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| + | == How to make your own compost - Telegraph == | ||
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| + | <div class="body"><p>Research shows that pests and diseases vary in their temperature tolerance, but that 50C (122F) for at least seven days is enough to see off Phytophthora (including potato blight),lululemon outlet, clubroot, nematodes, the various organisms that cause damping-off,lululemon, plus larvae of carrot, onion and narcissus flies. But you need a really hot compost heap to kill viruses, perhaps because they&rsquo,08Steve SheppardGNo,lululemon outlet;re hardly alive in the first place,Toms Shoes.</p><p>So much for the good news. How likely is your compost heap to attain 50C for seven days? Not very, is the answer. The crucial difficulty, for the average gardener, is size,They meant that Mrs. Paul Alexander,lululemon sale, the Royal Horticultural Society’s compost wizard, compared open heaps, small plastic bins (like the ones often supplied by local authorities) and traditional wooden bins, all filled with a 50/50 mixture of shredded woody and soft green waste collected from the RHS garden at Wisley. There were subtle differences between bin types,Toms Shoes Outlet, with the wooden bin being slightly warmer, although it’s hard to say whether this was because it was rather larger or because wood is a better insulator. Turning helped too, with bins turned once a month being slightly warmer than those left unturned. But the bottom line is that none of the bins got more than a few degrees above air temperature, and certainly none got anywhere near 50C. The raw material was clearly fine, because a giant 70 cubic metre (2,470 cubic feet) heap of the same stuff stayed above 40C, and most of the time above 50C,Nike Air Max UK, for a whole year.</p><p>The small compost heaps, typical of the size found in the average garden, stayed cold because they have too much surface area relative to their volume,Toms Outlet. In order to heat up reliably, a compost heap almost certainly needs to be significantly bigger than one cubic metre (35 cubic feet),lululemon outlet. It also needs to be filled pretty quickly, since a heap filled slowly over a few weeks (the normal garden pattern) stands even less chance of becoming hot. A final problem to bear in mind is that even a hot compost heap will be much cooler at the surface, the edges and especially (in a square bin) the corners, so the heap needs to be turned carefully so that these outer parts end up in the middle. All this makes proper “hot” composting hard work in the average-sized garden.</p><p>What is the gardener to do? All the owner of a normal, cool compost heap can hope to do is try to stop diseases and weed seeds getting into the heap in the first place. The determined compost cooker needs a bin that is specially designed to keep the heat in. The recently introduced Hotbin is designed to do just that, essentially by being heavily insulated. I haven’t tried a Hotbin myself, but everything I hear (from Which,How are we going to? Gardening for example), suggests they work a treat,lululemon outlet.</p><p><i>For more information, call 0845 621 0095 or visit <strong></strong></i></p><p><i>Ken Thompson is a plant biologist with a keen interest in the science of gardening. He writes and lectures extensively and has written four gardening books, including 'Compost' and 'No Nettles Required'. His latest book is 'Do We Need Pandas? The Uncomfortable Truth About Biodiversity'</i></p></div> | ||
