Hot Composting workshop
The composting bug has taken hold of us now and this time we gathered to learn about the art of Hot Composting
Again, we saw a great turn out of people keen to learn about it. The weather treated us well and soon it was a beehive of activity around our compost bins.
We were lucky to have Anouk (Ecosolutions) guiding us through the process of building a hot compost heap. Before the workshop we had gathered all the needed “ingredients”, as a hot compost heap is built in one go, building up layers, lasagne-style.
You can get very scientific about it, measuring the thickness of the different layers, but we adopted a more relaxed Kaeo-style having fun. It is very important though to have at least as much if not more “brown” materials than green materials!
Brown materials:
Leaves from deciduous trees; shredded paper or cardboard (but not all cardboard is suitable), chipped (small) branches from your autumn pruning, compostable cups, toilet rolls, paper towels, dried grass clipping, aged woodchips or sawdust, weathered hay.
Green materials:
Food scraps, animal manure, Bokashi compost, coffee grounds, spent plants.
Comfrey, seaweed, borage and other herbs add valuable minerals and activators to your heap.
In no time the heap was built and watered, then covered and it was time to gather around the table eating yummy kai and enjoying each other’s company.
Many thanks to Anouk for guiding us and for Lavern for feeding us so well at each workshop. And a big thank you to all of you who came and supported another Teaching Garden workshop.
