It is time to step into the garden, and today we are going to be zooming in on the subject of compost, When to use it, how to use it, how to make it if you want to make your own, what to ask about if you prefer to let somebody else make it and send it to you. Charisfail Yun is with us, but she has bought a special guest who is going to headline the act as it were. So firstly, let me say lovely to see you again, Charise, welcome back, Thank you so much, and thank you for
finding us such an extraordinary specialist in this field. Because with me in studio as well is horticulturist Hilda Stanfleet, who worked for many years for Master Organics, specializing in composts, mixes and mulches. She's also one of the judges of the South African Landscaping Institute's gardens every year, so this is a subject very close to her heart. And Hilter, thank you so much for coming in to share your knowledge with us. Welcome, Thank you very much for having me.
It's our great, great pleasure. Let's start with what might seem like a very obvious role, because we fear so many guests saying, throw a little compost on it. What is compost? What role does it actually play in the garden.
So compost is essentially your green waste that you would normally put into your landfall, and now you're taking that product and you're taking it from being green and horrible and turning it into this very rich, dark lash material that you'll stick into your garden. So we live on the cape flats. Everything people say things like my garden soil is oily. I throw water on it and it just runs off, or I'll put water on it and it'll soak down to two millimeters, And that's because we
don't have enough organic components within our soils. So what we do is we go to a nursery and we buy something we've essentially putting into landfall. So we're taking something that we've got in huge volumes at certain times of the year and we're buying it so rather than taking that money that we could be spending on plants.
Because let's face enough, man suspended. You take your green waste and if you don't have enough, you get some from your neighbor, and you're go and find the products that you need to turn into this rich black gold.
I love that way of looking at it, and I also love what you've said about sharing with the neighbors, maybe starting a communal compost heap for your block of three or four homes or whatever it may be, and saying we'll all contribute and all enjoy the produce at the end of it. Now, not all compost is equal, and the contents of compost are so important to the final impact on the garden once you put it in there. Let's start there, Hilda. What should be in there? What
shouldn't be in there? If you want to make a good, rich compost that is going to nourish your garden and turn your soil into something magical that things grow in. What are the key things you're looking for?
So the key ingredients to a compostors air water, brown waste or brown high carbon content, and green waste. And then of course your normal everyday garden I'm not guarding, but kitchen products that you've got hanging around. And then surprisingly, coffee grounds amazing stuff for compost. Yes, you can get it free from your local coffee merchant. They're just gonna transfer are they just throwing it away?
You might be fighting off the of skin product people, because I know that the scrubs these days use a lot of coffee grounds.
I'm sure you've got a local guy somewhere think there's enough. There's enough to get.
Yeah, I'm sure I drink enough to sustain one of those industries on its own, just me personally. So there we go. Okay, So the greenways, the brown high carbon content air and water. That water might be something that people haven't thought about when setting up their own compost heat. So let's talk about what you need to do. It's not as simple as just HOOI everything onto a heap and hope for the base.
Well it can be, can it can if you're if you've got time and you don't want to, well you don't have time. If you don't have time, but you've got the product, you can check it in a heap and everything will break down over time, so you might get your compospital will be much later than if you actually did a little bit of work.
Okay, So that little bit of work that can speed up the process, what does that involve?
Okay, So it's choosing a site, okay, and anybody can do a compost tep. You can your littles. You could have a massive garden where you've got incredible amounts of waste that normally would just go to landfall where you can use that and build it. Or you could have a tiny little garden where you can get a compost bin so it's not unsightly. Most municipalities actually will give it you for free, so just go onto your local municipal website and see what they'll do.
I'm so glad you've mentioned that because our listener Jill has actually written in saying how much she has enjoyed joining the City of Cape Town's home composting program. She says, we have been thrilled with urban They seem to be rolling them out area by area and it's worked really well for her and Jill. I'll get to the question came with that comment in a moment, but just wanted to include that mention that it can be done right here in Cape.
To absolutely And I actually went on to the city's website and there for the next month and a half, they are various areas that'll roll it out, and I think you just have to fill out a form and is I like.
One okay, and they will bring you your compost and just get started.
Absolutely, so you've got a big enough garden, find a space that you will get to. The thing is often people make their compost steeps at the end of the garden and then they forget about it or life happens, so you know you've never actually done what you intended to do. So what you need to do is start with a good bassett. Find a site that I think is accessible. Firstly, has access to water, so you know you don't want to be carrying your water in can down to the end of the garden to try and
water it. It must okay, and then errate the soil underneath. You're going to put this compost down. We need to. You don't want to put it on a preferably a blank space. You're a domestic gardener, you don't. You don't have the the large areas like the guy the commercial guys. Do you want to turn that soil so you want to bring the micronutrientstead of there. And the earthworms they're amazing. They find their way into compost heaps. They'll move up
slowly but surely. So find your little area, turn the swell and then compost essentially is lasagnia. That's saying it's just layering course products underneath then greens. So greens is your grass clippings, your kind of products that you have in your vegetable patch where you've harvested your vegetables and now you're stuck with the green product afterwards. That's your greens. Try not to do too much greens. Greens are lovely, but they'll compact down and they'll become sludge. So that's
where the compost. That's where the lazagnia comes in. You go green, brown, green, brown, It doesn't matter. Fifty to fifty is always good. You read these things and it says, oh, you've got to use one third two thirds. Let's not make life complicated.
In school, okay, So green brown, green brown, green, and moisten in between green brown, moist, green brown moist.
And don't forget the little coffee grounds.
In there and the coffee grounds because remember the coffee grounds activators as well.
Stale stale beer.
But who is still beer with South Africans.
I do not understand. Yes, okay, but if you accidentally open a court and when you should that halfway, or you woke up from the party the next morning, and there are a few unused, unfinished bottles. That's let's imagine that scenario. You can pour that onto the composity perfect, okay, amazing stuff.
Micro nutrients in there. Also, the yeasts help break down, move things very very fast.
And it's going to attract all the snails, isn't it cheries?
Of course?
I know that you have that. Okay, okay, all right, so you're green, you're brown moisturing it in between a little bit of coffee, some stale beer for for for help, is there anything that you absolutely shouldn't put on their hilda?
Okay, so cooked foods, okay, not ideal meat products, cheeses, anything that potentially will attract rats, mice, anything like that. Not ideal. You can look, you can use that, But that's a bakashi on your kitchen counter with special breakdown. Don't stick it in your your garden composte at the end of the garden.
Don't you just want to keep it vegan, Keep it vegetarian, keep.
Some people each to your zone, your vegan compusti for your vegan and your.
Meat with a bacasha in the kitchen, just just for the sake of anybody who's come In midway to this conversation, you'll hear the occasional chirp from Scheris Filoni's voice, you know very well. But the other voice doing most of the talking today belongs to Hilda Stunfleet too, is a horticulturist who is giving us a crash course in making your own compost in your own garden, even if it's a tiny little garden with space for a small compost bin.
She is empowering us with the knowledge on how to do this ourselves, so we don't have to go and spend our hard earned money on buying somebody else's compost. We can make it ourselves using the waste products that we ourselves are generating. And I love the circularity of that idea holder that we take our own waist, yes, and turn it into something beautiful. Now, William asking a very cape down question, can you put horsepoo in your compost?
Heap absolutely yes, so preferably herbaceous and animals that eat grasses. Okay, okay, so yes. Horse poop is amazing and it will break down. It is a activator. So if you don't have enough, you water it down and you water it on your compost deep. Okay, you can use it fresh. It's fine because your compasteep's going to take eight to twelve weeks to get ready soon burn anything because at that by that point it will have broken down.
Oh yes, perfect, So eight to twelve weeks for a good for a good one good one that gets turned okay.
So I would say anything will break down over time. If you've got the time, you can just leave it and it will break down, but it won't be accessible unusable. I also like to want people to, if they've got the space, have two compost heaps, going one to bold and one to use, so you're constantly and rotating through your compost heaps one to bold.
One to use. Okay, now we've got Roy on the line, who is calling in from FISHUK, who I think wants to share a piece of advice that he's found helpful in his own composting. Roy, thank you so much for calling in. Good afternoon pleasure.
Hello Papa. The easiest thing to do is buy a WHEELI bin you can get them online simple, and then you make holes in the bottom. Just drill holes down in the bottom so that the water can go out, and then pack it as you normally would you know with sticks at the bottom, et cetera, et cetera, as you've been describing, and it works perfectly so you can tip it over to to dig it over and when you need to take it out to wherever your your gardening is, you can usually hopefully wheel it along.
That is such a practical.
Like your rubbish, but you buy them online and no rats or mice or anything like that.
Roy, that's a brilliant tip. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. I love the idea of making it portable, as you said accessibility. If you can't get to it, you're not going to use it. If you can take it to where you need to use it, you're going to use it even more. That's a genius idea, Roy. Thank you. What about eggshells, asks Diana.
Yes, so egg shells contain lime or and you want to break down the eggshells and crush it down and then sprinkle in between. And it is also an activator. It gets the compost deep going and provides small good quantities of lime within the soil.
Okay, thanks for that. Okay, so, but crush important to crush small people.
Yeah, you wanted to be very fine and you can also use tea tea leaves.
Okay, the tea leaves, that's gonna say. If youre talking about leftover tea, there should be no such traves tea leaves, okay. And could you break open your commercial tea bag.
And that are decomposable the plastic and there might you might just get what's ta skeletons.
Okay, but if you could actually wrap it open and scatter.
Or scatter that within a bucket so you're not walking to the garden, just.
Put on and then it's fall. Finally, use for that huge pile of tea in my heart. Okay, there we go. Now. Jill, who was saying how much she's enjoying the cities and that she received, had a question. Then we just go back to that. She says, there are weeds everywhere after the rain which need to be pulled up by hand. Can those be added to compost? She feels, and can be very therapeutic and it's also a very useful work opportunity. But can can the weeds go onto the compost?
Very much?
So, yes you can, but preferably not flowering weeds. So if you can. Dandelion is amazing for to activate compast seeds, but not the dandelion seeds. So the flowers before they the seeds mature perfect. So yeah, absolutely, just mature. You're not putting the weed seeds in other things that you shouldn't put in as and we often find that not cooker, you cuttings, that's fine, okay, cooker you roots and quick
those they will grow anywhere. They'll grow meters. So when you're pulling out you know often you're digging in the garden and you and then you'll take all of that. Try just don't those two specifically, they're not okay.
So weed are the root system the root systems.
Of specific grasses that just by their nature will take over and grow without any help.
You don't want grass growing in I get you.
You do need to know something about your weeds before you do it. Also, because those creeping rhy tastes oh rhizomatically, ones that grow flat on the lawn that root as they go, don't put them in the compast because that little piece of root can grow. And you read, but there are plenty of soft green herbaceous pasions that have got no strength to them that make a great addition to the company.
Anything with a long taproot, okay, perfect, okay, any weeds with long tap roots perfect to stick in without the flower heads perfectly.
Okay, thank you. Just several listeners, he'lda saying absolutely practical and usefulness talk is they're taking copious notes and saying thank you to you for your help. So thank you. Let me echo that, and let me just say once again in case somebody's coming very late, that our guest is horticultures till the stun fleet. She is for you, and also with us chirping in from time to time. Another can I or can't I question from Judy Yes or no? To finely chopped paper.
Yes, yes, as long as it's not glossy. Okay, so just normal everyday paper is fine, just nothing glossy. No treated wood.
No treated wood. Okay. We've also got a question that's coming as a voice note from die. I believe. Let's take a listen to that.
Pappa, I do hope you haven't covered this in the conversation already. I'm interested to know what to do with leaves, especially plane tree leaves. We have a big tree in our garden, lots of leaves. My husband and I are at odds as to whether they should be added to the compost heap, because one party says they will take too long to decompose, and the other one says they will decompose but not prepared to commit to how long. Oh, what's your experts opinion?
Please?
I'd really like to hear that. Thank you. It's die more constantia.
Bye, thanks die.
Thank you, die so die. You're both right.
The best possible diplomatic answer.
You're both right. Yes, it will take incredibly long to break down. But we're not just going to throw that entire pile on your top of your compost deep. Remember we're going to lose ania. So the green things, the green nitrogenous ones, help break down the brown. So if we layer the two rather than just checking a pile. Because often when you put big leaves they stick together. They become this impenetrable mass when they get wet as well, so you want to put the things that will help
keep it light and fluffy. The idea of a compast heep is to have lots of air in it, so you want to have air particles, air pockets in between, and so the leaves will work. If you can put your leaves on your lawn. Run your lawn mower over it, if you've got a strong enough lawn mower. Yeah, so that'll break the leaves down into smaller pieces. So that's probably, I think, probably the better thing to do. Check your leaves on the lawn, run your lawn mower over it,
check it in the compasteep. So now it's not big giant.
I've just had a vision of someone sitting with a pair of scissors cutting off their big leaves into small strips. I'm sure it would be a great exercise and mindfulness, but it might take a little longer than the lawnmower version. We've got Vincent on the line from Musenberg with I'm not sure if it's a question or a comment, but Vincent, you're welcome. Well, good afternoon.
I'm not a question of comment, yep. If you want to attract earthworms to your compost heap, don't use citrus or onions.
Okay, then they don't like those, do them?
No they don't.
Okay, thank you very much for the tip, Hilda. Does that ring true for you?
Absolutely? Okay, I know Vincent's very right, and you can even try and get some red w regulars, which are your vermei compost worms and throw them in to your normal compost teep.
Okay, to just start the boat of the process.
You know, there are so many earthworms, but these ones they seem to be workerbees. They are the ones that are just going out there doing as much work as possible, and they love breaking down compost.
There, you're where does one buy red regulars?
I have actually mine migrated from my own little earthworm farm to my compost bind which is not far away. So they do it themselves. But there are some compost suppliers that will offer you a red regulars worth it. You just can definitely on your community groups. If anyone has an earthworm farm, they've got red regulars to share.
Okay, so speak up on your WhatsApp. Anybody got some as we ordered with smulberry leaves for the silkworms back in the day. Okay, now it is the red regulars.
Well.
MH has got a hot compast heat full of earthworms, but says I cannot get the heart of my compast heap to be hot enough. He's worried or so that the heat might kill the earth worms.
No, no, okay, I' designed for that.
They're all good okay.
So to get a compast heap hot, you will have to turn it and then potentially reintroduce. So compost heats up initially and then cools down. But sometimes you also don't get enough moisture in the middle, so if it gets too dry, it sometimes doesn't heat up. So remember you want your compost heap to be like a if you squeeze it, you don't if you pick up the the compostible material. You don't want water to be dripping out of your hand. Okay, you just want it to
be like a damp sponge. Okay. So if he sticks his hand in the middle and it's not hot, turn the heap again. Okay, okay, add greenery in, but the greenery of the stuff that starts it up again and then moisten it. So remember we've had insane weather in the cape, so chances are your compact heaps sodden, okay
if it hasn't been covered. So in the in the Western Cape, I would cover your compast sep with cardboard boxes, a jute carpet if you've got one lying around, preferably not something polysty a plastic base, yes, okay, because you don't want that into your compast teep. But yeah, anything that will keep it moist warm but not wet.
Okay.
Okay, so yeah, so right now most compass heaps are sudden. Just start again. Just wait for the weather to warm up a little bit. You'll have leaves, stick those in. Don't stick any more green wastein right now, because green waste is just going to become this block of mush, stinky mush. Okay, so you don't not right now, not right now, just enough leaf material just or actually right now, just leave it this very little you can do this
potential rain coming. Sometimes one just has to sit and observe the garden, and especially a compass deep at this time of the year, and it will get better.
Let it do its thing.
Quite there's no point in you trudging across it as well and compacting the soil to get there.
So yeah, okay, that's great advice. Now before we must say goodbye, I want to circle back. We had that great question from William about horsepoo and you did say yes, absolutely, and it's the herbivores are good. Liz has asked an important one, what about dog poo? Is that compossible?
No?
Okay, no, dog, No, cat, no human. Our domestic compost heaps are don't get hot enough. They also contend too many bad new news.
Okay, I love that the bad new news. Okay, so human dog and cat, no horse, yes, and anything that only eats green shuess cool okay, but not the dogs, and not the cats, and certainly not the humans. Liz, I'm glad you asked it, because I'm sure there were lots of other people wondering too, So thank you for that, right gosh you have. It's just one last comment from Belinda saying the red wrigglars are amazing. They live in
that humous layer unlike our earthworms. I use them in the city compost bins and in the normal bin on wheels, So thank you so much for that confirmation, Belinda. Well, I just want to say thank you so so much to you, Hilda and Scherise for finding us Hilda, because wow, I feel like we've just had an encyclopedic download of everything we needed to know. I'm feeling very empowered to get started, and that is how we like our listeners
to feel. So Hilda, well done. Thank you so so much for your time this after you huge pleasure to have you with us consting Hilda Stanfleet and Charis fa Yun. Thank you so much. We'll talk against him