WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

Garden Organic's Anton Rosenfeld shares his expertise on using compost made from green bin collections with handy tips on getting the right consistency and quality

- Anton Rosenfeld

Green waste compost is the product of material collected from domestic household green bin collections, local community sites, parks and amenity spaces. It's often found in bags, labelled as 'soil improver'.

It's produced by shredding the material then composting it at high temperatures, either in long windrows (elongated mounds) or closed vessels. It's also turned frequently to keep it aerated. Due to the high volumes of material, it reaches much higher temperatures than can be achieved in a small heap at home: typically the heap will reach at least 55C (131F).

WHY USE GREEN WASTE COMPOST?

Many of us compost our garden waste and produce excellent quality compost in our gardens, but often we can't quite produce enough to satisfy the needs of our soils. This is especially true if you are growing food. Each time we grow a food crop and harvest it, nutrients are removed from the soil that need to be replaced. Bringing in green waste compost is a helpful solution to making up this shortfall. It also makes effective use of a waste product and reduces the amount of material going into landfill.