Waste not, want not

If you have to sort out your rubbish, you might as well make use of the matter which can be turned into a terrific soil enricher.

However, it isn’t just a matter of piling up your vegetable peelings and grass cuttings and turning them every so often. In every successful compost heap, there is a balance to be found.

The container or makeshift frame (ideally wooden) should be at least 1m (3ft) square, otherwise it will be too small to generate enough heat to rot it down. You’ll also need a lid to keep out rain and keep in the heat, even if the lid’s in the form of an old carpet topped with plastic. Remember, the hotter it gets, the faster the compost matures.

Good elements include kitchen waste – such as vegetable scraps, eggshells and tea bags. If you want to add newspaper, you’ll need to shred it first. Keep a small, lidded bin by the back door for all your kitchen scraps. If you’re pruning this autumn, keep the clippings and spent flowers for the compost bin, along with any grass clippings and end of season bedding.

Don’t add meat, fish or bones to the heap because you’ll just attract rats, and keep out really tough weeds such as ground elder and diseased plants, which should be binned or burned.

Woody prunings should also be omitted because they will take an age to rot down.

If you want to give your compost a helping hand to rot down, you can buy organic activators containing herbs, honey and seaweed. Other natural ingredients including nettles will also help rot down the pile, while a handful of horse manure will add bulk and nutrients.

You could also buy worms from a fishing tackle shop which will work their way up and down the pile, breaking up the debris as they go.

Break up the bulky stuff before it goes in. If you haven’t a shredder, chop up your prunings into small pieces. Then alternate the materials in different layers. Place grass clippings in thin layers – and don’t put too much grass on the pile or you’ll end up with a slimy mess. Alternate the clippings with coarser material or mix it with shredded newspaper. Add moistened straw to bulk up too much green material. Layers should be peppered every so often with earth, blood, fish and bonemeal, manure or an activator to encourage bacteria. Ideally, use two parts woody material to one part soft material. Once your container is full, don’t let it dry out in summer or become too wet in winter. Squeeze a handful and see how much moisture comes out. It should only be a few droplets.

If you are making compost for the first time, turn the new heap after about a week to allow the cooler outer material to enter into the hotter centre, then turn it again two weeks later, after which leave it for around six months.

If you are filling the heap gradually, the material at the bottom of the pile should almost be ready for use by the time the container is filled. Ideally, have two heaps on the go at one time, so you can move the upper layers of uncomposted material into a new heap when the lower levels are almost ready for use.

In less than a year, you may have crumbly fruit-cake-like compost to spread as a mulch or just add to your soil to improve its fertility, or sieve it to use in your potting compost.

This week's jobs-

*Continue to harvest early-ripening apple varieties including ‘Discovery’ and ‘Blenheim Orange’. 
* Plant wallflowers, forget-me-not, and other spring bedding plants in prepared ground. Keep them well watered if no rain is forecast. 
* In the greenhouse, pot up annuals sown in late summer which are being grown for early colour inside. 
* Scarify your lawn with a springtine rake to remove thatch and moss. 
* Check onions and potatoes in store to make sure they are not rotting and remove any showing signs of disease. 
* Sow sweet peas in pots in a cold frame. 
* If you haven’t yet done so, clear out summer containers, saving tender plants if you have space to overwinter them. 
* Stop feeding and reduce watering for plants in the greenhouse. 
* Plant winter lettuce in cold frames, keeping them well ventilated when conditions allow. 
* Earth up celery and leeks.

Best of the bunch -

Garden centres are awash with them at this time of year, their dainty blooms bringing a welcome splash of colour to patio pots, rockeries and at the front of beds.  
The plants may die back in the depths of winter but will hopefully come back to life in spring. 
Violas are much daintier than brash, bold pansies which have large rounded blooms, often with a ‘face’ or central black blotch.  
But how do you tell a viola from a pansy?  As a rule, pansies have bigger flowers, elongated leaves with a sprawling habit and flower with a short spur and little or no scent.  
Bedding violas tend to have rounded leaves, short-jointed stems, long flower spurs and fragrance. They like well-drained but moisture-retentive soil in sun or part shade and come in a huge variety of colours, which may be plain, blotched or bicoloured.  
A wonderful winter and spring flowering variety is the weather resistant Sorbet Series, which includes many marvellous 
bicolours.