News from Russborough

Compost at RHSI Russborough

Back in 2013 volunteer Joe used recycled pallets to build 16 compost bays in the walled garden. Now he is rebuilding them – again with pallets (thank you Blessington Lakes Garden Centre) but this time he is lining each bay with plastic.

Working along with Joe is Eamon, our compost supremo. Eamon keeps us in order with which bays are to be filled, which are to be left, which are to be turned, and which are ready for use, either directly on beds or sieved to make potting mix.

Ideally garden waste should be chopped up small and layered with “brown material” such as newspaper. With up to 50 volunteers this can be a little hit or miss but time does its work and we do eventually get crumbly brown compost.

New volunteers learn to recognise the “bad weeds” which we do not put into the compost. These are dock, dandelion, scutch, bindweed, creeping buttercup, sow thistle, horsetail, ground elder, nettle. And we have every one of them. We have re-classified celandine as not so bad. It is impossible to dig out and, besides, it has a pretty, yellow flower in the spring and the pollinators like it. To reduce the risk of spreading disease, rose prunings are not put into the compost bins, and nor are hellebore leaves.

Our bins do not heat up enough to kill weed seeds so we buy sterile seed compost.

For potting up and potting on we use a mix of our own compost, sieved soil, and grit. Keeping this supplied is a regular job for volunteers John and Conor.

New, and maybe younger, volunteers are encouraged to see that turning compost is a good work out and a fresh air alternative to the gym.
If you don’t already have a compost bin, the autumn is a good time to start.