Compost

Just a quick compost post.  To be honest, I thought the compost was a bit of a write-off.  It didn't seem to be doing what I thought it should.  For some time, I'd been meaning to turn the compost, as that apparently speeds up the process.  (Monty Don said, 'any gardener who goes to the gym doesn't turn their compost often enough.)  Well, today I got around to it.  (Strictly speaking, I started yesterday, but genuinely did less than 20 seconds before being called away...)

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It's quite a large compost area.  There are three pairs of pallets, on end, which create two compost areas.  The idea was that they were 'year 1' and 'year 2' areas, to allow the garden waste time to do its thing (become compost!)  I've pretty much used up all the compost on the right hand side, and the left hand side is the stuff that's been added over the course of this year.  I therefore figured I'd 'turn' the compost from the left side into the right.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.  Although the surface (top photo) doesn't look like much is happening, as soon as you dig down a bit, you find what could reasonably be mistaken for compost! 

Some of the bits are still a bit big, so it might have to be sieved, depending on where it's to be applied, but all in all, I was pretty chuffed with the quality of it.

So this'll be applied liberally around the garden in the coming months.  Some for winter mulch, the rest of spring feeding.  Yay.