Animal manures can be fantastic additions to our compost recipe, in fact their use pre-dates deliberate compost making in the Western tradition.

Back in the early 20^th century, Sir Albert Howard brought the Indore method of hot composting from the farms of India and China to a ‘western’ audience. Hot composting, as we now practise it, is a direct descendant of that work.

Can I put wood ash from my fire in the compost? It’s a question we are often asked here at YIMBY. As with anything involving living systems, the answer is never an easy ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So, let’s have a little dive into ash and its potential uses.

Managing the outputs of a cool compost bin can get complicated, particularly if we only have one bin, where we can find ourselves with finished compost in the bottom and fresh food scraps at the top.

I’ll let you in on a little compost secret. A well set up cool composting bin and a worm-farm are pretty indistinguishable. Scandalous, I know, but here’s the reason why.

The logic of compost tumblers goes like this: Lack of aeration makes compost piles stinky and slow. By turning the compost regularly, we add air through the pile and the compost will break down faster and not smell. Sounds good….in theory.

For many people the compost pile is as far away from the house as it can be, tucked right down in a back corner of the garden. Unfortunately, most of the things we need to make good compost, like garden tools and access to water, can be out of reach in these neglected corners.

This week, Hugh Finlay from Grow Great Fruit and the Harcourt Organic Food Coop takes the Compost Conversation reigns and gives us a run down on the ins and outs of worm farming.

There is nothing quite so satisfying for me as heading outside on a frosty morning to feed the chooks, passing the compost pile and scratching the ice of the thermometer dial to reveal it is a very steamy 65 degrees in there, just under the straw.

Recently I’ve been navigating the bureaucratic maze of state government ‘waste’ policy. I have to stop reading at regular intervals, go outside, breathe deeply and do something real (like turn my compost).