What’s your relationship with your compost bin been like this year? I’m not sure I’d come off well with mine. A soggy summer meant I was reluctant to feed it too many anaerobic grass cuttings (when I did eventually mow the lawn in July, three months after it was laid) and it’s had more dedicated years of fastidiously combining browns (cardboard, loo roll tubes, envelopes, twigs and dry leaves) with greens (food waste, aforementioned grass cuttings, green plant matter). If I were on the therapist’s couch I suspect I’d be called out for taking more than I gave.
I don’t entirely regret this. This year has been one of garden transformation, and about five months in I was able to sit back, witness the growth of it all and think that, all things considered, it wasn’t a bad achievement for a year in which I’d also given birth to a baby. In perfectionist terms, this is high praise indeed. Still, as we near the end of the year I’m prone to reflection, and I suppose I’m resolving to be more conscious in my composting next year.
That doesn’t necessarily mean composting in the bin, however (sorry, compost bin). The trees are all bare now, the deciduous shrubs too, and the borders are covered in the detritus of autumn. I’m not going to lie: clearing up leaves from the gravel garden is tedious. I was never a massive one for leaf mulch anyway – I had access to neither the trees nor the space to leave bagfuls of leaves to rot down in a corner for two years without fear that the garden fox would strew them around halfway through the
process – but now I have definitely picked up enough for one season.
Eventually the leaves will rot down, adding to, rather than disrupting, the delicate natural balance of the soil
Instead I’m giving cut-and-cover composting a go, or, as I like to think of it: lazy composting. In the long shade bed, beneath the ivy on the left-hand side of my garden – traditionally an area I’ve always left more alone (it’s where the fox ramp is) – I’ve largely left leaf matter gather on the surface of the soil. Eventually it will rot down, adding to, rather than disrupting, the delicate natural balance of the soil that is so vital for our ecosystems. Leaf cover also creates shelter, food and habitat for smaller creatures, with caterpillars using fallen leaves over winter before emerging transformed in the spring.
I won’t be cutting back the sturdier perennial skeletons until the new year – those strong tall tubes will house invertebrates until the spring and provide interest and shadow-play in winter sunlight. But the softer plant matter has been collected in the wheelbarrow and chopped up – you can use a mower if you’ve enough to justify wrangling it out of the shed – and shaken over the beds as a mulch. In previous years it would have gone in the compost bin, but it gets so full at this time of year, and I’m intrigued to see how the soil reacts to working with the decay of what has been growing there over the past year. I suspect the inevitable slew of cardboard boxes will wind up flattened on top to speed up the process.
If this composting works it will save me space, time and money
Admittedly, it doesn’t look as pretty as the pillowy mounds of dark soil that come from mulching with well-rotted manure or even my home-made garden compost, but if it works it will save me space, time and money – I always cave and buy a few bags in to add to the offerings of my 250-litre bin. Crucially, lazy composting nudges my garden one step closer to a closed-loop system: nothing in, nothing out, simply boosting what I’m growing without being dependent on plants or soil arriving on the back of a truck. That’s fewer transit miles, and a smaller carbon footprint – and a guilt-free New Year’s resolution that requires considerably less effort than usual.
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