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I DON’T ALWAYS get it right but every year I think I am getting a little better at making compost so that I can improve my soil and give my veggies the nutrients they need to grow.
The key I think is to treat your heap (or in my case, five heaps) not as a place where you can happily dump all manner of stuff from the kitchen and garden, but as if you were making a loaf of bread – you have to make sure you have the right mix of ingredients, bake it well and treat it with a little love.
I have had some God-awful compost heaps over the years – slimey, smelly, sludgy yokes that festered away in the corner of the garden. I had to avoid making eye contact with them each time I make a trip there.
The problem, I think, is that composting is always explained in a way that makes it sound highly technical. It’s all carbon and nitrogen ratios and one would think you need a PhD in Chemistry just to get involved. Any time anyone tried to explain the process of making compost to me, my eyes would glaze over and I would hear soothing music in my head while they talked.
So let’s get the science bit out of the way. Don’t be alarmed. In order for the material you’ve dumped into your heap to turn in to compost, there has to be a mixture of nitrogen and carbon.
So forget the word ‘ratio’ – it’s simply a fifty/fifty split, and it doesn’t need to be too precise. The green stuff in the heap is high in nitrogen while the brown stuff is high in carbon (see tip below).
If you have a good mix of both, you will have the right balance and it will break down and turn in to compost quickly. Too much green and you will get a really wet, sludgy heap like many of my efforts over the years -the result of adding too much grass clippings. Too much brown and you get a really dry heap that won’t rot quickly (but will rot eventually).
How long it takes to turn to compost depends on what’s in it – could be 4-6 months but you will know when it’s ready by the fact that you have a nice crumbly compost with no smell.
I like the idea of closing the gate on fertility – in other words, making enough compost so that you don’t need to bring any fertilisers, compost or manures into your garden from outside. In reality, I am a little ways off that.
You will get approximately 20-30 wheelbarrows of compost from each heap you make. That sounds a lot, but each spring you will need a wheelbarrow of compost for each square yard of veggie bed.
The Basics: Top Tips for Composting
The smaller the materials and the layers you put on the heap, the quicker it will break down. Think of it as your own digestive system – if you chew your bread it will be easy for your stomach to break down. If you swallow it whole, it won’t.
So as a rule of thumb, chopping the materials with clippers will help. And, if you have bigger items like stalks of cabbages etc, bash them up with a sledgehammer first.
After that, the key is layering. Spread the layers out – don’t leave it all in a big mound!
Add about a 3-inch layer of brown material and then a 3-inch layer of green material on top until you get a heap that’s about 4-5 foot tall and then leave it alone to rot down – don’t add anything else to it.
That means you probably need a minimum of two heaps. In practical terms, I often have far more green materials than I have brown – I usually end up dumping some greens in a pile beside the heap and waiting until I have a brown layer before adding them.
It’s counter-intuitive, but regular turning (monthly) will aerate the heap, which will help it to decompose – the more often you turn it the quicker it will rot. A well-layered heap will heat up quickly, rot down fast and uniformly, it won’t smell and should be easy to turn.
The brown layer can consist of straw, wood ash, cardboard, newspaper, small twigs, leaf mould, soil or garden “sweepings”.
The green layer could contain seaweed, grass, hedge clippings and kitchen waste (veg only).
You can have a completely open heap, or construct sides for it with timber or timber pallets – this makes turning a little easier. It should be about 4ft wide and deep.
Start with a brown layer such as straw or twigs of at least 10 inches. Cover the materials with cardboard or old carpet to keep the worst of the weather off them.
Recipe of the Week: Carrot and Squash Soup
It’s January so let’s be honest, we need lots of detoxifying and frugal soups. This one is delicious and if you’re lucky, you may still have all the ingredients in your larder or garden to make it entirely homegrown.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Sweat the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan for about 5-7 minutes.
Add the carrots and butternut squash to the pan.
Season, then cover with a lid and cook for another 10 minutes on a low heat until the vegetables start to soften.
Pour in the stock, add the herbs and bring to the boil. Now turn down the heat a little, and simmer for about 30 minutes.
Finally, use a hand blender or liquidizer to purée the soup. Reheat and serve.
Michael Kelly is an author, broadcaster and founder of GIY.
Ah so this is how the government got in. Of course anyone saying anything will be classed as far right instead of right so far.
@Ray: Found one ^
@Ray: it’s their election system and vote transfer that is not right. you should vote for 1 candidate and that’s it, not a serie of them and authorise them to transfer your vote for those you did not vote
@Dominic Leleu: That would be “our” election system, not “their”. Nobody, ever, has had a vote transferred to someone they didn’t vote for. If you don’t know how transfers work, that’s fine, just say so.
@Ray: why do the far right get so triggered and offended when people say what they are? Most precious bunch the world has ever seen
@Dominic Leleu: Do you think it would be better to allow a FPTP system where your candidate can be elected with less than 25% of the vote? PR is imperfect, but at least the other 25% of a successfully elected TD is made up of your least worst option. In the UK, Fakob Creep Hog was able to hold onto his seat for 20 years even though the majority of his constituents didn’t vote for him.
@Housing Hunger Games: do you still think there are 30 million Irish immigrants in the US? I doubt anybody ever gets offended by anything you say. Amused certainly, but offence seems rather unlikely.
@George Bowling: what do you mean 30 million Irish immigrants in the US? I don’t know how many there are but too many millions to be deported home.
@George Bowling: every time the far right open their mouth the first thing they say is don’t say I’m far right, like a räpist saying they’re not a räpist, which the two groups always overlap
@Dominic Leleu: Tell me you know nothing about our voting system without telling me you know nothing about it
@Housing Hunger Games: haha you still think there are millions of Irish immigrants in the US? Surely you can understand why nobody would ever take somebody like you seriously about anything, right? You’re just an object of fun for people who are able to count.
@Dominic Leleu: Hey Dom. How about you stop commenting on things you know F All about?
@George Bowling: They said they didn’t know Georgie. So how about instead of impugning their maths skills you try a studying a bit of language skills?
@Tim Murphy: “too many millions to be deported home.” Maybe you should take your own advice you barely literate halfwit.
@George Bowling: do you think we can take in the millions of Irish immigrants across the globe if all countries decide to deport immigrants especially the US? The far right and their dumpster brains
So is the electoral commission telling us that the voting in this country is rigged by people who are voting with someone else’s vote that deceased at the time of the election and that’s how the status quo has remained for so long?
@Tommy: no. Read the article to see what they said
@Tommy: no
@Tommy: there is no allegation that these people are voting. It is skewing turnout figures and seat counts. Some constituencies could be overrepresented because their unclean voter lists have far more people than are actually present.
@Liam OTailliuir: your last sentence is incorrect afaik. Constituencies are determined based on the Census of population. The inaccuracy of the register means that turnout is higher as a percentage of actually eligible voters than the official turnout percentages
This will send all the far-right whingebags into a tailspin of conspiracy on that cesspit Twitter. Then they tag some US account called @WesternKnight with 1 million followers, followed by Elon Musk sharing it with “!!!!” and the nothing-burger has gone viral, sigh.
If it was a conspiracy they wouldn’t have conducted a review and published their findings, which is certainly long overdue.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: You mean the racist lads who don’t vote anyway?
@Mike Carson: I do, but they’ll still vote for some work-shy, flag-shagging clown who shouts ‘Get dem ouh’ into a microphone on TikTok once a week.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: part of your name is very apt…
@Matt D: Does the D stand for d!ckhead?
@Jacintha Dumbrell: I would be careful if I was you.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: well done for speaking the truth. The far right won’t like that
@Dominic Leleu: is that a threat to Jacintha? Typical angry far right reaction.
@Dominic Leleu: No one is anonymous on the internet ‘Dominic’ ;)
@Jacintha Dumbrell: he’s gone quiet, that shut him up
@Jacintha Dumbrell: exactly
I have two polling cards after changing my address. One is sent to my parents’ house and one to my own place. Two different constituencies.
@Mike Carson: did it occur to you to write to tell the local authority that you had moved?
@lesidees: Of course it didn’t. And if the government tried to put in legislation that would automatically keep track of this sort of thing, the same people who are up in arms about this, would be up in arms that it was a 1984 level surveillance state.
@lesidees: notifying them doesn’t always work. My husband died 6 years ago , I filled out the form from the council to remove him from the register threes times, since then we’ve received two voting cards and he’s been called for jury service twice. The system doesn’t seem to be very well managed.
@Kate Murphy: Sorry for your loss. You are correct. Its the systems and processes that have been in place for 50+ years that have never been updated.
@lesidees: I had a similar thing & I did let them know. I suddenly ended up being off both registers. I also then randomly got a polling card to an old address (know the people living there) that I haven’t lived at for over 10 years & removed myself from the register. Nothing received in ages & then suddenly one for the local elections.
No wonder fog/ff keep winning elections
@The Dog: Damn foggers… Always clouding up the truth
From past experience I know that those in charge are very slow to remove those whose voter cards are endorsed “deceased”, “gone away” or “wrong address” by the postmen. Conspiracy theory it’s not but lack of follow up on the returned cards.
I would well believe this as I got three polling cards in the last election. Flagged it with the council at the time and it turned out I was registered three times.
Then i got a phone call from them last week, apparently I was registered for a fourth time in another constituency!
I’ve filled in my registration paperwork correctly each time, to make sure that I was removed from the old address. So why was this never actioned?
Of course, there is no evidence of voter fraud .
@KO: If you have evidence report it to the Electoral Commission and / or Gardaí, otherwise stay in your fantasy land.
@KO: there isn’t. Do you have any evidence. If you do please report to the Garda. They have stations all over the country with a lot having someone with years of experience on the front desk 24 hours a day
@Jacintha Dumbrell: A court case was held in Kerry about how could 500,000 votes go missing there in the last general election,that court case is to resume in the near future
@KO: well you would see that there is none if you read the article that is written in detail in black and white above this comment section which you commented on on this website that you can scroll up to and begin reading underneath the headline of the article of this story from the journal
@Billy Power: fake news
@Billy Power: 500,000 people living in Kerry.. where did you wake up Billy?
@Billy Power: Keep saying it, click your heels , wiggle your nose , but it’s still not true
@Jacintha Dumbrell: unlike you I am neither a rat nor delusional..Proof admitted on current affairs programme that cannot account for over 100k extra votes,plus there is an active court case…
@KO: 100k extra people on the register doesn’t automatically equal 100k extra votes cast. But you knew that already. Also, that court case was practically laughed out of the chambers, as it should have been.
The dogs in the street knew that for years,so why did it take so long,also court cases coming up in Kerry about some 500,000 votes went missing in the count down there,in the last general election
@Billy Power: I think you’ll find that far-right clown was laughed out of court https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/election-candidate-who-claimed-she-saw-ballots-torn-out-of-boxes-loses-court-case-1739285.html
@Billy Power: 500,000 votes went missing??? Think you have taking too much sun.
@Billy Power: Arise knocknagoshel and take your place amongst the nations of the earth.
@Diarmuid: Snap , if she goes to court saying that I doubt she’ll win.
@Billy Power: fake news by the far right
The electoral register has been a state for decades. What’s new?
No surprise there. One can now register to vote online, and the database, although flawed, could send out emails and ask for people to verify their details, but I doubt they have all the emails.
Or perhaps people do it themselves, obviously older people, and those who can’t do this will need help .
Remember that subject ” Civics” in school perhaps it’s now time to do something positive and fulfill a piece of our civic duties.
Last election we got 9 voting cards for our household of 3 voters@
When I post a comment it is rejected,who has the right,editorial,to prevent my comment from being posted,the truth will out anyway
@Billy Power: Someone with a brain.
@Billy Power: You don’t have any “right” to have your comments posted. Hope that clears things up.
@Billy Power: Probably the 500,000 votes made the computer laugh….
@Billy Power: fċuk your comment you don’t have any right stop being so fragile
The auld Fianna Fail motto….vote early and vote often!!
Surely we need a reelection
Mostly in the Tipperary region.
There’s a means to do this but no one wants to do it. Do a hashed comparison with revenue records meaning no person sees the raw data and produce a list of people on the register that revenue don’t have at that address.
Then send letters telling them all that they’ve 90 days to confirm they’re really there or else they’re automatically removed from the register.
Why more staff? What are they all doing? I think they need to bring back the ‘ old time in motion study ‘
It would make you wonder about the legality of elections. Two politicians in my area that are absolutely despised by virtually everyone got voted back in and even today that ballet is still questioned.
Although it may be a simple enough procedure to actually register to vote for the first time – it is far from simple to change constituencies when you move to a different county.
It took me several attempts and communications to my new county council – as they have to follow through on your request with your former CC to firstly remove you from their register, before you can be registered in your new county constituency address. Perhaps people can simplify this onerous process by just registering as a new voter – thereby multiplying their votes in dual/triple constituencies?
Start In one electoral area. Let’s say meath east!
Make room for the “New Irish” that arrived without passports to keep FFG in power.
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