Friday 1 October 2021

A different form of composting

 The mini compost bins in each vegetable bed worked well but couldn't hold much and took up too much growing space. A change is needed.

I had never heard of trench composting. The idea is that you dig a trench and slowly fill it with composting bits (kitchen waste and soaked paper in our case), before covering over with soil. It rots down in situ and feeds the plants directly.

Now my beds are almost empty I have dug my first trench out, about a spade deep, and pilled the soil from it alongside its length.

So far two lots of kitchen waste have been put in and covered. I plan to do this all winter and see how it fares. You can off course do it all year long if you have enough gaps between plantings.

I shall report back in Spring on this and let you know how it went.

8 comments:

  1. We've used that method at the allotment in the past. The peas and beans loved it because they're such greedy feeders.

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    1. Interesting, thanks for that info. Never hurts to try these things.

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  2. I might try this. We were thinking of getting a compost bin, but due to large numbers of garden birds visiting and feeding them, we do see a few rats, so wondered whether a compost bin might attract more rats.

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    1. We put ours on concrete which stopped them but any concentrated juice from the compost is lost. I think this will work okay.

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  3. Interesting! I'll look out to see how you get on :-)

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  4. I had friends who always used the trench method and had a wonderful garden. Doug has done it this year so we are hoping for good things to come.

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