April is like the New Year for a kitchen gardener. The New Year resolutions are made to keep the garden tidy and have a productive compost making system. First, I tidy out the pond to re move the prolific excess reeds and their mat of roots, all for composting. Likewise, bag , bags and boxes of greenery from weeding, grass cutting, hedge clipping and veg stalks beyond their productive lives. Also kitchen waste collecting week by week in the compost tumbler is ready to be added to the mix in the metre cubed compost box. Mine is a brick construction but I’ve seen wooden ones and even straw bale ones.
I enjoy digging put the half full and half composted mix. Once the box is empty, I refill it like a multi-decker sandwich starting with woody hedge clippings, then some softer green material like weeds and kitchen waste, more tough stuff like stalks or clippings and so on. I sprinkle on some wood ash every now and again and some accelerator. Once the box is full, an old layer of carpet keeps it warm and working well until it comes time to dig it out around November.
