Friday 27 March 2009

Friday 27th March 09

Quite a relaxing day, although I did a lot. At about 10, two Film and TV students arrived, Liam and Laura, to do a piece on recession, freeganism and green, low carbon lifestyles, drying fruit and composting.... well, they wanted to do recession and freeganism, I turned it into all the rest!

We cycled down to Country Fresh where unexpectedly, Richard wasn't working and Shirley was, so she got the starring role of handing over the box of compostables. We came back via Freshways, but Raj, the 'Mr Charisma', wasn't there, so no filming. Back at home, we did a bit on composting and how I re-use some of the stuff that the shop is unable to sell... such as a blemished red pepper which had three quarters of it perfectly edible. Back inside, we did the dried fruit theme, and by 1.30 they had got enough 'footage' and they went. I hope that they got something useful and interesting for their project. I've asked them to send me a copy so I can see what they've made me say. Anything can happen in the editing suite!

After lunch I did a bit of work in the garden, weeding and more compost heap loading and some work out at the front, bow-sawing some smaller timbers... and then David came with his LETS bank account paperwork and we discussed him photographing another gig, so we can finish off the new publicity material. Then the children came home and all was good humoured and happy.

I had the hot-pot with scone top that Gill had made yesterday, reheated on the woodstove, and I attempted to catch up on assorted e-jobs such as doing some publicity for a forthcoming Green Festival meeting.

So, an unhurried day and quite productive.

3 comments:

James said...

Did you see the Gardeners World Special last night on peat free compost and composting?

Compost John said...

Yes, it was really good, and my only gripe with it was that they didn't cover the easiest way to replace peat, which is to use leafmould. It was mentioned in passing just once.

This material, made from lots of autumn leaves just piled up together and left to slowly decompose for at least a year. This is then riddled to remove twigs and uncomposted or uncompostable items (cigarette filters!) and it is light and fluffy, low nutrient, holds water well, and is easy to blend with other materials for making growing media.

But a good programme, and I learned a few things. Presumably, James, you watched it? Do you use peat-based compost? Do you blend your own growing media?
John

James said...

We don't use Peat based compost, although it was interesting that when at Harlow Carr yesterday, they were using Peat Based compost to make Wellington Boot planters for kids. Nearly said something, but a 3 year old got in the way!

We have 1 compost bin, only been in the house 1 year. We are about to decimate the garden, so we plan on doing much more composting.