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.
One bad experience can put people off composting for life.
Something we hear a lot is – we had a composter for years but it just sat there doing nothing.
This was the experience of Adam and Hayley. After a few attempts, despite their best efforts, they kept encountering the same problem – very slow breakdown of waste materials with hardly any compost produced.
But they were still keen to have another go, this time using a Green Johanna for the first time.
We’ll follow Adam and Hayley’s progress and answer any questions as they arise.
Setting up
Getting their Green Johanna up and running, Adam and Hayley found:
Instructions were easy to follow.
They were able to assemble and set up the composter in an hour.
The instruction manual was handy for answering questions.
They were able to get started without any issues.
Assembling the Johanna in sections meant it was easy to move around to choose a spot in the garden compared to the pre-built composters they had tried in the past.
Handily, a tree in their garden had fallen down in the wind so they had a ready store of twigs and branches to use as the foundation base in the bottom of the bin to provide airflow and drainage. This stage only took about 10 minutes to sort out.
Despite their earlier disappointing composting experiences, the couple are keen to try again because of the many benefits home composting brings – both to the environment and to the user.
Adam said: ‘I’m really excited to continue to use the Johanna and get some compost.’
We’ll report back on Adam and Hayley’s progress.
Outside the box: Setting up, helped – or rather watched – by Archie the amazing Shihpoo.
Choosing the spot – base in place.
Getting the sections in line.
Adding twigs to create a foundation for drainage and airflow.
Every day 165 million cups of tea are drunk in Britain – and that’s just in our house.
Since today is National Tea Day (April 21), I expect a lot more facts will be shared and the ones I’ll be paying close attention to are those concerning plastic.
Like millions of other tea drinkers, I was alarmed a few years ago to learn that most tea bags contained plastic – polypropylene – used to heat-seal the edges of the bags.
This news sparked health concerns among tea drinkers as well as raising questions about the effect on the soil and wildlife when these tea bags were composted.
Of those millions of cups of tea drunk every day, 96 per cent are made with tea bags. So if you were home-composting your share of those tea bags you might have been unwittingly leaving bits of microplastic (tiny pieces of plastic less than 5mm in size) in the soil.
As a result of the controversy, manufacturers started to remove polypropylene from their teabags. Naively, I thought that was the end of it and that now in 2023 we would all be taking our tea with milk and sugar but no plastic, thanks.
While talking to a customer recently, the topic turned to composting tea bags. We both remembered early attempts at plastic-free teabags that led to the bags dissolving in the cup, but we didn’t know the current state of play. I resolved to find out more – more of which later.
Like many Brits, I feel there are few situations in life that can’t be improved by a nice cup of tea. My day can’t start before at least a pint of Earl Grey has entered my system and the rest of the day is propped up at regular intervals by yet more tea. Sometimes I ask myself if this is a psychological thing. The very words, ‘I’ll put the kettle on’ appear to have a soothing Pavlovian effect on my nervous system. So why, on any given day, are there half-cups of cold tea littered around our house and office? It’s as though the thought of having a cup of tea always seems like a good idea even if I’m not that bothered about actually drinking it. Just thinking about it is enough.
There’s probably a lot in there for a psychotherapist to unpick, but meanwhile my tea research has made me wake up to a blind spot I have when it comes to wasting tea. I take great care not to waste food but don’t give the same consideration to drinks; it’s as if because they’re liquid they don’t count. So many problems with waste are caused through us being creatures of habit.
Of course, I’m using energy every time I put the kettle on, not to mention wasting the tea, the water and soya milk that’s used if I don’t drink the whole cup. Every half-cup of wasted tea is a waste of the earth’s resources. It all matters.
So this is one robotic, wasteful habit that I’m in the process of breaking. From now on I will be mindful not mindless about putting the kettle on.
On my own personal tea travels, I stopped drinking my regular brand a few years ago because of concerns about plastic and switched to Hampstead Tea. I was particularly interested to learn about this brand’s commitment to biodynamic farming – an organic, ecological approach, employing the use of manures and compost.
Studying the subject again recently has made me rethink the following:
I have decided to switch to loose leaf tea. Then I don’t have to think at all about plastic particles, bag materials or questions of compostability.
Tea bags only became freely available in the 1950s, meaning that many generations before me had to contend with tea leaves and old-fashioned teapots. And they all seemed to cope just fine, along with other challenges such as having to slice their own bread. When I think of family members talking about how hard life used to be, there were memories of poverty, short life expectancy, outside toilets and tin baths, but I don’t recall anyone ever saying, ‘And on top of all that, we didn’t have tea bags!’
(I think I may still need an emergency tea bag stash as back-up while I transition.)
Other advantages of being a loose (leaf) woman:
Less package waste
The tea itself tends to be less processed and retains more of the original flavour
You can adjust the strength and even blend your own.
Modern teapots have built-in infusers, meaning it’s easy to get the tea leaves into the compost and wash out the pot. I know this because I have such a teapot already but it’s used mainly as a colourful decoration. As well as being soothed by tea itself, I am also cheered by tea paraphernalia of any kind, including dainty tea cups and saucers that I accumulate but never use and pictures of tea pots on my kitchen walls.
But enough about my weirdness. If you’re reading this, I’m assuming that you want to home compost your tea bags. Tea leaves are ideal compost material, providing high levels of nitrogen (even higher than manures) and small particles so compost bacteria have more surface area to work on.
On my internet trawl to find out more about plastic in tea bags, I found confusing and conflicting information, with experts arguing about the merits of bioplastics. And that’s before you start reading comments underneath articles. The word biodegradable is also bandied about by many interested parties as though it’s an ecological holy grail when all it means is that material will break down eventually, but you won’t know how long that will take and under what conditions.
Online information also quickly goes out of date because some tea brands are still working towards their plastic-free goals, which might have been achieved after articles have been published.
I’ve spent several hours that I’ll never get back reading through studies and articles; my advice to a home-composting tea drinker would be to contact your favourite brand and find out where they are on the plastic-free/compostable journey.
Points to consider:
Many tea brands are still using polypropylene. If tea bags contain plastic, you can compost the leaves but throw the bag in general waste. Plastic in tea bags sent to landfill will still enter the soil.
Be aware there may also be hidden plastics in sachets or string-and-tag bags.
Many brands that don’t use polypropylene use polylactic acid (PLA). This is a plant-based polymer (sometimes referred to as a bioplastic). It can also be called Soilon.
Plant material sources include corn starch, which can come from genetically modified (GM) maize – but this cannot be used in organic teabags.
While PLA is biodegradable, it requires industrial composting to break down because most ordinary garden composters might not get hot enough (44 – 60 degrees Celsius) to break down the bags. It is thought teabags containing PLA could take several years to degrade, and it is not known exactly how harmful it might be to organisms in the meantime. If your council has a separate food waste collection, teabags made with PLA can be placed into your food waste bin to be industrially composted.
Like oil-based plastics, if bioplastics end up in the ocean they can present a danger to marine life.
The origins of the tea bag might have been accidental – in 1908 an American tea importer who shipped silk tea bags around the world found that customers, instead of removing the leaves from the bags as he intended, found it easier to brew the tea with the tea leaves still enclosed in the porous bags.
Among comments following an online BBC report from 2019 are some from people who had been putting tea bags in home compost for years until they realised they were having to pick plastic remnants out of the soil – even 15 years later. One reader commented he had stopped composting tea bags for use as garden mulch when he saw birds picking up the bag remnants and using them in their nest building.
At home, our Green Johanna’s contents reach regular temperatures of between 40 – 60+ degrees Celsius; we measure the temperature every day. According to the Carry on Composting website, Composting – www.carryoncomposting.com, the corn starch Soilon can hot compost in 6-8 weeks. The site recommends cutting a couple of holes in tea bags so composting bacteria can easily access the leaves, accelerating the rate of decomposition.
The Ethical Consumer website Is there Plastic in my Tea? | Ethical Consumer features a chart based on information from Feb/March 2022 that lists the following as ‘best brands’: Clearspring, Essential, Hambledon Herbs, Hampstead tea, Heath and Heather, Higher Living and Dr Stuart’s, Pukka, Qi, Postcard, Teapigs, Yogi Tea.
The site also lists middle companies ‘who are using some PLA, or are in the process of switching’, as well as the worst. But bear in mind that the situation might have changed since then.
I’ll end with some ideas for homegrown tea that I read in the comments section of one article.
Easily sourced throughout the year from your garden: (dried) rosehip tea (dried) chamomile tea Fresh peppermint/spearmint tea Fresh nettle tea
Whether you compost – and how you compost – depends on your needs and situation.
Different issues influence all our choices – space, household size, council collections, soil conditions, climate and the time we have available.
For those lacking the time and space for traditional composting, a new product claims to bridge the gap. The Lomi Smart Waste Kitchen Composter (£500) is a countertop unit that turns food scraps into garden compost in 16 hours.
Some customers have asked our views about the Lomi following an article in the Sunday Times (16.04.23) when journalist Louise Eccles, who describes herself as ‘an impatient gardener’, tried one out.
The Lomi, which is about the size of a bread machine, speeds up decomposition by heating the waste, circulating air and grinding it.
Louise’s verdict was: ‘It has produced a slightly moist pile of chunky compost that smells of fruit cake. It is a large and expensive piece of equipment to produce a rather modest pile of soil but, if you have the room, it is better than binning it or perhaps sending it off on a truck.’
We have never used a Lomi, but as we were curious we sifted through dozens of Amazon reviews from Canada, the US and Australia. These were the most common verdicts:
No smells
No flies (in some areas kitchen flies had previously been a major issue)
It means you don’t have to go out to the garden composter in bad weather (ie, in Canada, that means digging through snow)
Great for residents who live in apartments with no space to compost and are unhappy about putting food waste in general rubbish
Great for areas with poor soil as the compost boosts soil quality (plants love the compost, apparently)
Great for customers who felt too old to compost or had ‘no patience’ for it.
Other points:
The Lomi uses electricity but the company (Pela) says the amount of power needed is minimal. A 16-hour cycle costs 34p.
The noise level is described in the Sunday Times article as a ‘quiet rumble’. For some customers this meant moving the unit to a garage or utility room.
Many customers felt the benefits outweighed the expense.
Some customers said in reviews that they used the Lomi alongside their garden composter, adding the ‘dirt’ that is produced to their compost bin to act as an accelerator.
One reviewer felt the bucket wasn’t sufficient for larger families; in such cases using it alongside a standard kitchen caddy and adding the contents of both to a Green Johanna or Compost Tumbler sounds like a good working partnership.
One customer described using the unit on a short cycle to break down food waste, then adding this pre-compost mixture to a compost bin to continue breaking down into mature compost.
A review on the Epic Gardening website describes the compost produced by the Lomi as more ‘pre-compost’ than the finished article, but concludes the unit is good for:
those living in regions where harsh winters make regular composting difficult
those living in apartments
introducing people to composting.
In the UK, if your local council is still a long way from introducing separate food waste collections, your food waste as general waste is currently going to landfill or incineration. So, if you lack the space or motivation for garden composting but are unhappy about food waste going in general waste, this could be something you want to research further.
The Sunday Times article also refers to councils which subsidise garden composters in order to reduce the amount of food waste they have to dispose of, such as the Surrey Council campaign which means residents can buy a Green Johanna for £80. Just this short mention led to a dramatic increase in orders of Green Johannas from Surrey and other local authority campaigns.
When it comes to boosting the composting process, we have found a Bokashi bin to be the perfect partner for the Green Johanna.
We recently carried out trials involving additions of fermented food waste from a Maze Bokashi bin to a Green Johanna and found that temperatures in the Johanna rapidly increased as a result.
For our trials, we re-started a Johanna more or less from scratch, having previously removed large amounts of compost. Using a permanently installed insulation jacket and large amounts of Bokashi bran and carbon-rich materials, compost temperatures were around 30 degrees Celsius.
We added the contents of a Bokashi bin that had been fermenting for 21 days, followed by a full 1kg bag of Bokashi bran. We then added some mulch and stirred well with a garden fork, before completing the process with a thin layer of mulch.
The Johanna was then left for 48 hours. Temperatures rose to 66 degrees Celsius whilst outdoor temperatures were in the 0-10 degree range. After 48 hours we re-stirred to spread heat more widely through the Johanna. Using two Bokashi bins in rotation we repeated this cycle roughly every three weeks and got the same results.
We used the Green Johanna in combination with a regular kitchen caddy (as the Johanna needs regular feeding to maintain the hot composting process), twin-bin Bokashi system, Insulating Jacket, Bokashi Bran as an accelerant and plenty of mulch.
Photos show starting temperature at 30 degrees Celsius/adding fermented waste from a Bokashi bin/ adding Bokashi bran/temperature at 66 degrees Celsius.
The Bokashi process was developed in Japan in the 1980s; the term means ‘fermented organic matter’ in Japanese. It involves adding all your food waste, cooked and uncooked, to a specially designed airtight Bokashi bin, with the addition of Bokashi in the form of a fermented bran or spray. The food waste is compressed with a compactor to eliminate as much air as possible as this is an anaerobic process. Once the bin is full, you close the airtight lid and leave for 2-3 weeks. Many people use one or two bins to keep the process going.
The bacteria (lactobacilli) in the bran or spray will create lactic acid which will effectively pickle the food waste rather than letting it decompose as it would in a regular food waste caddy. After a week or so, liquid should start to form in the Bokashi bin which should be drained using the tap. This ‘Bokashi tea’ can be used as a drain cleaner or diluted for use as plant food.
At the end of the fermentation period the waste food is a pre-compost mixture that can be added to a composter or buried in soil to become a soil enhancer. Its composition is such that virtually all its original nutrients, carbon and energy enter rapidly into the soil. No greenhouse gases are released to the atmosphere as they are during regular food waste decomposition in landfill.
Bokashi composting has traditionally proven particularly popular in urban environments where traditional garden composting is difficult.
With compost again in the spotlight (Compost Week UK runs from March 13-19) it’s timely that Nancy Birtwhistle’s green gardening book has just been published.
Nancy first came to national attention when she won The Great British Bake-Off in 2014 and she is now a best-selling author on green issues.
She’s also an inspiration to anyone wanting to live a more sustainable life; the tips in her books and on her Instagram feed are simple but effective, with something for everyone.
We had pre-ordered a copy of her latest book, The Green Gardening Handbook, and we’ve been busy this week reading and learning.
Here’s how Nancy sums up her life’s green journey:
‘Several years ago I began my green journey and this way of thinking has permeated every part of my life, from the way I clean my house to the way I resist single-use items, recycle and upcycle where possible, am mindful about the use of valuable energy and utilities, and also how I have been able to apply this way of thinking to my garden. I became more informed through researching and reading while considering the plight of our natural world and am now converted to methods that, once the penny drops, actually make utter and complete sense, and are logical and sensible. Once we learn how to work with Mother Nature and understand how the seasons work, how plants behave and how we can harness the wonder of it all, the reliance on any destructive chemical, synthetic or harmful methods for home growing are utterly superfluous.’
She also talks about her respect for the tiny creatures that make this soil food: ‘I found that once I embraced a greener approach to living – in the garden and in relation to my food – I was ever more appreciative and amazed by the wonder of nature, especially the creepy crawlies, and because of this will continue to do my very best to cherish and preserve it wherever and whenever I can.’
Summing up how all compost enthusiasts feel, she says, ‘I take huge satisfaction each time I add something to my compost bin, knowing that it is one less item going to landfill.’
We’re still reading the book – and noting down our favourite tips – but here are a few quick points Nancy makes about her journey in composting.
Finding the traditional Browns and Greens compost terminology confusing, because not all green items are Greens (i.e. nitrogen-rich) and not all brown items are Browns (i.e. carbon-rich), Nancy prefers to think in terms of Wet and Dry contents. (Michael Kennard, of Compost Club, makes the same point in his booklet Hot Compost – The Basics. He encourages beginners to think in terms of nitrogen and carbon content to help get the ratios right.)
When gardening, use biodegradable jute twine and wooden plant labels so that any oddments that fail to be removed before composting will decompose along with everything else.
Invest a few pounds in a compost thermometer – it will keep you entertained for hours and is a great talking point with enthusiastic gardening friends.
Use your compost to fill planters, top dress rose bushes and fruit trees, lay a good thick layer over veggie plots in the autumn and early winter and the worms will do the job of taking it below the surface – no need for digging it in.
Make your own compost scoop out of a plastic milk container: Cut the bottle in half – the top half to be used as a compost scoop or planting funnel and the bottom half to be used as a simple seed pot or planter. Make a starting hole in the centre of the bottle using a hot skewer and use this as an entry hole for the scissors, making it possible to make a neat cut. To use one half as a compost scoop – leave the cap in place and use the handle with the bottle neck in the upside-down position to scoop your compost to take to your pots or tubs. With a scoop there is less spillage than using your hands or a trowel.
If you buy compost make sure it is a peat-free variety – peatlands are hugely important for plants, wildlife and humanity. They also store vast amounts of carbon which must be kept in the ground to avoid contributing further to climate change.
(Sales of peat to amateur gardeners in England will be banned by 2024.)
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.
As unashamed compost-heads feeling the love for the earth this Valentine’s Day, we thought we’d fill a space on the Great Green Systems office wall with this DIY picture.
And perhaps we should compose (decompose?) a little ode to compost while we’re at it:
Compost, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways…
(with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Perhaps it would be better in prose.
Why we love compost
Let’s just start by saying that you don’t need to be a gardener to compost. That is a wrong-headed assumption some people make and if that’s you, we hope we’ll manage to change your mind.
Many of our customers know nothing about composting at the outset but they start because they want to take control of their own food and garden waste.
Composting used to be thought of as a side-line to gardening, but now more and more people are taking it up because they want to live a more sustainable life and do something to fight the climate crisis.
Compost is an ally in combatting the climate crisis because it boosts soil quality as well as helping soil to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and sink it back into the ground. The more carbon that is taken from the atmosphere, the better chance we have of reducing the rate of global warming. Along with oceans and forests, soil is an important carbon storage medium.
An American study showed that spreading half an inch of compost over half of California’s grasslands could remove carbon from the air at such a significant rate that it would balance the greenhouse gas emissions for the entire state of California for a year.
The International Compost Alliance, formed in 2021 to raise awareness about the benefits of composting, says: ‘Compost is a win-win solution to climate change – not only does recycling organic wastes reduce emissions, compost also brings many benefits when used on soils too.’
Compost boosts soil quality by:
holding on to important nutrients
improving plant productivity and quality
protecting plants from pests and diseases
preventing erosion
improving drainage
absorbing water, slowly releasing it to grass and plants so they need watering less frequently.
As compost breaks down, it delivers important nutrients into the soil. Compost contains the three primary nutrients that plants need: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. As well as feeding the plants that grow in this soil, compost also increases the number and variety of beneficial bacteria and fungi in the soil, which helps plants to grow.
The quality of produce grown in soil treated with compost tends to be higher. International studies have shown:
In India – quinoa plants in soil mixed with compost showed a significant increase in ability to take nutrients from the soil.
In China – wheat fields treated with compost had significantly increased yields versus a control field of uncomposted soil.
In Italy – compost increased lettuce and kohlrabi growth by 24% and 32% respectively.
Studies on compost’s water-retaining abilities have shown that for every 1% of organic matter content, soil can hold 16,500 gallons of plant-available water per acre of soil down to one foot deep.
Compost also helps water to get to plant roots more effectively by:
reducing crust forming on soil, so water can get into the soil more easily.
helping to disperse water laterally from where it hits the ground, which means it will evaporate less quickly.
What a waste
Once you start composting you begin to realise the amount of food that is wasted and its cost. This awareness tends to help households to reduce food waste in general.
Food and garden waste account for more than 30% of the contents of a typical domestic wheeled bin, which is crazy when you think that this waste could be turned into free soil nutrition that can replace or reduce costly chemical fertilisers.
Around 50 per cent of local authorities in England have yet to begin separate food waste collection schemes, so there are still mountains of food waste being sent to landfill or incineration for the foreseeable future.
Engaging in the composting process also introduces children to environmental science. This is a topic that can grow in complexity as a child grows and is able to understand more about what is involved.
According to the charity Garden Organic, the health of the earth’s soils is fundamental to life as we know it, yet half the planet’s topsoil has been lost in the last 150 years.
Save our soil
There are around 15 million gardens in the UK – that’s millions of people with access to a patch of the planet. The charity urges people to take simple steps to redress soil degradation in their own gardens by regularly topping up beds with compost and ensuring soils are not left bare.
Bare soil is vulnerable to erosion, weeds and carbon loss. So even if you don’t need compost for the sake of plants, covering bare soil is still beneficial for the environment.
You can also spread compost thinly across a lawn or grassed area, where worms will pull it down into the soil and it will boost soil quality and by extension the grass.
Or give it away – to allotments, community gardens, school gardening clubs, voluntary groups. It will always be gratefully received.
Fruit Flies are one of the most common nuisances in the UK, affecting more than 60% of households.
So if you encounter this annoying problem, you are certainly not alone.
Although fruit flies are part of the composting process in the sense that they help to break down organic material, you want to minimise numbers as they proliferate quickly.
Fruit flies are not your common or garden (or house) fly; they do not usually enter the home through the door or window, they come in with the fruit that you buy or get from the garden.
Adult fruit flies lay eggs on the fruit’s skin and these hatch later when the temperature is right. Fruit flies have a strong sense of smell and are attracted by the smell of overripe or rotting organic matter.
The eggs are microscopic, so they’re invisible, until suddenly – they’re not. Obviously, if the eggs are already in fruit skins when added to a composter there’s a chance they might hatch inside it.
There are several steps you can take to minimise the risk.
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 fruit 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
In a well-maintained hot composter flies shouldn’t be a problem as high temperatures destroy the eggs.
If there is a problem, 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.
Ensure the compost is kept moist but not wet as flies proliferate in wet conditions.
Wrap food waste in newspaper so it is covered. Lining your kitchen caddy with newspaper is a convenient way to wrap your waste up as you take it to the composter.
Bury food waste deeper in the compost so it is not exposed.
Ensure the bin has good aeration – stir really well to get air into the mix.
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 lime or 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.
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 compost bin 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 never be above ground level.
Some people pour hot water into the contents but this will also kill off beneficial bugs so use only as a last resort for severe infestations
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.
Using the Green Johanna in its classic specification is a great way to turn your food and garden waste into soil-enriching, high quality compost.
Independent studies (Which?/Gardeners’ World magazine) praise the Johanna for its ability to take a wider range of inputs than most regular composters and for the temperatures it is able to reach. This is largely due to its ventilation system, with a patented base that allows air inflow past the mass of compost already in the composter and a twist lid that allows the upper vents to be opened or closed depending on conditions. Heat is retained in the composter due to its enclosed design (most garden composters feature an open or loose-fitting base) and wall thickness (at 10kg, the Johanna weighs in at 2-3 times the weight of many other composters).
According to the Which? trial, the Green Johanna outperformed all but one composter on the market in terms of compost temperature, with temperatures into the 40 degree Celsius range. This form of composting is largely traditional, relying on worms and insects to finish the job that the heat-generating microbal activity has got underway.
Using this method, the use of an Insulating Jacket has usually been advised when temperatures drop below 5 degrees Celsius in the winter months. This is because microbal activity ceases at these temperatures, meaning compost temperatures decrease and the compost pile may stall until it is heated up again.
Trials
Throughout last year, however, the team at GGS wondered what would happen if we took a different approach and left the Insulating Jacket on all year. We had received positive feedback from a number of customers who had done just that, and so we undertook a number of individual trials. The results were dramatic. Our main finding was that leaving the jacket on raised compost temperatures into the 30 to 60 degree Celsius range on a permanent basis, even in the coldest winter periods. The insulated Johanna has proven to be the perfect vessel for domestic thermophilic composting, which is microbal in nature, accepts a wider range of waste and turns it into high-quality compost in weeks rather than months.
In a matter of weeks Great Green Systems will launch a complete Hot Composting Bundle that will make this form of composting easy for everyone.
In the meantime, here are our quick tips for getting started:
Insulating Jacket. Add it to the Green Johanna and leave it on. If you are retro-fitting to an existing Johanna you should see a significant increase in compost temperature within days.
Carbon. By which we mean autumn leaves, shredded paper, card and mulch. The latter can be bought from your local DIY store until Great Green Systems launches its own range in early Spring 2023. Add these carbon-rich materials generously, no less than in equal amounts to the amount of nitrogen-rich materials (green garden waste, food waste) you have added. Mix well after adding new inputs.
Aeration. This form of composting requires more effort than classic composting. Use your Green Johanna aerator stick regularly as normal, but also aerate deeper into the pile on a weekly basis with a garden fork.
Bokashi. Adding half a bag or a full 1kg bag of Bokashi bran monthly raises composting temperatures in the short term and accelerates the composting process. For those who want to try using a Bokashi bin; adding food waste to the Johanna that has been allowed to ferment for three weeks in a Bokashi bin will dramatically increase compost temperature and accelerate the process. Be sure to add plenty of carbon and a bag of Bokashi Bran at the same time as the pre-compost mixture that has fermented in the Bokashi bin.
Chop your waste into small pieces to increase surface area and optimise the process. This will also make turning the compost much easier. Use a chipper-shredder for your garden waste if you have one; these can also be hired on a daily basis.
Take the compost temperature. Compost thermometers are widely available and will form part of the GGS range from Spring 2023. Place the thermometer inside the composter and check temperatures regularly. The microbal processes die off when compost temperatures reach 72 degrees Celsius – this is the opposite problem to the traditional low temperature issue in winter, with the same outcome of a stalled compost heap. If temperatures near this threshold – and we have seen this several times during the trials – remove the jacket to allow the contents to cool down before adding the jacket again.
This approach is for the more committed or interested composter, but for those looking to compost all of their organic waste quickly and efficiently it is a project well worth embarking on.
You can get your rapid hot composting project started by purchasing any items you need using the following links (Insulating Jackets, and bundles that include an Insulating Jacket, are on special offer with 25 % off until 13th February 2023):
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