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Author: Julie Halford

Spreading the word about ‘living compost’

Posted on by Julie Halford

Compost Club’s Michael Kennard is a man with a mission – to build healthy soil for healthy plants and healthy people.  And his 24 compost tumblers play a big part in his grand plan.

Michael founded Compost Club, a social enterprise based in Lewes, East Sussex, a few years ago and it’s going from strength to strength. He collects the club’s members’ food waste every three weeks in his electric van and returns nutrient-rich compost for their garden in the spring.

‘This turns the ethical choice into a convenient one,’ says Michael. ‘Often the convenient choice is a negative one when it comes to ecology.’

Michael is interviewed in this month’s edition of Gardens Illustrated, recently featured in House and Garden and is also due to give a talk at Gardeners’ World Live at Birmingham NEC in June.

Michael in this month’s Gardens Illustrated

The compost tumblers are used in the early stages of the recycling process.  Michael adds a handful of bokashi, a micro-organism that pre-digests and ferments food waste, to each bucket he hands out to his members.  Collected waste is left to ferment in its sealed bucket (with more bokashi added) for three weeks before it’s transferred to a Compost Tumbler for another three weeks mixed 50:50 with woodchips supplied by local tree surgeons. Wood chips are used because a high volume of carbon is needed to balance the high nitrogen content of all the food waste.

The compost then spends time in a Johnson-Su bioreactor, before curing for two to six weeks.

 ‘We’ve been able to get through a lot more volume because the tumbler’s turning handle saves time and makes turning effortless, so I’m able to go along the row turning the handles. They also hold moisture and the vents mean the contents can breathe.’

He is a big fan of the 245 litre Maze Compost Tumblers: ‘I find in-vessel composters like these to be ideal to be able to compost all your food waste in a timely fashion, without concern about rodents and also to produce a really good quality of compost after a good maturation process.’

And this is not just any common or garden compost. Michael has studied the subject, learning from American pioneers such as the microbiologist Elaine Ingham and the molecular biologist Dr David C Johnson. The compost he produces is teeming with biological life; perfect for improving soil structure and making nutrients available to plants to ensure healthy growth.

‘It’s living compost, full of the organisms which give life to the soil. I’ve looked at it under the microscope – there’s bacteria, protozoa, fungi, nematodes….right up to bigger things like worms.’

Surplus compost that is produced goes into community gardening projects and is also available to buy.

Great Green Systems bought some of the surplus compost last spring and can vouch for the fact that this really is ‘black gold’, top-notch compost.

The GGS bag of living compost delivered last spring

 Michael came up with the idea for Compost Club when he discovered he needed much more compost than he could produce from his own green waste to feed his no-dig allotment.

‘I found that although the commercial compost is made of organic matter, it’s basically sterile – there’s nothing living in there. That’s the case across the board.’

He realised that to get the quality he was after, he would have to start making his own compost, although as he points out, he doesn’t actually make it – ‘I just create the conditions that allow the micro-organisms to do their work.’

 He needed more food waste to make more compost so started asking people for it and was soon being offered more than he could use on the allotment.

 ‘People were asking me to take their food waste, because Brighton and Hove Council doesn’t collect it. In the UK, millions of tons of food waste still go into landfill. For every ton of that, there are over 600kg of carbon equivalent emissions – methane, nitrous oxide and all those nasties. If we compost that waste aerobically, the figure goes down to 8kg, which is virtually nothing. So that’s my incentive to do more.’

Compost clubs are more common in America but there are not many in the UK. ‘There’s a massive gap for something here,’ says Michael.

He currently collects from 180 homes and hopes to set up similar schemes in the area by training other people to compost in the same way. He is also looking to set up a community-based composting system at Great Dixter House and Gardens, near Rye, as well as working with Human Nature, an eco-driven development company who are planning a carbon-neutral neighbourhood in Lewes.

‘My vision is to start Compost Clubs within some of the most densely populated city areas,’ says Michael. ‘The excess compost can go out to the farms, so they can grow naturally pest- and disease-resistant plants that don’t need biocides. The nutrient density will come back to our food again, we’ll all be healthier and there’s a beautiful synchronicity of nutrient recycling that just makes complete sense. I’m trying to become a giant earthworm, I guess!’

Members of Compost Club come from all walks of life. One is a local footballer who signed for Lewes and had heard about the club on social media. He got in touch with Michael and there is now a community garden at the stadium, along with a couple of tumblers composting the food waste created there.

 He says that he used to think the best we could do for the planet was to be ‘the least bad’. Then he dived into the world of permaculture, regenerative growing and soil health. Now he sees sustainability as a minimum requirement for any business. ‘We can actually make things better if we live well,’ he says.

Michael is keen to change the way people see waste and introduce them to a natural nutrient cycle whereby their food waste becomes compost, which helps them grow more food, which becomes more food waste. And so the cycle continues. ‘Waste is a human idea, and it’s a terrible idea.’

Michael adds that many people are now adding biochar to their compost bins. This is a product formed by pyrolysis, whereby scrap wood is burned without oxygen. Biochar provides pure stable carbon, which locks carbon in the soil.

‘It’s beautiful stuff. It boosts carbon in the soil and if you use the no-dig method it stays there.’

His work energises him and has fostered a sense of what he calls ‘joyful service.’ Sounds like the ideal recipe for the perfect work life balance.

Inside 245 Litre Maze Compost Tumbler

When you can’t let a beloved pet go

Posted on by Julie Halford

Our dog died a year ago and his ashes are still sitting on the mantelpiece in a cardboard container.

At the vets we were offered a choice of decorative urns but turned them down as we wanted to scatter his ashes in his favourite park.  My friend’s parents have had a wooden urn containing their dog Sandy’s ashes on their mantelpiece since 1978. But no, we wouldn’t be doing that.

After receiving the ashes, we decided to wait until Easter to return to Oakwell Park with him one last time.

Easter came. ‘When are we going to take Rocky to Oakwell?’ I asked my husband. He took so long to reply I thought he hadn’t heard me. But then he said quietly, ‘I can’t let him go.’ 

It’s strange. We know the cardboard box is not ‘him’.  It’s not rational, it’s not sensible, there’s not a single intelligent reason for his ashes to remain on the mantelpiece in a green and purple cardboard cylinder – and yet remain they do. Along with his photo, his pawprint, a tiny bottle with some of his golden fur and a large portrait display my son bought us saying, No Longer By My Side But Forever In My Heart.

What’s normal?

Last week a friend contemplated the mantelpiece shrine and asked if we had thought of adding Rocky’s ashes to the compost bin.

His comment made me wonder what other people do. What’s normal in these circumstances?

An internet search showed that, as you might expect, many people want to return their pet to nature by placing their ashes in the garden where they roamed and played. But cremation ashes contain high levels of calcium and increase the pH level in the soil so they should be mixed with manure, compost, organic nitrogen fertiliser or coffee grounds.

Alternatively, there are biodegradable urns for ashes that gradually decompose, and biodegradable tree urns made from natural plant fibres that enable you to grow a tree in memory of your pet.

I came across discussions on the ethics of burying a pet in the garden, with stories of people being horrified to discover animal skeletons while gardening. Some think you should have to disclose if you have buried a pet on a property before selling it.  There’s also the matter of leaving behind your pet’s burial site if you move house.

In some countries it’s illegal to bury pets in your garden, and there are environmental concerns about burying a pet that’s been put to sleep with euthanasia solution.

Then I came across a story about two vets from Columbia, where it’s illegal to bury pets, who wanted to come up with a more environmentally-friendly way of disposing of a pet’s body than burial or cremation. With cremation 96 per cent of the body is released into the atmosphere as pollution.

Their solution was to create organic compost from the animal’s body, inspired by the natural way that a body decomposes after death. Owners can then have this compost returned to them (after about 60 days) in a pot with a plant of their choosing. 

From pet to plant

I struggled to find examples of pet ashes being added to a garden compost bin but I don’t feel particularly motivated to find out more.  I feel my beloved dog is not a plant or a tree but then he’s not a cardboard box either. What he is to me is a cocky little character who races into the room at cartoon-speed, head tilted to one side, with a wild, dramatic stare that says ‘Mum, what the heck are you doing sitting comfortably when you should be getting my tea ready!’ Or who ostentatiously takes on the task of guarding our territory from a squirrel invasion, looking round self-importantly every now and again to check we’re impressed by his skills.

But that’s never going to happen again.

To think I never wanted a dog. For years my husband and sons had argued for one and I always said no. I had never had pets growing up. But two things happened to change my mind. The first was a chance meeting in a park with an adorable bundle of golden fluff that came running up to my eight-year-old son. My son was captivated as the bundle of fluff, a Norfolk Terrier called Rosie, nestled in his arms.  Walking away, I said the fateful words: ‘I could have taken that dog home with us.’

As soon as we got home my husband was straight on the internet looking up Norfolk Terriers.

A boy and his dog

But I still might have said no, if it weren’t for a psychology book I read that said having a pet in childhood leads to psychological resilience in adulthood. I could see the sense in that – if you have to deal with the nitty gritty of life early on it helps prepare you for what we all have to face later.  Life isn’t clean, calm and controllable; having a dog shows you that. It forces you to deal with poo, wee, blood, vomit, sacrifice, suffering, death – like a cross between an A and E department and a Russian novel.

 I liked the idea of our sons developing psychological resilience and I liked that Norfolk Terrier.

 So we got a dog. The night before we were due to go pick up our Norfolk puppy from a farm near York, I sat surveying the living room. Our youngest was eight; we had passed the stage of domestic chaos and our house was on the way back to resembling an adult-friendly refuge. And we were about to blow all that. I looked fondly at the stain-free carpet. In 24 hours, I would have a living creature crawling about on that carpet and it would be here for years and years and there’d be no going back. I felt afraid. What on earth had I agreed to?

You know where this is going.

Before long the dog wasn’t just a ‘dog’ anymore, it was ‘Rocky’ and Rocky took over our lives. At first he was anxious around other dogs until puppy training classes,  dog trainer sessions and a dozen books helped us to help him.

Keeping calm

He had one unhappy experience at the vets and for the next few visits was very stressed, but I realised that I was able to soothe him with my own reaction. If I kept completely calm, reassuring him in a cheerful voice, he would fix his eyes on mine and be guided by me. He would remain calm even though he wasn’t happy. I realised to my astonishment that he trusted me more than he trusted his own sensations. It was as if he thought, If Mum says this is ok, it must be.

 It took me by complete surprise that I, who had never had a pet in childhood, could form a bond with an animal; that this animal could like me and want to be with me and place all his trust in me. I was completely blindsided by this love, unconditional and often undeserved. I understood why animal lovers often say their pet rescued them rather than the other way round.  

So it proved during the pandemic, when this funny little furball was our tower of strength. By day, we took him for long walks round Oakwell Park, standing to one side to give other dog walkers and joggers two metres’ space. By night we watched the daily updates on TV. Rising panic was held in check thanks to having a yawning dog sprawled across my lap, sighing contentedly as I stroked his tummy.

 He hasn’t a clue what’s going on, I thought. He is just here in the moment enjoying a tummy rub. I resolved to try to Be More Dog. What use to anyone was my personal panic?

I try to blank out the day I took Rocky to the vet about a limp, only to find out it was lymphoma. And the day a few months later when for the first time he refused all food and the vet said, I think it might be time….

The next 24 hours were like nothing we could have imagined. The son who was eight when we got Rocky, and who named him after the Rocky films, got the next train home from Newcastle where he was at university.

A man and his dog

I’ll always be grateful that lockdown was over, so the vet and her nurse could come to the house.

And I’ll always be grateful that I was able to do one last thing for Rocky. The vet explained that she needed the nurse to hold Rocky very still as the line was inserted into his leg. Then he would be able to come on to my knee. But inserting the line could make a dog become very agitated and upset and she might need us to leave the room if he did.

I will never know how I did it, but somehow I was able to hold Rocky’s gaze and keep my voice calm and reassuring, just as I had learned at the vets years earlier, telling him what a good boy he was, what a good boy he had always been. I never stopped repeating those words. He was afraid but his eyes never left mine for a second and he remained still as the line was put in. If Mum says it’s ok, it must be.

A dog is a child that never grows up. Your four-year-old child wants nothing more than to be with you and shower you with affection. Your 14-year-old, not so much. Your dog always thinks you’re great, even when you can’t think of a single good thing about yourself.

So, to go back to my friend’s question. No, we haven’t considered adding Rocky’s ashes to the Green Johanna.  We know that this would be the circle of life and he’d be going back to feed the soil and create new life and all that.

 I really don’t know what we will end up doing. But, right now, as my husband said, we just can’t let him go.

Julie

Saving the world from squirrels – Rocky

Taking compost from the Green Johanna

Posted on by Julie Halford


At Great Green Systems we’re always keen to share our and our customers’ experiences of composting with the Green Johanna. This weekend we opened up a Green Johanna that we have been trialling with great results.

This Green Johanna was used from mid-September 2022 to mid-February 2023 with the insulating jacket permanently installed.
100% of the cooked and uncooked food waste from this household was recycled in the Johanna. There were between 2 and 4 people in the household during this time, with up to four more visiting through the Christmas and New Year period. The amount of waste diverted to the residual (grey/black) wheeled bin fell to less than 50% of the bin capacity (ie less than 120 litres) per fortnight compared to previous usage. Over the Christmas period, when bin collections were suspended for a week, the residual bin comfortably coped with three weeks’ worth of general waste.
The fermented contents of several 14-litre Bokashi bins that were accepted from relatives who don’t have their own compost bin were also decanted into the Green Johanna.
The food waste was liberally mixed with carbon-based materials, mainly autumn leaves and wood chips, and treated once per month with Bokashi bran to accelerate the composting process.
Using this method, we consistently achieved compost temperatures of 30-60 degrees Celsius even through the coldest winter temperatures. All the food waste generated from the household was comfortably accommodated by the composting system.

Saving the top section to go back into the compost bin

Compost can be accessed by unscrewing the hatches at the bottom or, since the Green Johanna is a modular unit made up of circular rings, the upper sections can be removed leaving an impressive tower of compost. As you can see from the photos, we chose the second route as we wanted to take a lot of compost out at once.
We removed the top sections of compost that are currently decomposing (taking care not to squash any worms) and placed these on an old wipe-clean tablecloth kept for this purpose until we were ready to put them back in the bin to continue the breakdown process.
More than half of the composter contents were removed for soil replenishment and other garden uses, with the remainder being returned to the Johanna for further composting.

Topping up planters with compost

To purchase a Green Johanna Complete Bundle, including Insulating Jacket, click here:
Green Johanna Complete Bundle – Great Green Systems
To upgrade your existing Green Johanna with an Insulating Jacket or Complete Accessory Set, click here:
Green Johanna Insulating Jacket – Great Green Systems
Green Johanna Accessory Set – Green Johanna Accessory Set – Great Green Systems

Tips to send the rat pack packing

Posted on by Julie Halford

Some of our customers claim the Green Johanna is rat-proof as they have never had any problems with these unwelcome visitors.

That is the experience of most people, but since rats have been known to chew through concrete, glass and even some metals nothing can really be called rat-proof.

However, there are steps you can take to deter rodents by making your compost bin and garden so unattractive to them that they will move on to a more accommodating environment.

If there’s a problem with rats locally it’s worth checking whether a neighbour is exacerbating the issue by leaving food out for wildlife. This was the experience of one of our customers, who discovered that his next-door neighbour was getting animal bones from a butcher and leaving them in his garden overnight to feed foxes. The neighbour even thoughtfully left his garden gate open at night to encourage visiting wildlife. But foxes weren’t the only ones coming round for a feast.

 Such issues obviously need to be addressed first. If there is a persistent problem in your neighbourhood consider professional help to sort it out.   

The Johanna has been designed with an integrated base to deter rats. Using the Insulating Jacket also provides another layer of material as well as insulation to help keep temperatures high enough to discourage rats.   

As part of the Green Johanna’s and the Green Cone’s five-year guarantee, Great Green Systems will replace any parts that suffer rodent damage.

Recommended deterrents:

If you can, site your compost bin in an open, uncluttered area as rats hate being exposed. Open space makes them nervous. If you know there is a rodent problem locally, try to avoid siting the bin along fence lines or near log/brick piles and shrubbery or thick vegetation that provide protection for them. Rats have poor eyesight and use fences and walls to run alongside for direction.

  • Protect the composter’s base – place paving slabs or bricks around the base. Placing thorny prunings around the composter will also make access difficult.  
  • Rats hate noise and being disturbed, so bang on the bin with sticks every time you go past so they get the message this is not a peaceful place.
  • One customer recommends creating a stockade fence of bamboo sticks around composters. Push each stick into the ground as closely as possible (easier to do after rain).
  • Keep the bin active. If you’re going away ask someone to keep your composting activity going for you so the bin is not left undisturbed for weeks.  
  • Ensure food waste is well chopped to provide more surface area for microbes and accelerate the breakdown process. Smaller pieces are also easier to stir and mix with garden and paper waste.
  • After adding and aerating fresh contents, finish with a covering layer of shredded paper, cardboard or dead leaves to prevent smells attracting flies or rodents. You can also add mature compost or soil.
  • Aerate composter contents regularly.
  • Keep the mixture moist. Moisture levels should be around 50 per cent. You can use a moisture meter to check or do the ‘squeeze test’ – take a large handful of compost and squeeze. If one or two drops of liquid come out that is likely to be right – the compost should be the consistency of a wrung-out sponge. Add water if needed in summer months, preferably rainwater from a water butt.
  • Place builders’ mesh (available at DIY stores) underneath the composter.  The Johanna already has an integrated base but mesh would provide an added deterrent.
  • Rats hate strong smells so try planting mint round the bin or scatter chopped onion around – refresh the onion every few days.
  • Make a spray using peppermint, eucalyptus or citronella essential oil – use one part essential oil and nine parts water in a spray bottle. Then spray this mixture around the edges of your garden.
  • Also sprinkle chilli powder, cayenne pepper and cinnamon around as well as spreading lavender and bay tree cuttings around the base. The fermented contents of a bokashi bin are said to be a deterrent as rats dislike the sour smell.
  • A niche solution – if you happen to have access to owl feathers then scatter them around your garden.  Rats sense threats easily so feathers from their predators scare them.  
  • An obvious point but sometimes overlooked – be vigilant that you never drop any food waste around a composter, bin or food caddy.

With the Green Johanna:

  •  Keep temperatures in the bin high by fitting the Insulating Jacket when suitable, adding bokashi bran, and keeping the bin filled and aerated. Hot composting generally discourages rodents because of the heat and the fact that food scraps are quickly broken down.
  • When setting up the composter, wait until the composting process is well under way (after four weeks) before adding cooked food scraps.

The composting environment

  • Discourage rats from making a home in your garden or allotment by sealing access under chicken houses, sheds or decking that can provide shelter for them.
  • Keep the area well maintained – check for anywhere that rats could burrow under or through.
  • If you store bird feed or chicken food in the garden, make sure it is in lidded containers and kept off the ground. Sweep up any fallen birdseed as birds are messy feeders. Put paving slabs under a bird feeder so any fallen seed can be easily swept up.
  • Make sure any bins are not overflowing and food caddies are locked tight.
  • Maintain drains – rats can come up through poorly maintained drains.
  • Keep an eye out during bad weather and flooding as rats are likely to be on the move looking for shelter.
  • Rely on rodents’ old enemies – keep a cat or terrier.

With the Green Cone:

  • Ensure that the top of the black basket and the bottom lip of the green outer cone are below ground level, so that any odours are filtered out into the surrounding soil.
  • Never allow food waste to come higher than the top of the underground basket. Food waste should never reach as high as the Cone itself.
  • Press builder’s mesh (available at DIY stores) into the soil of the hole you have dug for the black basket to provide an additional deterrent.
  • Add accelerator powder regularly to boost the breakdown process.
  • Ensure the Cone is in a sunny spot as the digester relies on solar energy to enable efficient digestion.

How can I reduce food waste?

Posted on by Julie Halford

I cook to live, my husband lives to cook.

We share the cooking. On my days everybody knows what they’ll be getting as I have four signature dishes (by signature dish, I mean ‘thing I can cook without a recipe’). I’m no foodie, I like to get cooking out of the way as quickly as possible so I can get on with living.

My cooking habits are good in terms of waste prevention because I buy the same things every week and everything gets used up.

But my husband is a different animal. On his cooking days we never know what we’ll be getting because it seems to depend on what the food fairies whisper in his ear. I shop online because I hate supermarkets. If I ask him what he wants me to add to the online shop, he gets all stressy, saying ‘I can’t shop like that, I don’t know what I’ll feel like cooking!’ (No, I’m not married to Gordon Ramsay).

So I leave him to do his own shopping in person in the actual supermarket. He likes to see, touch and smell food; it inspires him. I think there must be some French strain somewhere in the Birmingham/Dundee DNA mash-up of his family.

This dual shopping routine is far from ideal, since it means he might buy things I’ve already bought. It’s why we ended up recently with three full jars of ground ginger. Not the end of the world, of course, since it stores well and we like ginger biscuits, but that’s the only over-consumption I’m admitting to since I’d be too ashamed to tell you the whole truth.

Obviously, we compost unavoidable food waste in our Green Johanna, but composting should ideally be the final stage in the food waste hierarchy after meal planning and food storage. The environmental cost involved in the production and transporting of food is so high that prevention is better than composting.

We know we should plan meals in advance based on knowing what we already have. We know that, and yet sometimes the pace of modern life means we fall short. Stuff happens. We forget our list. We stress shop. Our husband fails to check the ground ginger situation.

So, when I read about the Kitche free mobile app I was immediately interested.

Kitche’s premise is that fighting food waste starts at home by buying what you eat and eating what you buy.  If we did this, we would help prevent the staggering 4.5 million tonnes of food waste created in the UK each year – enough to fill eight Wembley stadiums.

It goes without saying that by doing this you will save yourself a chunk of money without even depriving yourself of anything. The average family in the UK throws food worth £730 in the bin every year. When it comes to tightening the belt on household expenditure, such unnecessary waste is low-hanging fruit.

The app enables you to scan food products from major supermarkets receipts with a snap of your camera so you can keep track of food you’ve got at home, even when you’re on the move. In this way you stop robotic consumption and shop smartly, not blindly.

10 easy tips to cut food waste

These tips taken from Nancy Birtwhistle’s best-selling book Green Living Made Easy are easy to incorporate into your everyday routine.

1. Thyme to save herbs

To double the life of shop-bought fresh herbs: dampen a double-thickness sheet of kitchen paper with cold water. Lay on it either parsley, coriander, dill, thyme, rosemary or mint after removing from the packet. Roll loosely so that all the sprigs are surrounded by a cold, damp blanket, then pop in an airtight box and keep in the fridge.

  • 2. Freeze cheese please

To avoid cheese becoming hard and dry: buy a large slab of cheese – cut the block into 100g pieces. Put one block back in the original pack to use this week, then put the remaining pieces in a container in the freezer. Then for the next few weeks you have cheese that can be grated or used once thawed in the fridge for an hour or so.

  • 3. Take stock of veggies

The best way to accumulate sufficient veggie bits for a stock is to keep a large plastic box or bag in the freezer and pop into it the ends of celery, parsley stalks, trimmings from onions, carrots, parsnips, pea pods, leeks and any other tasty veg. Once you have a large box or bagful, place in a large pan and simmer for half an hour or in a slow cooker for several hours. Strain, keep in the fridge for five days or freeze to be used later as a base for casseroles, soups, pie fillings and stews.

  • 4. Piece of cake

Use a roll of reusable baking parchment instead of new greaseproof paper every time you bake. Use the bases of your favourite cake tins as a template, then cut the reusable parchment to size. Wash between uses.

  • 5. Bag-tastic

 The plastic liners in cereal boxes can be used to separate almost anything and make a good alternative to cling film. If you unpeel the seams of the bag this can then be used for pastry rolling. They also make good bread bags and freezer bags, sandwich wraps and for using in lunch boxes and picnics.

  • 6. Don’t shell out on eggs

Many baking recipes call for only egg yolk or egg whites, leaving leftovers of both. Egg whites freeze beautifully (for up to a year) and thaw in a bowl at room temperature in an hour or so.

Egg yolks can be frozen but need a light sprinkle of salt or sugar to prevent them going rubbery. Nancy rarely freezes yolks, instead making a quick lemon curd using the yolks, sugar, butter, lemon juice and zest. Stir on a low heat for several minutes until the mix slowly thickens. Store in a clean jar in the fridge.

  • 7. Scrap happy

Packs of bacon can lead to waste if a couple of rashers are left in the packet to dry up and go off before you know it. Instead, keep a small box of cooked scraps in the freezer. Cook the random rashes until crispy. Break them up into small pieces and pop them in a box to save in the freezer. Use these scraps as a pizza topping, stirred into pasta or sprinkled over salads.

  • 8. Spice of life

Nancy buys ginger or lemongrass only once or twice a year, keeping them in a plastic box in the freezer. She breaks ginger root into chunks and grates both the skin and flesh from frozen, then puts the unused root back into the box for next time.

She also freezes chillies and uses them from frozen. With lemongrass – trim the root ends and leaves, then freeze and slice from frozen to use.

  • 9. The besto pesto

Did you know that nettles have more vitamins and nutrients than many other green veggies? The sting is destroyed by blanching. Wear rubber gloves to handle them. Bring a pan of water to the boil, then add the leaves. Have a bowl of cold water at the ready. Blanch the leaves in boiling water for 30 seconds then use tongs to remove them and plunge into cold water to halt the cooking process. Drain the leaves, dry on a clean cotton towel and squeeze as much water out as you can. Whizz in a blender with parmesan, garlic, nuts, lemon juice, salt, pepper, olive oil. Freeze in an ice cube tray.

It’s a good idea to also freeze leftover shop-bought pesto in an ice cube tray, since it needs to be used within five days of opening.

  • 10. Chit chat

Save egg boxes for potato chitting (encouraging them to sprout). The cardboard moulds keep potatoes upright, the soft material doesn’t damage the shoots and the open design offers plenty of light.

Julie

12 top tips for saving water

Posted on by Julie Halford

There is only one thing my chemistry teacher ever said that I’ve remembered – that in the future water would become so scarce that wars would be fought over it.  After saying this, he chuckled and added, ‘I’m just glad I won’t be alive to see it.’

 I can’t have been the only pupil left after this grim prophesy with nightmares about Waterwars. (Teachers didn’t go in for trigger warnings in the late ’70s.)

At the time, memories of the drought of 1976 were still fresh in our minds. For my generation this hadn’t seemed such a big deal at first.  Apart from not being able to sleep on sweltering nights more typical of Lisbon than Leeds, there had been considerable upsides to a drought if you were a child.  

Saving water was a good excuse for not washing as thoroughly as expected, the plagues of ladybirds that covered entire walls were frankly fascinating and was there ever a better argument for drinking dandelion and burdock at mealtimes? (But, mum, we’ve got to save water!)

Even the standpipes that were being set up in the streets were something new and interesting. Until, that is, our local standpipe got erected and it wasn’t, as we’d expected, right outside our front door but a good five-minute walk away. A five-minute trek to get water! And queue for ages for it! And carry it home in buckets!  Turned out droughts weren’t as much fun as we’d thought.

Thankfully, rain clouds saved the day before we ever had to trek, queue and carry home what had previously come so easily we’d never given it a second’s thought. But we had learned a very important lesson – water does not necessarily have to be on tap.

According to OFWAT, the water services regulation authority, severe drought is a widespread risk that needs to be managed and we need to act now to avoid severe restrictions to water use in the coming years.

Tips to save water without feeling deprived or depressed

  • Water butts are a no-brainer if you have access to outside space and a downpipe. With a water butt, rainwater falls from the roof into the gutters, but rather than flowing through the downpipes and down the drain, a diverter is inserted to collect it in the butt. Once the water butt  has reached maximum capacity, the rest of the water will simply divert to the drain. In dry weather plants stop making nectar so keeping them well watered for the sake of bees by collecting rainwater makes sense.
  • Keep a jug near the sink and when you want hot water, let the tap run into this rather than down the sink. You can tip this into your water butt or use it to boil the kettle or flush your loo.
  • Stand a bucket in the shower to collect water that would otherwise go down the drain as you wait for it to heat up. Use this to flush the loo.
  • Wash vegetables in a bowl of water and then use this on the garden. You can also use drained, cooled cooking water on the garden.
  • Take a shower instead of a bath. A five-minute shower uses about 40 litres of water, which is about half the volume of a standard bath. And shortening the length of your shower by just one minute also makes a big difference.
  • Fix dripping taps – they can waste enough water in a year to fill a child’s paddling pool every week of the summer.
  • Fit low-flow aerators on taps and showers – you get the same water pressure but use much less water.
  • Turn the tap off while brushing your teeth. A running tap uses up to nine litres of water a minute.
  • A water-saving device in your toilet cistern could save between one and three litres each time you flush the toilet.
  • Use a watering can instead of a sprinkler or hosepipe in the garden.
  • Water the garden during the cool part of the day in the morning or evening. Do not water in anticipation of a shortage. Soil cannot store extra water.
  • Wash clothes when they’re dirty – rely on spot cleaning and the ‘sniff test’ most of the time.

I’m an old hand at this method. It’s something I started doing once my son reached a certain (teen)age and suddenly raised his laundry standards to the level of 5-star hotels preparing for royal visits. Fed up with arguing that his jeans couldn’t possibly need washing after a mere two hours’ wear, I developed a secret new system:

1. Pick jeans out of laundry basket.

2. Hang up in wardrobe.

 I probably did this about 10 times before washing a pair of his jeans. And unless he reads this post he will be none the wiser.   

Julie

Worm farming – like father, like son

Posted on by Julie Halford

One of our young eco-friendly friends, Thomas, aged 8, was delighted to get his very own worm farm recently.

Despite his tender years, Thomas is not a total novice. He’s grown up appreciating the wonderful work that worms do as he’s watched his father tend an old-school wormery that’s been in service for an impressive 35 years since the late 80s. That decade has a reputation as the materialistic yuppie era, but according to Thomas’s dad there was also a growing holistic community too, which didn’t attract as much media attention as the yuppies but was quietly thriving in the background.

Thomas’s dad saw the wormery advertised in an organic seed catalogue and has never looked back. This holistic-minded community has obviously grown and grown as the world has caught up with the philosophy that we’re all linked to the world around us.

Thomas is following a long family tradition of gardening, composting and veg growing, showing that great habits get passed down the generations. We need those great habits now more than ever. Wormeries are a great way to recycle food waste into nutrient-rich compost to feed the plants in your garden.

Thomas might be following in Dad’s footsteps but he’s also relishing having his own little worm community to care for.

In the photo taken in January, when the worm farm arrived, Thomas is seen making sure the worms are settling in well, with a cardboard cover to hand to provide the dark conditions that worms like.  A strip of hessian sacking or a few sheets of newspaper can also be used as ‘blankets’.

A few months later, and with milder spring weather, Thomas is able to manage his worm farm without being all wrapped up!

The wonderful world of worms

  • Worms produce top quality compost (vermicompost) which is richer and more nutrient-dense than ordinary compost, providing you with fertiliser for healthy plant growth.
  • Worm farming is easy composting; your hard-working worms do all the work in turning the compost and by their tunnelling actions they aerate it too.
  • Managing a wormery is a great project for children, showing them how to care for tiny living creatures that are essential to the planet and to us. Children also learn how to follow instructions, wait for results and develop observational and problem-solving skills, such as working out if conditions are too wet or too dry and what to do if a smell might be developing. (Wormeries should never smell bad, only fresh and earthy; a bad smell is a sign of overfeeding, which is easily remedied by feeding the worms less often and adding shredded cardboard to absorb moisture.)

On top of all that, worms are fascinating and fun!

Did you know?

There are over 9,000 species of earthworms, but only seven are suitable for vermicomposting. Red wiggler worms can be ordered from Great Green Systems and are sent out separately from our worm farm partners in Herefordshire.

A worm welcome

Tips to help your worms settle in.

  • Worm farms need a sheltered spot away from direct sun and rain. A shed or garage is ideal.  If placed outside, cover the worm farm with a tarpaulin in winter.
  • The Maze Worm Farm is simple to start up. There are two working trays; you won’t need the second tray at first until the first one is full. You need to line the first tray with 2/3 sheets of wet newspaper.
  • Coconut peat is provided for the worms’ bedding. This is soaked in water for 30 minutes, then added to the layer of wet newspaper.
  • Worms like a dark environment so cover them with a blanket. This can be any fabric made from natural material, such as hessian, or several sheets of newspaper or cardboard.
  • Leave the worms for a week before adding any food scraps so they can settle into their new home.
  • Feed your worms chopped-up fruit and veg scraps, small amounts of bread/cooked rice/pasta, moist cardboard, teabags, coffee grounds, crushed eggshells.

Why our Green Cone was a good buy

Posted on by Julie Halford

Before buying their Green Cone in 2009, Jack and Joan Milner, from Leicestershire, thought the prospect of being able to safely dispose of all their leftovers sounded almost too good to be true.

‘We were a bit sceptical at first,’ admits Jack. ‘We had already tried having a compost bin but we were not systematic enough to make it work.’

But at the time Leicestershire County Council was offering residents subsidised Cones to encourage them to recycle food waste at home instead of sending it to landfill. So the couple decided to give it a try.

A place in the sun

Under the scheme at the time, the council arranged for Green Cones to be installed on their residents’ behalf since the units must be dug into a hole in the garden.

 Once this was done, and the Cone was in place in a sunny spot near the kitchen door, the Milners began to feed it their leftovers, including bones.

‘It wasn’t long before the Green Cone was called ‘George’ (don’t ask us why!) and we fed him daily,’ says Jack.

 A pleasant surprise

The couple, now in their eighties, were quickly won over by George’s powers of digestion. ‘We have been very pleasantly surprised.’

Jack and Joan sometimes have to deal with the common problem of visiting dogs and cats leaving a little deposit on their lawn, but ‘George’ has even been efficient at dealing with this.

Most of the waste deposited in the Cone breaks down to become nutritious water that drains from the underground basket into surrounding soil. The Milners have noticed the effect of this soil conditioner on their garden.

A very good buy

Their Cone was placed in an arid spot which sported a few Lily of the Valley flowers and these soon began to flourish, becoming ‘a superb patch two metres in diameter.’

Jack adds that their Cone is now becoming a bit brittle but still ‘completely serviceable’, and it is only now after 13 years that it might need emptying.

‘Overall, George has been a very good buy.’

What’s in a name?

Incidentally, the Milners are not the only customers who have found themselves giving a name to their food waste digester. In our reviews section is a family who named their three Green Johanna Hot Composters Bertha, Belinda and Beryl. Whatever you may wish to call your Cone (and names are not obligatory, we don’t check!) we’re sure life with your own George, or Daisy or Engelburt will be just as good as the Milners’ experience.

And remember, Great Green Systems are here to help if you have any queries or problems.   

How to get the most from your Green Johanna

Posted on by Julie Halford

With your Green Johanna assembled, it’s time to choose the ideal location.

Choose a spot that provides a flat surface with free drainage for any liquid produced. Make sure it’s also not too far from the house and easy to get to.

The Johanna has been designed to promote efficient composting. Vents leading in from the base plate allow air to flow upwards into the container. The twistable lid regulates the ventilation system helping you to adjust air circulation and temperature. The container’s round shape ensures there are no cold corners so heat is spread evenly through the compost, and the tapered design means that compost sinks towards the centre of the unit and not to its sides, allowing air to circulate and oxygenate the compost.

If you’re new to composting, a bit of basic knowledge will help you on your way but you will also learn as you go by paying attention to what’s going on in your bin.

Successful composting depends on three essential ingredients: materials, air, moisture.

Composting basics

 MATERIALS – The microbes in your compost bin need a diet that provides a balance between waste materials that are rich in nitrogen and carbon. In composting terms, nitrogen-rich materials are often referred to as Greens and carbon-rich materials as Browns.

Nitrogen-rich materials (Greens) include:

  • Food waste, fresh grass and leaves, plants, flowers, tea leaves, home compostable tea bags, coffee grounds. These items break down quickly and contain moisture so they keep the bin’s contents moist.

Carbon-rich materials (Browns) include:

  • Twigs, branches, dead leaves, paper, cardboard, straw, wood chips, sawdust. These contents are drier and slower to break down.

 A mixture that contains a 50:50 balance of nitrogen (Greens) to carbon (Browns) is a good place to start for composting. You may find that you have a lot more nitrogen-rich inputs (food waste) than carbon so it can be handy to store carbon-rich items such as paper, cardboard and autumn leaves so you have them ready to add with food waste.

 The smaller the waste items are chopped or shredded, the greater the surface area for microbes to work on and the faster the pile will heat up. Items that are added whole, such as apples or carrots etc, will take longer to break down. Egg shells should be crushed or ground. Garden waste should be chopped into pieces no larger than 5cms or shredded.

Getting the nitrogen/carbon ratio right can be a case of trial and error but you will learn quickly through paying attention to conditions in the bin. 

As the micro-organisms break down the waste, they generate heat. As the temperature in the compost fluctuates, the types of micro-organisms present also change.

AIR – The fastest form of composting is done by organisms that need oxygen.  To give microbes air to breathe we need to add air to the mixture by aerating the contents to make sure there’s oxygen throughout the bin.

You can create air pockets by adding the cardboard tubes from toilet or kitchen rolls whole and keeping cardboard egg boxes whole. Waste paper can be added scrunched up so that it provides pockets of air, or shredded. Cardboard should be torn up. Wood chips are useful as they hold structure and create pathways for air.

WATER – You want your compost pile to be moist, rather than wet or dry. The consistency of the bin’s contents should be damp like a wrung-out sponge.  Microbes struggle if their environment is too wet or too dry. They need water to live, yet too much moisture can limit the amount of oxygen they receive. If compost is too wet, it will start to smell bad. If this happens you need to add shredded paper and cardboard and aerate well so that moisture is absorbed.  

Add water to compost that is becoming dry by gently watering with a small watering can, preferably with rainwater collected in a water butt.

Adding food waste

Food waste can be added directly or in home compostable bags, never plastic. If you tie the bags, once you have added them to the Johanna make sure to break them open using the aerator stick to allow oxygen and microbes to reach the waste.

Add food waste and other Greens first, gently stirring these in with the older waste below.
This helps the micro-organisms working below to become part of the newly added materials.
Then cover with an equal amount of carbon materials (Browns) and gently stir again. If you
prefer you can premix these nitrogen/carbon materials before adding them to the bin. Finishing with a layer of carbon, such as dry dead leaves or shredded paper/cardboard, helps to prevent smells from food waste attracting flies and vermin.

The only food-related materials that are not efficiently digested by the Johanna are those that require a very long time to break down, such as bones, large amounts of cooking oil/fat, the hard shells of nuts and seafood (such as oysters and crabs) and avocado stones.

If bones are added to the Johanna they will not break down and it would be
necessary to remove stripped-down bones from the finished compost, which could present
a danger to dogs. For this reason we do not recommend that bones are added.

You can boost the breakdown process by adding bokashi bran (available separately), fermented waste from a bokashi bin, or a bucketful of mature compost.

The Green Johanna Insulating Jacket (available separately) helps to boost temperatures for hot composting and to maintain composting performance in colder weather for regular composting. It should be removed in hot weather or the internal temperature in the bin could become too hot for the composting creatures to survive (above 70 degrees Celsius).

And finally…

To access your finished compost simply unscrew the hatches at the bottom of the Johanna and remove the compost using the aerator stick or a garden hoe.

If you want to access larger amounts of compost that have been left to mature, you can unscrew and remove the Johanna’s top sections. Return any fresh organic waste to the reassembled composter to continue breaking down.

The Johanna was designed and originally manufactured in Sweden, but is now made for Great Green Systems in Droitwich, Worcestershire.

Can you compost in communities? Anthea shows how

Posted on by Julie Halford

When Anthea Rossouw tried to get people into composting years ago, they thought she was crazy.

‘I just got blank stares,’ she recalls. ‘At the time there weren’t studies that proved what composting could do. People just wanted to throw things in the bin. Composting was a controversial idea.’

But Anthea is passionate about the environment and has a way of bringing people with her. Using workshops to show how to use the Green Johanna, she introduced composting to the housing complex in West Sussex where she was living at the time. This was so successful that it spread to other housing developments and businesses.

Anthea had been a keen recycler for years and pursued her interest by enrolling on the West Sussex County Council Waste Prevention Advisor programme delivered by the University of Brighton. So then when she was living in Walstead Court extra-care housing facility and saw piles of bin bags in the ‘rubbish room’ destined for landfill, she knew something could be done about it.   

With the support of the housing manager, Anthea showed residents and staff how to recycle food, garden and paper waste using three Green Johanna composters.

Her tutor at Brighton, Dr Ryan Woodard, had told her about Green Johannas and she thought they sounded ideal.

‘It was essential to get everyone on board though,’ she says.

 Anthea, front right, with other keen composters and the Green Johanna.

The workshops worked a treat. Waste disposal routines were transformed, as was the rubbish room, now that it was clear of bin bags containing food waste.

 Before long the residents were making their own compost and growing their own food and flowers. ‘We grew the most beautiful tomatoes,’ Anthea remembers.

Anthea approached the task methodically, weighing waste and tracking residual waste.  Waste to landfill was reduced by 55 per cent, black bin bags were reduced from three to one per flat per week. Over a six-month period 280 kg of food waste was diverted from landfill.

The communal gardens were not the only things that blossomed. Residents and staff reported that personal well-being and community spirit also flourished. The projects helped to keep people mentally alert and physically active, through taking waste out to the Johannas, crunching up cardboard containers etc. It also gave neighbours an added reason to chat to each other, acting as a conversational ice-breaker.

Anthea was then asked to introduce similar schemes to other housing associations and businesses. She also ran trials for DEFRA (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and won the Gatwick Diamond Green Champion award for her environmental work.

She then decided to try the same method of community food waste recycling in a very different place – her native South Africa. Here she introduced composting to struggling townships as part of her work with the Dreamcatcher South Africa Foundation that she had set up in 1991 to alleviate poverty by creating employment. In the community, waste was historically burnt at the dumpsite having a devastating impact on the environment and public health.

Anthea, second left next to Sir Trevor McDonald, receiving the Gatwick Diamond Green Champion award.

On a trip back home, she took three Johannas as luggage instead of suitcases, wrapping her clothes around the Johannas’ circular sections. Using the same training methods as in East and West Sussex, she installed three Johannas in a communal garden managed by local women known as Kamammas (a term meaning matriarch, or community leader).

Anthea says the Kamammas quickly took to working with the Johannas.

 ‘They found the composters didn’t attract dogs or vermin and they were delighted when they saw the quality of compost that was produced and the food they could grow with it.’ This trial was then scaled up to introduce another 25 Johannas.

The food that is grown with the Johannas’ compost is used in the women’s work providing tourists with traditional South African cuisine.  

A Kamamma introduces tourists to traditional South African cuisine.

Anthea divides her time between the UK and South Africa, and she is still in contact with the people she got composting back in the South of England. She is delighted – but not surprised – that the schemes she helped to implement are still going strong.

‘Any system must be sustainable, otherwise there’s no point. To bring about real change you have to go truly local. You need the people to make it work.

‘It takes around three months to introduce a composting project. After that people can stand on their own two feet.

‘Once you give people the skills, knowledge and confidence they become compost evangelists!’

After all these years, Anthea is still a big Johanna fan.

‘We used many other composters before settling on the Green Johanna. I underpin everything with baseline research and I knew the Green Johanna was the one.’

She still loves introducing beginners to composting.

 ‘They might know nothing now but you know they soon will. People become fascinated to know about all these little creatures in the composter doing their work.’

She firmly believes that if you pay attention to what’s happening in your composter you will learn  how to ‘speak compost’.

‘You soon learn to tell if you need to do something to bring good conditions back. If you haven’t enough garden waste, you can use paper product waste, such as toilet rolls, cardboard, shredded paper. If the contents look dry sprinkle a little water on top.’

The Johanna may have been designed in Sweden to cope with harsh Scandinavian winters, but it has happily adjusted to the South African climate, often turning ‘psychedelic green’ in the sun.

Whatever the shade, it’s still doing a great green job for the planet, wherever on earth it happens to be.  

Spare Parts