Covid 19 has forced Scottish local authorities to suspend green waste collections and close recycling centres. Householders are told to compost or ‘store’ their garden waste.
Responsible people wouldn’t dream of fly tipping or lighting bonfires during this dry weather. So compost we all must. If you’re new to composting, visit our website, www.askorganic.co.uk. For good compost mix soft, green sappy waste with dry, fibrous brown material. Combining moist with dry waste lets fungi and aerobic organisms produce good compost within a year.
But it’s often hard to deal with large quantities of grass and thick or prickly stems and branches. Luckily they can all be composted or recycled. As I said last week, solve the grass issue by mowing less often or not cutting part of the lawn. Obviously landfill is the only option for mowings contaminated by herbicides or chemical fertilisers.
You should always compost some clippings: they add easily accessible moisture for fibrous paper and toilet roll holders and inject heat to accelerate the composting process. Add one or two collecting boxes to a small to medium sized composter and much more to a large New Zealand box.
Grass clippings also make a brilliant, free mulch. Frankly, I can never lay my hands on enough. I put sheets of newspaper or cardboard directly on moist soil and thinly cover with grass, topping up whenever extra supplies come to hand.
The paper prevents evaporation and weed germination and is concealed by grass. Any grass seed germinates and dies as the paper keeps roots away from the soil. Both paper and grass are gradually absorbed by soil micro organisms, enriching and improving structure.
Keep grass away from plant stems as the heat scorches and damages them. But use this heat if growing courgettes or squashes. Before planting, dig a spit’s deep square hole, empty in a grassbox, replace the soil and plant into gently warming ground.
Compost or reuse woody material. Use a shredder for small or medium sized stems to get essential brown material for a hotbin or a composter. With or without a shredder, reuse some of the prunings round the garden.
I find fan-shaped little branches make ideal plant supports to prevent my Cephalaria gigantica and Anthemis tinctoria from collapsing on their neighbours. Staking now lets the plants grow through and hide the barriers.
Straight poles work with cordon tomatoes and Iris stems. And tall thin branches make brilliant individual or tripod supports for runner or French beans. One of my most satisfying summer jobs is using these poles for a runner bean frame.This woody material is invaluable throughout the garden and looks so much better and more natural than expensive plastic or metal alternatives.
Some stems, offcuts and prickly rose prunings are a different matter, and the larger the garden, the more you’ll have. So make a ‘dead hedge’. Use this intractable waste to create a wildlife haven in a discreet part of the garden. The shape and size depends on your available space and material.
A dead hedge could be constructed as a traditional hedge or a triangular corner box. I’ve boxed off a large square patch in a corner and I know someone who rammed the stuff between the side of a garage and boundary walls. Whatever suits you. For a standard design, sink two lines of poles to the length you’d like, with 45-60cm between the lines. You could finish off by weaving pliable willow, cornus or clematis prunings between the poles.
The slowly decaying material in the dead hedge is a magnet for invertebrates and questing birds and I’ve seen a hedgehog using it as a safe retreat.
Plant of the week
Viola cornuta, horned pansy, grows as a mound of bright green leaves now starting to be covered with pretty blue/lilac flowers. The dry spring means less slug and snail damage to the flowers which are edible - for humans too.
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