Titanarum

What do you get if you mix cabbage leaves, egg shells, cardboard, potato peel, apple cores, citrus peel and whatever else uncooked material you want rid of and leave it for six months? Brown, moist, nutritious compost is what you get. And hundreds of slithering red worms who have munched through whatever you threw at them and bred hundredfold.

I am new to all this recycling and composting lark. My previous lack of committed, regular effort may well have notched the global average temperature up a degree or two. But I am a changed person and feel duty bound to spread the knowledge. Thanks to London Community Recycling Network and their volunteers I have been educated (less than an hour, it took) and given my very own composting bin. Free of charge. I don’t know about you non-composting people out there, but I say, give it a chance. Bring compost into your lives. Anybody with a strip of garden out the back can do it. Anybody with an allotment can do it. Anybody with a dark cupboard and a plant in need of re-potting can do it.

And why bother? (Apart from saving the planet)? Because plants we grow love it and need it. Different plants prefer different kinds of compost but more of that another time. And what about the (completely un-slimy) red wiggler worms, a k a earthworms? Well, they aerate the roots, thus enhancing the absorption of nutrients, they dramatically improve the soil structure and they increase the yield enormously for many crops. Composting is a beautiful thing in itself, but if that won’t sway you, think of the planet. I’m serious. As only a newly converted composter can be.

P.S. These websites could change your life: www.lcrn.org.uk/projects/compost,
www.communitycompost, www.earthworm.org