and soft’. It all depends on the materials that went into making it and they will all decompose at different rates.

‘It doesn’t need to look perfect – woody bits in your compost make great food for fungi.’

He cautions against sieving compost as it can damage microbes.

What’s the difference between compost and humus?

The term compost describes materials that are still breaking down whereas humus is what’s left when breakdown is no longer taking place and the usable chemicals in the organic matter have been extracted by the micro-organisms.

It takes years for compost to decompose into a humus state. Even mature compost isn’t really ‘finished’ since bugs and fungi still have material to work on. Some gardeners have a bank of composters and leave the final one to break down completely into humus.  

A bumper crop

Adam and Hayley decided to leave their compost for about a year so they could use it in a compost mix for growing potatoes.

With first-time use of a Green Johanna, it can take 6-8 months for compost to be ready for use. After that, depending on conditions, it’s usually 4-6 months. With regular cold composting it’s usually between 6 months to 2 years.

Great compost accelerator

The couple also used a bokashi bin alongside their Johanna.  The pre-compost that a bokashi bin produces makes an excellent compost accelerator, raising temperature and speeding up decomposition. Fermented bokashi mixture is usually quite wet so needs to be balanced with plenty of carbon-rich materials. The bokashi mixture will then break down in the composter. 

 ‘Bokashi has become a really useful part of our composting process,’ said Adam. ‘We put all our food waste straight into the bin and give it a few sprays of Bokashi spray, then once it’s full and has been left to ferment we transfer it to the Johanna.’

It usually takes them around one to two weeks to fill the Bokashi bin with their kitchen waste, which is usually vegetable scraps along with some beans. They then use their smaller kitchen caddy to take food waste to the Johanna while the Bokashi bin is ‘doing its thing’.

Food waste provides the compost mix with nitrogen-rich content, which must be balanced with shredded carbon-rich materials (dead leaves, twigs, branches, wood chips, paper waste) and regularly aerated to get oxygen into the pile.

The verdict on the Johanna:

With previous composting attempts, the couple had experienced slow breakdown of waste materials with hardly any compost produced.  

 ‘The Johanna is much better built and works faster at breaking down all the waste,’ said Adam.

The couple feel their efforts with the Johanna and Bokashi have paid off – not only are they recycling all their food and garden waste nature’s way, but they also get to make their own delicious home-grown spuds. What’s not to like? 

Grow your garden the organic way

An image of a bird feeding station
Posted on by Julie Halford

The wonderful thing about Garden Organic’s demonstration gardens is that they’re not a rarefied retreat for green-fingered types, they’re for absolutely everyone.

We had the pleasure of meeting up with a team from Garden Organic at their base in Coventry last week.

The charity promotes organic growing and composting to help everybody to garden using natural methods. As Dave from GO said to us, ‘We want to make organic gardening easy and attainable for anybody.’

The gardens are a treat for the senses with an abundance of colour and inspiration everywhere, not to mention the delicious earthy aroma of healthy soil.

It’s a place of quiet creativity and observation, with the volunteers who are so essential to the charity going about their activities peacefully in the background.

Dave checks in on the bugs in a composter observation panel

If you live in the area, we can guarantee you will be inspired by the guided tours and workshops and the tips you pick up from the experts.

 The gardens are also home to the Heritage Seed Library, which maintains the national collection of heritage vegetables and shares seeds with members.   

If a visit isn’t possible, check out GO’s website and their webinars, which feature useful Q&A sessions in the chat at the end so you can anonymously ask any questions that have been bugging you.

  You can also find out whether one of their 11 compost demonstration projects in the UK is near you. Don’t worry if there isn’t one yet; many more are in the pipeline.

Everyday gardeners

The charity began life in 1958 when Laurence D Hills founded the Henry Doubleday Research Association. He called on ‘everyday’ gardeners to take part in trials to build understanding of best organic growing practices. This form of research is termed ‘citizen science’ and plays an important role in modern research.

In the years that followed, the charity became known as Garden Organic and has continued to develop understanding about organic growing through research and practical application and sharing this knowledge with gardeners at home.

With 20,000 members, it’s a movement of citizens playing their part in supporting the nature on their doorstep.

Our team returned to our own doorsteps with more knowledge and inspiration for our own gardens, be it growing comfrey ‘Bocking 14’ to make natural compost activator, or succulents on a shed roof. And who wouldn’t want to create tunnels for hedgehogs and mini rainwater ponds for wildlife?

Everything you see there has a purpose in promoting life – be it soil, plant, animal or human. It’s also interesting and lovely to look at, which is a balm for the mind and soul.     

Growing comfrey Bocking 14

Compost activator is made by placing comfrey leaves in drainpipe sections and collecting the liquid that is produced

Rainwater runs off into a mini wildlife pond

A home-made wooden composter features a tunnel for hedgehogs

Succulents growing on a roof

A volunteer checks up on the chickpeas

Follow Garden Organic’s four main methods to build perfect soil

  • Add compost and other bulky organic materials – this not only adds nutrients but also helps create a good structure for plant roots to penetrate.
  • Minimise digging to avoid disturbing the complex soil life.
  • Plan your planting to make best use of the soil’s nutrients and to avoid build-up of pests and diseases.
  • Grow certain plants, such as green manures, which hold nutrients in the soil and can help suppress weeds. (Green manures are living mulches grown to benefit soil fertility and structure.)

A structure that creates a woody wonderland for wildlife

Pots of colour

Why wet summers need water butts

Posted on by Julie Halford

It can be tempting to think, as you watch the rain lashing the windowpane and the family’s pet rabbit doing the backstroke up and down in his hutch, that at least you won’t have to water the garden.

But this isn’t the case. Even in a wet summer your garden still needs watering – rainfall will water the soil’s surface but not deeper down.

This was a topic of discussion during our recent visit to Garden Organic’s demonstration gardens in Coventry when a gardener told us that some beds were still very dry despite all the rain we’ve been having.

This point is made by Nancy Birtwhistle in The Green Gardening Handbook:

‘Even though there may have been a heavy downpour of rain, which is hugely helpful and beneficial to veggies growing in beds, it is still important to head over to your supply of rainwater (from the biggest water butt you have room for) to water pots, containers and hanging baskets daily, even twice daily on very hot or very windy days.’

Never is a water butt more appreciated than in the fickle British summer.

An estimated 24,000 litres could be collected from the roof each year with the use of water butts.  Rainwater can be collected from any roof as long as there is a gutter and downpipe that enters the drain at ground level.

As we all know, even when a British summer is characterised by grey skies and downpours, there are bound to be a few days of consecutive sun and then a drought will be declared, along with water restrictions and hosepipe bans.

In our experience no customer is more desperate than the gardener who, like the man who starts his Christmas shopping on December 24th, left it till a drought to get a water butt.

Knowing that you can always water those fresh plantings that need it most takes avoidable stress out of gardening.  

Water butts are a wise choice because:

  • Plants prefer rainwater as it has a lower pH. Minerals that are found in mains tap water, especially in hardwater areas, can raise the pH of the root zone, which affects nutrient availability. Chemicals added to mains water that are safe for humans can be harmful for plants.  Plants are most vulnerable to shortages of water when they are first planted and their roots have not yet established into the deeper, moister layers of soil.
  • They help to reduce flood risk. Urban areas struggle to cope with heavy rainfall as there are not enough porous surfaces to absorb downpours. Water butts capture water that could contribute to surface runoff – a major cause of flooding.   
  • As well as the house, water butts can also be attached to sheds, garages, greenhouses and outbuildings – useful if you have a large garden that requires a lot of water. If you have a smaller garden and low-maintenance plants, you won’t need as much water so a mini butt would be better; storing more water than you need can lead to stagnation.
  • Rainwater is better than tap water for watering dry compost to maintain the moisture levels necessary for successful composting. Chemicals that are added to tap water can kill some of the beneficial micro-organisms that you want to nurture in your compost bin.

Easy tips for a mulch better garden

  • Using mulch to cover soil means water is retained and evaporation reduced. This means you don’t have to water your plants as frequently.
  • Mulch the soil after a spell of rain with mature compost to retain moisture. Lay the layers at least 5cms thick after first removing weeds. As it decomposes and is taken into the soil by worms and other organisms, the compost feeds plants and micro-organisms in the soil.
  • Create water collection points around your garden by digging buckets or bowls into the ground to collect rainwater. You can then fill up your watering can on the spot.
  • Don’t waste precious water by sprinkling it on foliage – focus instead on the roots so you get water right to the base of the plant. Use a watering can rather than a hose or sprinkler.
  • Giving plants a good soak once a week is better than a light watering every day and also saves time.
  • Place drip-trays beneath pots to collect drainage (remove in winter to avoid water logging).
  • Remember to remove weeds from planted areas as they will compete for soil moisture.

Feel too old to compost? Bokashi’s the answer

Man emptying food into a bokashi bin
Posted on by Julie Halford

My parents and I were discussing the fact that their local council doesn’t yet operate a separate food waste collection.

My mum said it wasn’t a huge deal for them because they didn’t have any food waste anyway.

 I queried this; they must have food waste.  She maintained that they didn’t.

I said I wondered if they ate eggshell sandwiches, or tea bag pie, or perhaps apple core crumble. She said she wondered if I was being sarcastic.

Of course, they didn’t eat those things, she said, but that wasn’t waste ‘because you couldn’t eat it anyway’. It became clear that the word ‘waste’ meant different things to each of us.  

‘Our generation sees waste as something you scrape off your plate,’ Mum said. ‘So it’s the result of not planning properly and cooking too much or putting too much on your plate.’

My parents’ generation of ‘war babies’ equate the word waste with wastefulness.

Wasting food

This might go some way towards explaining the confusion that arose some years ago when research was being done to establish what residents’ attitudes would be if their local council offered voluntary food waste collections. Researchers found that many people said they wouldn’t use a food waste collection because they had no food waste. This didn’t stack up as it didn’t equate to the amount of food waste that the councils had to dispose of. Perhaps these respondents were people of my parents’ generation who thought that if they weren’t ‘wasting’ food they had no food waste.

After our discussion, Mum started thinking about everything she threw in the bin. She realised that she created large amounts of peelings because she makes fresh soup every day.

The next time I visited, she said that because they didn’t yet have any information about when their council would start food waste collections, it had been preying on her mind that every scrap in their bin went to landfill.

But they also felt ‘too old at our age’ (81 and 84) to start stirring compost.

Starting with the belief that you’re never too old to save the earth, I came up with a solution – Team Bokashi. It would work like this:

  • A Maze Bokashi Bin would fit neatly on their worktop, or under the sink, and they could scrape all their food waste into it.
  • By adding Bokashi spray or Bokashi bran to each input of food waste, natural beneficial microbes are introduced which accelerate the fermentation process. (Bokashi is Japanese for ‘fermented organic matter’).
  • Because the waste ferments anaerobically (without air), there are no flies or smells.
  • Once the bin is full, it is left sealed shut for two to three weeks while the contents are left to ferment. Then the contents would normally be added to a garden composter, where it acts as an accelerator, or buried in the garden to break down and become soil-building compost. But I don’t see my dad at 84 being keen to go round digging holes in his garden, so I said I would take the bin and add its contents to our own Green Johanna or Compost Tumbler and hand it back to them. Using two bins on rotation should do the job.

In a way, it’s our own version of what the ShareWaste app does – connecting people who would like to recycle their food scraps with other people who are already composting.

My dad came on board when I explained that the liquid you drain every few days from the tap at the bottom of the bin is a great organic drain cleaner that controls smells and prevents algae build-up.  You can also dilute it for use as plant feed, but it looked like the plants would have to go hungry. My dad has always had a thing about blocked drains. I think it’s a man thing. Using the bokashi drain cleaner might save them a small fortune on whatever gunk he normally chucks down the plughole, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing for the water system too.

I gave them the Bokashi bin and left them to it. Would they become bokashi fans or might it be too much change too soon?

At first Mum argued that there was no space on the kitchen worktop (what with her soup maker, bread maker, food processor etc) for the bokashi bucket so it was given a home on the patio table outside. After a few weeks, however, she did rearrange her worktop space to accommodate the Bokashi bin and the sky didn’t fall in.

No blocked drains

Dad expressed disappointment that he wasn’t getting the promised Bokashi drain cleaner. I explained it was quite normal to go a week at first without liquid while the process got going. Then he forgot to check for a few days and ended up with half a jugful of the stuff. He was highly delighted. I could tell no drains were going to get the chance to get blocked around these parts.

Bokashi ‘tea’ drain cleaner

My parents reported that after a few early instances of forgetting they had a new food waste bin, they quickly got the Bokashi habit. It was now unthinkable for them to throw food waste in the normal kitchen bin, as they had done for the past 80 years.

Bokashi convert

Mum is now a complete Bokashi convert. She says she feels ‘empowered’ by being useful.

‘We all have to do something about the climate crisis,’ she says, ‘and this isn’t a lot to ask, especially when you consider the upsides.’

All that remained was to take a photo using Mum as a model for this blog, showing ‘People in their eighties getting the Bokashi bug’.

But when I turned up to take her photo, Mum had just been out and was looking very elegantly groomed – and not a day over 60.

I was dismayed. ‘You’re going to ruin my photo, you don’t look old.’

‘Really?’ she said, delighted. ‘You’d better use your dad then.’

Julie

Man emptying food into a bokashi bin

Dad does his bit – using a Bokashi bin

Johannas give hope to South African townships

Posted on by Julie Halford

There can’t be anywhere on earth putting Green Johannas to better use than the townships of South Africa.

The food waste composters are a vital tool there in the work done by local women to sustain their families, communities and the environment.

The women, known locally as Kamammas (‘mothers who carry their child and community’), use the Johannas to recycle food waste into compost to grow their own food.  They then use this produce to cook traditional homemade cuisine for tourists who stay in their guest houses, providing a true taste of the real South Africa.

A Kamamma and Johanna

These ‘Homestay’ experiences are organised through the Dreamcatcher South Africa Foundation, a non-profit social enterprise which gives communities, especially women and youth, the opportunity to raise themselves out of poverty through training and employment.

Township residents are trained as hosts, guides and small business owners, enabling them to introduce tourists to the culture of their country.

Dreamcatcher’s founder Anthea Rossouw remembers the Kamammas’ reactions when she first showed them how they could learn to compost using a Green Johanna (shown in the video below).

‘Their reaction was amazing. Such joy, because they could see what this meant for them – to be able to grow their own food.  They started singing – ‘Give Me Hope Jo’Anna’ and dancing round the compost bin!’

Dreamcatcher’s recycling work is now even more important since the South African government has committed to halving food loss and food waste by 2030.  In recent months Anthea and her team have been running workshops to get more people recycling their food waste with Green Johannas.

A lorry load of Green Johannas destined for South Africa

The idea for Dreamcatcher came to Anthea more than 30 years ago during the apartheid era when she knew she had to do something about the suffering she saw around her.

‘There was so much injustice, inequality and insanity on a human level and an environmental level,’ she says. ‘It was obvious it couldn’t continue.’

Raised in South Africa by parents who championed diversity in defiance of the apartheid system, Anthea believes in turning challenges into opportunities.

Her father, a master builder of English descent, used to tell her, ‘Forget the pie in the sky and get down to earth.’ He could never have imagined how literally his daughter would take that advice, as getting people composting is one of the many strands of her vision for a better world.    

Over the years she has run many composting workshops, both in South Africa and the South of England where she divides her time.  She reckons that 99 per cent of the people she talks to have never composted before, but before long they are as evangelical about it as she is.

‘Composting is all upsides – you’re taking food waste out of landfill, where it’s an environmental disaster, and out of homes, with all the health and hygiene issues that involves. And it creates free, organic compost for people to grow their own food and flowers.’

When starting Dreamcatcher, she felt that an answer to many of the problems faced by townships could be found in a new kind of tourism. The tourism industry at the time was booming but completely bypassed the townships, with tourists being driven straight past the communities as though they didn’t exist. She saw a way for the inhabitants to share a piece of the tourism pie by offering visitors the chance to ‘life-see’ as well as sight-see.

A Kamamma gives tourists an authentic taste of South Africa

Anthea’s first proposals centred on the community of Melkhoutfontein, Western Cape, which at the time was one of the most destitute areas in the country, situated between two rubbish dumps and surrounded by waste.

The response from the authorities was ridicule. ‘The attitude was, “But no one will want to go there, no one will want to eat there!” ‘

 But Anthea connected with the international marketplace, convinced that tourists would relish the chance to meet the people (as well as the elephants!) of South Africa, thereby getting to know the soul of the country, not just its beauty spots. And she was proved right. Since its inception, Dreamcatcher has facilitated trips to South Africa for hundreds of tourists from over 30 countries.

Dreamcatcher developed authentic tourism experiences led by local people. It is based in the region that boasts the earliest known examples of human artistic activity, in the 73,000-year-old drawings discovered in the 1990s at Blombos Cave.

 Homestay with Kamamma

Focusing on struggling areas situated within established tourist routes, Dreamcatcher gives people the skills and knowledge they need to support themselves. Then, armed with these new skills, they develop enterprises such as ‘Homestay With Kamamma’ and ‘Cook-up With Kamamma’ and they go on to mentor others in the community

Educational programmes help to transform children’s lives, breaking the cycle of poverty. A good example of this transformation is one Kamamma who has three children – one is now a trained chef, one is training to become a teacher, the other to become a doctor.

Anthea knew that tackling waste was essential to Dreamcatcher’s tourism aspirations. So she set up a waste education scheme called ‘Waste – it’s Mine, it’s Yours’ in collaboration with the University of Brighton. She describes the waste problem in South Africa as a legacy of apartheid, when the dumping of waste was a way of expressing opposition to the system, as well as a protest against the lack of infrastructure caused by the forced removal of citizens. Moreover, in many communities the inadequate infrastructure led to waste being openly burned in the community or at dumpsites. Over time, waste and litter became a way of life, so training was invaluable in introducing the best ways to manage waste. An environmental ethos soon followed with local people taking pride in their role as custodians of their environment. And what a stunning environment it is!

Rubbish as a resource

Waste is no longer seen as rubbish but a resource. Dreamcatcher has created a thriving crafting industry, with tuition provided by visiting artists, so that young people can intercept waste that might end up on the beautiful beaches and in the ocean and turn it into craft products to sell to visitors. Plastic films are turned into bowls depicting the rich cultural heritage of the area, porcelain pieces incorporated into tiles to embed in walls and old jeans and waste textiles are transformed into bags and backpacks.  

Anthea is understandably proud when describing how mass-produced items that are deemed worthless can be given value thanks to the skill of a local craftsperson.  

The University of Brighton partners with the Dreamcatcher community. With the help of visiting volunteers and artists, local people have transformed the sides of buildings with brightly coloured paintings that tell the stories of their ancestors – bushmen and women with a rich history and many diverse cultures.

A volunteer takes compost from a Johanna

So how did Green Johannas come to play a part in this story?

Anthea first worked with Green Johannas through a community composting project she started when she was living in West Sussex in England in 2008. She took the same method of training back to South Africa, where she knew it would be transformative.

She believes the fact that the Kamammas were already producing their own food meant they were protected from some of the hardship caused by the Covid pandemic.

Inspired by a Nelson Mandela quote – ‘Something is only impossible until it’s done’ – Anthea says she is excited to see what can be achieved over the next few years.

A daily source of inspiration are the Kamammas themselves.

‘When I first met them I was overwhelmed by their warmth and generosity,’ says Anthea. ‘Each woman brought something from the little she had to make me welcome.

‘These are women who were rejected by their own culture, who had to struggle to raise their children but succeeded in sending them to university. They are survivors every day of their lives. They’ve gone from being servants to service providers.’

Great Green Systems couldn’t be prouder to be part of the Kamammas’ inspiring journey.

Locals learn how to use the Johanna with Anthea, right.

Tina’s team delivers more than the goods

Posted on by Julie Halford

If you’ve ever ordered from Great Green Systems your product will have been packed and distributed by staff from Enabled Works, the not-for-profit social enterprise that fulfils our orders.

Enabled Works was founded in 2012 when staff at Remploy factories in Leeds and Pontefract, West Yorkshire, learned the Government was closing the nationwide programme of more than 90 factories. Remploy had been founded in 1945 to provide work for disabled ex-soldiers following the Second World War. The definition of disabilities was later widened to include various health conditions.

Staff were devastated at news of the closure because they wanted to carry on working, so a group of them got together to see if there was a way they could continue by starting their own business, rising from the ashes of Remploy.

The Managing Director of Enabled Works, Tina Brown, was the Factory Manager at the Leeds Remploy factory. She and 12 other staff members decided to put £5,000 of their redundancy money into a start-up pot to fund their own co-operative, owned and run by its own disabled workforce. A local warehouse owner heard they were looking for premises and said he would help out with whatever the group could afford.

‘We asked customers if they would be willing to continue to give us work and it snowballed from there,’ says Tina. ‘We found we were getting more and more work by word of mouth as people recommended us. That’s the best method and something we’re really proud of. You’re only as good as the last job you succeeded in.’

Tina, front right, with other members of the start-up team and Ed Balls, their MP at the time, who helped them to secure some funding.

But the early days weren’t easy. ‘We struggled at first and didn’t know if we would be able to continue for more than a year, not because of lack of work but just managing to balance cashflow.’

The staff of the fledgeling enterprise started out on minimum wage, working more hours than they paid themselves for.

‘Everybody we contacted for help was really supportive. People helped us with things like paying us early to help us until we got going,’ says Tina.

Those days now seem a long time ago. The company’s large factory and storage workspace on the outskirts of Leeds is a busy hive of activity covering many different operations, including contract packing, mailings, distribution, order fulfilment, pallet storage and electrical assembly work. A diverse variety of customers range from major companies, such as Haribo, to smaller concerns such as packing duck food for Roundhay Park in Leeds.

The enterprise also makes hand-spun urns and vases for funeral directors, as well as distributing books for the adventurer and author Alastair Humphreys and the Adventurous Ink book club.

It’s obvious that staff take great pride in their work; Tina says they love to look out for products they have worked on.

The working premises also include offices where training and advice sessions can be offered to help staff to expand work and life opportunities. These offices are also home to the Great Green Systems team, as well as Digital Energy, the web development and design agency who manage our website.

Students from local schools and colleges volunteer with Enabled Works for work experience and might be offered work once they leave education, helping them to get a foot on the work ladder.

When Remploy was closing, Tina spent a lot of time helping staff with interviews and consultations to help them cope with the next stage of their lives. The fact that she went above and beyond her role was recognised by a Director she worked with who nominated her for an MBE, which she was awarded in 2013 for services to disabled people.

‘Just being nominated was enough for me,’ says Tina. ‘I thought that was as far as it would go. I could not believe it when I learned I’d been awarded an MBE. I was just doing what I could to help. I can’t see people struggle, it just breaks my heart.’

She received her award at Buckingham Palace from Prince William at his first awards ceremony, along with Andy Murray and Aled Jones.

Tina swapped the warehouse for Buckingham Palace when she received her MBE.

Tina wears her pin-on medal for formal occasions and might add the impressive initials behind her name on a letter or email ‘if I think I need a bit of extra clout! ‘

The positive attitude of the Enabled Works team is obvious as soon as you walk on site. A poster in the entrance says: It’s amazing what can be achieved when no one cares who gets the credit.

 The website also states: Each of us has an important part to play and we are reliant on each other. Great Green Systems can vouch for the customer-centric culture; everyone goes out of their way to help. As one member of staff said to us, ‘You’re our customers; we want to look after you.’ There is no attitude here of ‘That’s not my job’; everyone pitches in.

This ethos was vital during the pandemic when the team encountered more challenges than most companies because some of the staff were particularly vulnerable.

Pandemic challenge

Tina recalls that with fewer staff at work and of course, lest we forget, the social distancing measures that were in place, life was challenging. This coincided with a particularly busy time for Great Green Systems as people working from home decided to get into composting and orders went through the roof.

‘It was a case of all hands on deck; we were all flying around packing up Green Johannas!’

A memory that stands out for me of how people were affected by that time was a customer who complained at Easter 2020 that her Green Johanna had not been delivered. When we looked into the complaint, we saw that the customer had ordered on Good Friday and was making her complaint on Easter Monday. When we pointed out to her that there had not been a full working day since her order, she was horrified and very apologetic, saying she hadn’t been aware how little time had passed. Those three days had obviously seemed much longer to her as she waited isolated at home and, since every day had become the same, she literally wasn’t aware what day it was.

The Enabled Works team help people who are dealing with a wide range of challenges and often get referrals from employment agencies. When it comes to health, most people these days are aware that many conditions are not obvious, such as mental health issues. A person facing such challenges and feeling fragile may struggle to return to the normal working world, which can seem too pressurised and unsupportive. The Enabled staff know exactly how to help in such circumstances.

Coming back from rock bottom

‘We let people look around and choose what they feel comfortable with and what they would like to have a go at,’ says Tina. ‘It could be working as part of a team or on their own. It could be office work or in packing. They’re given the chance to see if they like it. Some people have hit rock bottom and tried several times to get back into work, or their lives might have taken a wrong turn and they need a bit of support to get back on the right path. Its more than just a job to us, we like to help people to develop. ‘

Anyone who has ever struggled with their mental health, or knows someone who has, knows that a supportive environment is essential to someone whose life has capsized.

Difficult periods come to every single one of us at some time or another, and when they do you need the kind of support that Tina describes.

A recent report showed that mental health problems are the most common condition among people who are unable to work. As well as the individuals themselves, the economy is suffering as a result too. And yet it doesn’t have to be that way. For some of those people a route back to normal life lies in the supportive environment found at Enabled Works.

The Government could do worse than to listen to the Enabled team, who know from years of experience the kind of support that people might need to get them back on their feet.

As their staff and customers will agree, Enabled Works stand for a lot more than work.

When did we start wasting food?

Posted on by Julie Halford

Let’s imagine the UK a hundred years ago – how much food would you think the average family was throwing away in the 1920s? Not so much, probably.

Yet recent research on food waste shows that:

  • 70 per cent of food waste in the UK happens at home.
  • 85 per cent of people say their food bills have increased yet they are still wasting food.
  • Twenty per cent of people questioned said they struggled to know where to find a recipe for their leftovers.

How did it come to this?

My grandmother was born in 1901. The poverty of her life was evident in the form of rickets – the result of childhood malnutrition. My mother, a war baby, also grew up in poverty and was no stranger to hunger. Lack of money meant making meals out of anything and wasting nothing.

Fast forward to my childhood in the 60s and 70s, which, thankfully, never featured hunger. Meals were simple homemade British dishes that women had learnt in the home as they were growing up. These dishes didn’t involve recipe books or ingredients you might struggle to buy, such as liquid glucose or star anise.  Stews and pies were staples, with little red meat. Egg and chips were a perfectly acceptable meal.

 Somehow over the last 50 years many of us lost touch with the kind of resourceful home cooking that had been handed down over generations. What happened?

Perhaps under the influence of TV (and advertising) we started to feel that shepherd’s pie wasn’t good enough and we should be serving something more sophisticated and aspirational, something that mum and gran had never cooked?

 At some stage it seems we all bought into the idea that foreign was better. Now, I love Indian and Italian food as much as the next person but that does not mean that stew and dumplings are inferior.  I remember my auntie, in her eighties, telling me there was something she had always wanted to try. Her tone suggested something daring, and I was mentally preparing a risk assessment to take her white water rafting or bungee jumping, until she said shyly, ‘Pasta’. She was one of the best cooks I’ve ever known, but somehow she felt this Italian substance was exotic and out of her league.

My mother always loved cooking and learnt from her own mother to use up every scrap of food. Today we would think these women were great role models; they’d be designing food waste reduction apps for multi-national companies.

If I’d had any sense, I would have learned a lot from her. Unfortunately, I was a bolshy know-all teenager (is there any other kind?) taken in by the educational rebranding of cookery in the 70s and 80s as Domestic Science. As a science it was something you could get wrong and fail. I thought my mum couldn’t possibly know as much as the teachers. Sure, what my mum made tasted good, but it was just basic low-level cooking that kept people alive, whereas this was an O-level.

 Part of our task in Domestic Science was to balance colour and texture. You would be given a scenario to cook a menu for and you’d be marked down if there was too much of one colour or texture.

My mum took a keen interest and would make her own menu suggestions, and I would roll my eyes and inform her that, No, obviously you couldn’t have apple pie as a dessert because you’d already had pastry in chicken pie for the main. Obviously you couldn’t have two lots of pastry – it’s the same colour and texture.

My mother would argue that it made sense to use up the pastry remains from the chicken pie as a topping for the dessert and to also cook it at the same time while you’d got the oven on. That would mean no waste and less expense.  And I would retort, Fine and if I do that I’ll fail!  And my mother would shake her head in disbelief as if the world had gone to hell in a handcart.

(At this point I would like to add that in 20 years of child-rearing, at no time did any child complain that a meal was too brown or too crumbly.)

 My mother was a working mother, but in those days there was no school run (children walked with other children) no after-school activities and no parents’ evenings/school meetings to erode parents’ time.  The pace of life now means we don’t plan meals, even though just 10 minutes a week doing this would save time and money in the long run.

Take time to plan

But how to choose what to make? For decades we’ve been overwhelmed by thousands of recipes from celebrity chefs using ingredients you had to buy in specially. In many cases this leads to one-attempt meals, leaving ingredients never to be used again.

 Somewhere along the way we became so comfortable with wasting food that one third of all food that is produced for human consumption globally is lost or wasted, contributing as much as 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

 Why do we waste so much?

One problem is lack of knowledge of the damage that food waste does to the environment. Research shows that only 30 per cent of people understand the harm caused to the planet. First there is the cost in terms of production and transport, then there is the cost in terms of waste.

 Food waste has typically been incinerated or buried in landfill along with residual waste and left to rot anaerobically, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Food waste is still disposed of this way in almost 50 per cent of councils in England who have yet to implement separate food waste collections. This means that currently in the UK, millions of tonnes of food waste still go into landfill. For every tonne of that, there are over 600kg of carbon equivalent emissions, such as methane and nitrous oxide. The home composting of organic waste avoids this fate, of course, which is why so many people choose to do it.

I know that I’ve not been organised enough in the past. Now that I’m more aware, I can’t bear to throw any scrap of food away, even though all our food waste is composted in the Green Johanna or Compost Tumbler.

Easy wins to waste less are:

  • Plan menus for the week
  • Save leftovers and use apps (such as Kitche) for flexible recipes
  • Batch cook and freeze some for later
  • Attach notes to containers in the fridge telling the family which items need to be used up first. (If you saw Jen Gale on The One Show – along with her Green Johanna – you may have seen that she does this.)
  • See the Love Food Hate Waste website for more ideas Love Food Hate Waste | Food Waste prevention

  And yes, before you ask, I am finally listening to my mum.

Julie

Tips to deal with fruit fly nuisance

Posted on by Julie Halford

One summer several years ago our house was besieged by an infestation of fruit flies, the source of which was eventually tracked down to a rotting, black banana under my teenage son’s bed.  It is known in the family as Bananagate and is still referred to even though the son in question is now nearly 30.

If fruit flies happen to you once, you will make sure they never happen again. They are a common nuisance in the UK, affecting more than 60% of households.  Each female may lay as many as 500 eggs and they proliferate quickly.  

They’re most common in summer and autumn because they’re attracted to ripe and rotting food, especially bananas, melon, tomatoes, squash and apples. The smell attracts adult flies, which lay their microscopic eggs in the fruit skins. The eggs might already be present in fruit that you buy or get from the garden. If you then put the rotting fruit or peel into your food waste caddy and then into your garden composter you might be unwittingly transferring fruit fly eggs to the compost to hatch out later when the temperature is right.  

Good composting management usually keeps flies away.   

A few flies can be beneficial since in the compost food web they are considered physical decomposers, helping to break down compost material. Their eggs are also a source of food for other compost creatures. But flies breed fast and if there are a lot of them it’s both a nuisance and a sign that something has gone wrong. 

Their presence is likely due to the following issues in the bin:

  • Lack of oxygen – when there is not enough air, composting is slow and the temperature drops – conditions which attract flies. So add oxygen by aerating with an aerator stick. You can also poke holes in the compost with an iron bar. Deep aeration also disturbs the fly reproductive cycle; some types breed every five days. 
  • Too much moisture – the water content should be about 50 per cent. If there is more water than this, it can force air out, which leads to anaerobic conditions (without air) causing slow decomposition and bad smells, which attract flies. You can monitor compost moisture levels by testing with a moisture meter or by squeezing it in your hands. If it feels like a wrung-out sponge, it has the right consistency. There should only be one or two drops of liquid visible. If it’s wetter than this, add some absorbent material such as shredded paper or sawdust and aerate.
  • Imbalance of materials – a mixture of materials high in carbon (Browns) and nitrogen (Greens) is recommended for active composting. Aim for roughly half and half of both.  
  • Poorly-covered nitrogen-rich materials (Greens) – bury smelly foods in the compost, wrapped in newspaper if possible. Create a covering layer over the top to capture smells. This can include straw, sawdust, wood chips, soil or mature compost.  A fly-proof mesh over the top of the contents will keep flies out while allowing air in.  

As the compost becomes active, with raised temperature and faster decomposition, the fly infestation should end.

A word about fruit waste

If you add large amounts of fruit waste to your composter be aware that this will be high in water content. To avoid making the compost too wet (which attracts flies) it should be well mixed with equal amounts of dry carbon-rich content, such as woody garden waste, dead leaves, shredded paper/cardboard, wood chips, sawdust. An equal addition of sawdust, for instance, would be an effective way to absorb some of the moisture in fruit waste.

To avoid attracting flies, reduce the smell of fruit by wrapping it in newspaper and burying it in the existing compost, then cover with carbon-rich content and add mature compost or soil over the top. 

 Take these steps to reduce the chance of attracting flies.

In the home

  • Because fruit flies lay eggs on exposed food, take care to keep food stored in a fridge or lidded containers, not out in the open in fruit bowls.
  • Use up ripe fruit and vegetables as soon as possible.
  • Compost organic matter quickly as flies are attracted by the smell of decomposing food.
  • Keep stored waste in a lidded kitchen caddy. Always keep the lid on your caddy, even between new additions of waste as you are preparing food.

In the compost bin

Follow the steps mentioned above regarding composting management and also:

  • Add more carbon-rich materials (woody garden waste/shredded paper/cardboard/wood chips), and mix in well so that any food waste is covered.
  • Top the contents with a layer of fresh soil.
  • Try putting the composter in sunlight – flies like a warm but not hot environment.
  • Make sure that you always lock the lid securely.
  • Take care not to spill any food around the composter.
  • Monitor acidity – if you have added a lot of fermented content from a bokashi bin to your composter, add a handful of crushed baked eggshells to neutralise excessive acidic conditions as flies prefer a low (acidic) pH.
  • Flies don’t like the smell of certain plants – peppermint in particular – so you could add sprigs of peppermint to your waste and wipe round the compost bin with lavender, lemongrass, eucalyptus and peppermint essential oils.
  • Leave the lid off the bin for a while to allow predators such as ground beetles, rove beetles and earwigs easy access to the flies.
  • Use nematodes – microscopic worms that feed on fly larvae in soil.  

In the Green Cone

 In the case of the Green Cone Food Waste Digester, no garden waste can be added as the Cone only accepts food waste, so covering with garden and paper waste is not an option.

Because the Cone’s basket is underground, smells are filtered out by the surrounding soil, meaning there is no obvious attraction for ordinary flies. But if fruit fly eggs are already in fruit skins when added to the Cone, they might hatch inside it. Avoid this by following the advice above on preventing infestations in the home.

Also:

  •  Freeze your fruit and veg scraps in a plastic bag or container overnight to kill any eggs or larvae before adding them to the Cone.
  • Flies don’t like the smell of certain plants – peppermint in particular – so you could add sprigs of peppermint to your waste and wipe round the Cone with lavender, lemongrass, eucalyptus and peppermint essential oils.
  • Add accelerator powder to add more beneficial bacteria to speed up decomposition.
  • Remember food waste should never come higher than the top of the Cone’s underground basket; waste should always be below ground level.

 Get trap happy

You could also try a home-made trap that will act as a magnet.

Add an inch of apple cider vinegar to a glass jar with two drops of washing up liquid. Put a plastic wrap cover over the top of the jar and poke small holes through with a toothpick. Flies are attracted by the smell and can get in but can’t get out. Remember to change the liquid regularly to keep the fly trap working.

If all else fails, consider disposable fly traps which come pre-filled with bait or attractant and can be placed in the bin. Be aware that these may also kill other beneficial decomposers in the compost.                                                            

Keep food covered to discourage fruit flies.

How to make your own compost mixes

Posted on by Julie Halford

If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about making your own compost mixes, Garden Organic is the place to go – and with the ban on peat compost for home gardeners coming in this year, there’s never been a better time.

 Last week I joined a Garden Organic online talk about peat-free growing, which I can thoroughly recommend. Talks are helpful if you find it easier to learn through listening rather than reading, especially if the talker is as knowledgeable as our host, Anton. Having the chance to ask questions anonymously in the Q and A session is really helpful too.

A Garden Organic (GO) survey showed that very few gardeners make all the compost their garden needs; the majority use a mixture of homemade and shop bought. If you want to garden as sustainably as you can, GO has loads of advice on achieving this balance.  

A few things I learned:

  • Peat only came into use in the 1960s with plants being sold in containers in garden centres. Garden plants don’t need peat, which is virtually devoid of nutrients. Some countries, such as Australia, have no source of peat so their horticulture industry has never depended on it. 
  • In a bag of peat-free compost you will find:  wood fibre (a waste product from sawmills that is also in demand for use in bio mass boilers)/ composted bark (adds structure and air spaces)/ coir waste (a waste product from coconut plantations)/green waste compost (from council garden waste collections).
  • Growing media shouldn’t be used on a large scale to improve the soil – the resources used to make potting compost are limited. To improve soil, use garden waste compost, homemade compost, manures and green manures. To fill raised beds, use topsoil.
  • It’s a good idea to buy in seed compost because it’s difficult to get right yourself. Get the best you can afford because a little goes a long way. Seeds contain their own nutrients so they will germinate successfully in low-nutrient material with good drainage.
  • If you want to adapt multipurpose compost for use as seed compost, remove larger pieces, put through a coarse sieve, mix 50/50 with rewetted coir block.

Peat-free challenges

  • Peat-free compost behaves differently to peat – the main challenge is watering. Because of their high coir and woodchip content, peat-free mixes tend to dry out more easily. They also have a coarse texture, which can appear dry on the surface but still be damp further down.
  • With pots, watering little and often is best. Check by putting your finger in the mix to see if it’s dry all the way through. Water by going round the pot in a circle to get water to drain all over. Repeat a few times.
  • Water seed trays from below. Use a fine mister or waterer for the surface.
  • Peat-free compost doesn’t store as well as peat so only buy what you need. Don’t leave out in the rain; tiny holes in the bag will let in water which will wash away nutrients. Don’t subject to high temperatures by leaving out in glasshouse. Don’t buy bags that are faded as they might have been lying around for a while. If a mix smells bad it may have turned anaerobic, so return it.  

Feeding tips

A challenge with peat-free compost is that it can run out of nutrients more quickly – after 4 weeks.

  •  After 4 weeks, water with a sustainable liquid feed using comfrey or nettle leaves. Make your own comfrey feed by leaving 1kg of comfrey leaves in 15 litres of water for 5-6 weeks. Use neat to water plants.
  • For a concentrated comfrey liquid feed – stuff leaves into a drainpipe and let the liquid drip out of the bottom. Dilute 1 -10 and use on flowering and fruiting plants. This feed doesn’t smell – adding water is what makes the concoction smell.
  • Urine also gives a very good balanced feed (dilute 1 – 10). Fun fact – the average person produces enough nitrogen in their urine to fertilise 1 and a half tonnes of tomatoes, yet this usually gets flushed away to be treated at high expense, together with drinking-standard water.   
  • Use worm compost mixed with homemade compost as top dressing. Worm compost provides high levels of readily available nitrogen. Use sparingly.

For information and advice about making your own mixes, check out the GO website –  Garden Organic – Discover organic growing

Garden Organic recommends trying different peat-free composts to see which you have most success with. The charity has had good results with Melcourt’s Sylvagrow range for seed and potting mixes.

A word about peat

Garden Organic has long campaigned for an end to the use of peat in horticulture.  Peatlands cover 3 per cent of land surface but store 30 per cent of the earth’s soil carbon. Peat only regenerates at a rate of 1mm a year. In the UK, peat extraction accounts for 5 per cent of CO2 emissions. More than 95% of lowland bogs in the UK have been destroyed or damaged as peat has been extracted on an industrial scale.

Garden Organic’s online talks (webinars) are held on a donation basis to help support the charity’s work in helping people to garden organically. 

If you live near the charity’s Coventry base, you can attend courses or workshops in person, or else watch out for the next webinar. Online courses are also available and you can write in with questions too.

Julie

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