Today I'm at Nunnington Hall in Yorkshire. A garden which has been run on organic principles
by head gardener Nick Fraser for over 17 years. The garden is highly productive and bursting with life
and at the centre of everything is a composting system which Nick is going to tell us all about.
So Nick you make loads of compost here at Nunnington don't you?
We do. We make several tons a year. It's a fantastic way to recycle all the garden waste that comes
from the garden. All the grass clippings. We recycle all to the kitchen waste, and then we can
produce our own soil conditioners, our own mulches, and even some great compost we can use in our own
compost mixers. So this is where the composting process starts isn't it? Yes this is day one.
This is where all the magic starts happening we've been filling this one for about three weeks. We've got
grass clippings, we've got some shredded leaves we've got some herbaceous plants, and we've got
some annual plants. I can see some cosmos in there and some of the astrantia that's been chopped down.
And so everything always comes into bay one. And this is where we start getting quite a lot of
heat building up in here, and if I lift this off we should see some steam coming off it. Oh yeah, yeah, wow.
And that stuff's just been added in the last few weeks. This is actually only about 10 days worth of
compost in here. So it takes us about about four weeks to fill a bay before we then turn
it into the next bay. Okay, and everything looks really well chopped up. Is that important?
It's very important to chop it up as well as you can. You're going to get a finer compost, a better
soil conditioner, and it will turn quicker if it's well processed beforehand. And it's
also important to try and get a good mix between very green substances and very brown substances.
So is there anything that you don't put in the compost heap. Like what about perennial weeds?
Yeah there's one or two things. If your heap is big enough there is a school of thought
that absolutely everything will compost. However on a smaller scale and at home, and in a
garden that's open to the public, there's one or two things that I just wouldn't risk.
So we wouldn't put bindweed in and we wouldn't put ground elder in. We do risk it with the odd
bit of couch grass and nettles. Probably wouldn't advise it at home in a small compost heap.
But pretty much everything else apart from pernicious weeds will compost and break down.
Everything organic will ultimately break down but depending on time and and heat.
So then at some point you move this lot into the next bay? So yes after this is full, after about four or six weeks
it all gets turned into bay two. This will regenerate some heat. It'll add a little bit of oxygen in
and we start getting a little bit of worm activity happening inside there. This is about
six to eight weeks old now and you can already see it's started to turn. It's quite coarse
and some people will actually use a compost as coarse as this because a coarse compost is very good
for a mulch because the coarseness will mean it will sit on the surface. It acts as a really good
moisture retention and a real good weed suppression layer. Yeah so I would already.
You know I've got compost that often doesn't get much more broken down than this and I use it,
but you go on to to turn it again. We do. It's not only for the quality but it's also for the ease of use
because all my volunteers know that all the compost, all the garden clippings, will start
off in bay one and we know that the finished compost is always in bay four. So it's actually
one or two turns more than you would have to do but it means we're getting a fantastic product
and it's keeping quite a simple process. Okay yeah. So show me what's in bay 3 then.
So you can see here it's getting quite fine. We're getting a lot of worm activity inside.
Huge amount of worms in there crawling around. Where do the worms come from?
Because there's so much food source available in the earlier days they're laying eggs and they're proliferating
in huge amounts to then do the composting work for us. This looks like the finished product to me but
you turn it once more into a storage base do you? So once more it gives us the option to do a little bit of
quality control. Remove any sticks or twigs that are in there and then we have the final product
here which is now this wonderful friable black gold ready to be used as a mulch which will go
on the whole garden in March. We'll be using it on the vegetable beds as part of our no dig process and
we'll also be using it in some of our home compost mixers that we'll use throughout the season.
Wow that is lovely looking stuff. And then for people wanting to make this themselves they don't
have to have four big bays? You don't need to have four big bays you can do it in one but that's
quite difficult. I would advise doing it in either two small bays or two Daleks. Two of the plastic bins.
And then one you can be filling, and with the other one you're using. When that's empty then you
can start filling that one. Turn the second one, use that and then you've got an empty bay to
start filling again. And how long would you think that people need to be leaving their bin to break down
before they can start using it? It depends on the amount of turns and it depends on how much
garden waste you're generating from your garden. So I think that normally dictates.
So by the time it's full, then once it's full, it might take three months, it might take six months.
Then you turn that and then you can start filling your other bay.
National Trust gardens can be great sources of inspiration,
and our gardeners and volunteers are always happy to talk so why not come along and
visit one of our places. Or get the National Trust's School of Gardening from our shop.