Miss Thrifty

Our new composter arrived today. It looks like this:

We have put it out in the garden, behind the shed. You dump the peelings etc. in the top, and scoop out the resulting compost through the sliding hatch at the bottom. This is a family-sized bin and it’s massive: I think it will take us a year to fill it!

Not only is it eco-friendly, it only cost us £20.00 including delivery! Our county council (North Yorkshire) is subsidising the costs of all home composters purchased by residents.

We bought it from the website recyclenow.com; if you are reading this in the UK, enter your postcode into the site’s homepage to find out if you can get money off too. You can also enter a competition to win £100 of gardening vouchers.

Five composting tips:

1. If your carpets are made from wool, you can add the contents of your vacuum cleaner to the bin! But be sure to mix them with fruit and vegetable waste, so that the dust doesn’t dry out the bin’s contents.
2.  If ground elder or bindweed - my personal nemesis - grow in your garden, carpet the base of your bin with black polythene. (Biodegradable black polythene, I presume!)
3. Don’t put your bin on wooden decking. Its contents will ooze.
4. You can add shellfish shells! Apparently they’ll enrich the compost’s mineral content. But bash them up with a hammer first.
5. If the contents of the bin do not appear to be composting, give them a good stir. If the contents look dry, add some more food and vegetable waste, together with some water.

I found all these on the recyclenow.com website, which is a trove of useful information that I recommend to anyone with an interest in home composting.

UPDATE: This post was selected for the 145th Festival of Frugality, hosted by Value For Your Life.