Soil is life - the power of compost...

Let's start from the 'ground up'... for any garden, landscape or region to thrive, the health of its soil is paramount. Compost feeds a diverse range of bacteria, fungi, worms and other micro-organisms in the soil, which in turn supports healthy plant life.

We LOVE to compost. Until a year ago we'd not had any real experience with composting in our many homes along the way. Life was busy with work, raising a family and shifting house every 2-3 years for almost 16 years. Building soil was unfortunately not on our agenda.

Now however, we've had the opportunity to really get into the process of this vital practice. We've found a simple hot process using wire rounds to be a huge success.

Think of this process as making a layered sponge cake or lasagna.

Each layer is made up primarily of Carbon or Nitrogen with some water and air for activation.

Carbon materials include anything that is dried and brown like straw, dried leaves, shredded cardboard, paper etc.

Nitrogen is all your fresh green garden waste, such as lawn clippings, weeds etc., fresh manures and kitchen scraps. Coffee grounds are also a wonderful addition to the mix and a great way to make use of this abundant waste product. Hit up your local cafe'. I'm sure they'd love you take some off their hands.

Starting with a layer of twigs or tree cuttings at the bottom of your pile aids the aerobic action speeding up the process and reducing odours.

Simply add a layer of carbon material, followed by a nitrogen layer and repeat. Add water to dry layers to maintain dampness, but don't soak the pile as too much water can drop the heat and slow down the process.

Once you have your pile set it will need to be turned at least weekly if not sooner to ensure it cooks evenly. The cage can be simply unclipped and repositioned to turn the pile over into. You can add more carbon, nitrogen and water to the new pile if needed - after a few weeks of turning you'll have beautiful broken down compost transformed into living soil.