I've bin thinking

Munching on a banana this lunchtime, the thought occurred to me: Can I compost the skins?

I've been slowly getting to grips with the idea of composting after my friend Kate gave me the bin which now nestles at the bottom of the garden. But it seems a subject fraught with difficulties, different ideas and plain bonkers obsession.

I don't want to carry it to extremes, I just want to know what's safe to chuck in the bin. My wife Susan can usually answer most of my questions, but composting is a blank in her knowledge. Can I compost egg shells? Dunno. Can I compost lemons? Dunno. What about egg boxes? Ditto.

Luckily, I have now found the wonderful Compost This website run by Louisa Parry and John Leach. The beauty of it is that they keep it simple and concise. Browse each of the categories and it gives you a plain yes, no or maybe, leaving it up to you to click and find out why.

It's a bonus that these two active recyclers, reusers and composters live together in Leeds, a city where I spent 17 very happy years after moving north from Kent when I went to university.

Banana skins? Yes. Egg shells? Yes. Lemons? Maybe. Thank goodness for help like this.

And, with Christmas coming, it seems opportune to say that all I need now is a kitchen caddy (hint, hint).

Yes, I know it's about time

I've got a compost bin!

My good friend Kate gave it to me last weekend, she having got a splendid new wooden structure for her compost.

To be honest, it's just dumped in the corner at the moment as I have spent hardly any time in the garden this week. It's going to remain where I have put it, at the side of the shed in the corner where the sun don't shine, and I've just got the small job of making sure it's level before I pile the stuff in.

I've written before about how my soil really needs improving, so I'm hoping this will be just the thing. I must say I don't know much about the art of composting and so will have to read up about it.

I'm off now to mull over the debate about whether you should or should not compost teabags.

Oh dear, I hope I don't become obsessed.

Getting stuck in

Spring is just around the corner, with the equinox this Saturday (17.32, to be precise) and the clocks going forward the following weekend. I am matching the seasonal change with a burst of activity in the garden.

Susan drove me to Kershaw's Garden Centre in Brighouse this morning to get the bags of manure I spotted the other day when I took a walk there. Five bags of J Arthur Bower's Blended Farm Manure, a snip at £20 the lot. As Susan says, this makes it the most expensive vegetables ever.

Two of the bags were dug in as soon as we returned and the remaining three are awaiting the plots being fully prepared. We later went to Wilkinson's in Brighouse to get two tubs of poultry manure which I shall use in the near future and five bags of potting compost.

I noticed with delight while digging in the manure that the white onions I planted last year are at last beginning to come through. There was no sign of shoots just a couple of days ago, but the sun really seems to have done them good. Hope they maintain their progress.

I started off some tomato and herb seeds in propagating trays - three filled with tomatoes and three with oregano, dill and English thyme. It was with some alarm that I noticed the tomatoes are called lightfruit, harbinger and yellow pear-shaped, hardly names to fill you with confidence. The lightfruit packet was from the Dig for Victory set which Dorothy gave me for Christmas and the other two were Thomas Etty packets I got for the knockdown price of 20p each at Oxfam in Ilkley last year. Looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

A visitor calls

My mate Alex 'Pip' Paton (he's a bit posh but knows about gardening) came bearing gifts.

As well as a pile of magazines including The Oldie (I like it and I'm but a young 'un), he had some vegetable stuff for me. There's was a splendid Reader's Digest Gardening Year, a couple of catalogues and the 50th anniversary edition of Organic Way - good reading material.

With his package of gifts was a bunch of chives ready to plant out. I can do it now, he says, so I will. Apparently, they will die back a bit and then thrive later on.

He's noticed that I've been reading Maye E Bruce's book on compost and suggests I should try Gardening with Compost, by F C King. The author's name sounds suspiciously made up to me.

Lady Muck entertains

As the evenings draw in and a chill fills the air, we are gathering around the fire with two jumpers on (as recommended by gas company after they hiked their prices). It is a time for reading and my favourite at the moment is Common-Sense Compost Making, by Maye E Bruce.

This little book was first published in 1946 by Faber & Faber. My copy came to me via a car boot sale and is the 1967 revised edition by Lady Eve Balfour. The author spent a lifetime trying to perfect the art of compost making and this is her account of the quick return method which she devised after much experimentation.

Ooh, and she weren't half posh! Look at this for a sample:

Before the war I had a staff of three men: a chauffeur-handyman, who also mowed
the lawns, and two men in the garden...the whole place is 150 acres...in 1940
the whole staff joined up and in their place I had one very old
man.

I'm thinking of getting Susan and daughter Dorothy to do all the stirring when I finally get my compost bin.