Well, it seems that if you view my last blog on a tablet, it turns the pictures sideways! I guess I need to take landscape pics and see if this works. or you could lie on your side to read it!

So, i have been inspired by Rick Valley’s article on compost in the winter edition of the Permaculture Magazine ~ go to .permaculture.co.uk for more info on this and their excellent quarterly magazine.

We have all heard of ‘chicken tractoring’, but Rick introduces us to ‘compost tractoring’. We also all know that some of the richest soil in your garden lies underneath the compost heap, which has always struck me as a tragic waste. So here is the answer – choose the growing area in your garden that needs enriching and build your compost heap on it. So simple – why haven’t I thought of it before? Rick includes pretty course material and, when the majority of the heap is well digested and ready to use, undigested, courser material is raked over onto the next bed and, being beautifully inoculated with microorganisms, provides the ideal starter for the new heap. The raking action allows the completed compost to fall to the bottom of the old site ready to be used for potting material, for making compost teas or for sprinkling under mulch on other beds.

So below is a picture of the beginnings of my heap – lots of carbon layers- leaves, hay, straw, old egg boxes, torn paper and cardboard, woody cuttings etc with a sprinkling of nitrogen rich layers – manure (provided by the escapee horses from the farm next door), old compost, kitchen scraps, green garden waste. I will report back on the resulting compost and the fertility of the bed at a later date. Meanwhile I’ll keep adding the layers and forking it around to keep it well aerated.

If you want clear diagrams and more information about compost tractoring, why not get yourself a copy of the Permaculture Magazine?

And now its time to put away the gardening gloves for a while and do some ‘Grannying’ with my brood for Christmas over in the UK.

Happy holidays everyone and a bright new year!