Horticultural

The HotBin: Aerobic hot composter review

It's normally around Christmas time - when other people (some may call them 'normal') turn their thoughts to presents, festive nights out* and how long it takes to defrost a turkey -  that I start getting twitchy about my kitchen caddy.

With the potato peelings, sprout snubs and pouring in daily, the caddy seems to be full to overflowing (not a good look) every time I turn around. And yet my composters - the two "beehives" and two wormeries - are also stuffed full of not-very-decomposed kitchen waste already. Yes, I can dig a bean trench, but if the grounds frozen or I am feeling sluggish, that may not happen.

So when the chance to try out a new compost bin that promised to chomp my kitchen waste and garden waste and aerobically compost it at 60C, even in the depths of winter, I jumped at it.**

The HotBin's claims include that it "recycles more types of household food waste, generates rich compost more quickly and delivers efficient hot aerobic composting". So we're talking about composting at a temperature of at least 60C, and the ability to add garden waste including weed seeds, and kitchen waste of all kinds including meat and fish. Yes please!

About a month in to my trial, it's proven a bit of a tease to get the HotBin "up to speed".The setup instructions recommend adding a starter layer of compost 30cm deep to start with: added to that, I primed the beast with regular additions of all and sundry from the now much-relieved kitchen caddy. Still I only managed to get the temperature up to 60C once (at least I managed to get a picture of the moment, above) usually stalling at a steamy but not quite hot enough 40-50C. I did try the recommended 'kickstarter', adding a plastic bottle full of boiling water nestled within the pile, but this didn't seem to work, and repeatedly boiling the kettle didn't seem particularly green. I think I know what some of the problems were:

1. I do not, and never will, chop up my kitchen waste. If an apple's whole, it goes in whole. The HotBin does come with a handy poker/rake device which I did use to break up a few bigger lumps once they've softened, but nevertheless I suspect this slows things down a little.

2. Being a curious type, I lifted off the 'access hatch' at the bottom to see what was going on down below and had trouble getting it back in position tightly - I suspect cold air may be leaking in that way.

And bear in mind that the outside temperature was dropping to 0C and below at this point, so compared to my other compost heaps, which were icy to say the least, I should be impressed by its performance. This is only my early-days findings - I'll report back again in a month or two once I have conmposted some more. But to summarise so far:

HotBin pros

• Can take all kitchen and garden waste: a huge bonus. My black bin waste has dropped as a result and I should be making more compost than before.
• Produces compost more quickly than conventional garden heaps (32 times more quickly, according to the marketing bumph): again, a huge plus if it's true - and so far, without quite reaching the heady heights of a constant 60C temperature, the pile sinks very fast. In smaller families may have to beg waste from neighbours to feed their HotBin.
• Is wheelie-bin sized and compact (takes 200l of waste) and not as hideous-looking as some other composters (see point below about siting though).
• The lid stays up when you lift it. Let me repeat that: THE LID STAYS UP! This, my friends, is compost heap progress.
• The HotBin setup kit includes a thermometer on a stick, which is very useful for checking how hot things are. If you're a bit sad like me you may find yourself becoming a bit addicted to checking the temperature.

HotBin cons

• I am not entirely convinced of the long-term durablility of the HotBin's walls, they look as if they could easily be damaged by a wayward trowel. In fact mine already had a ding in it when it arrived, which you can see in the photo (right).
• Though I could theoretically keep it on the patio outside the back door, as it's pictured here, there does seem to be some liquid coming from the little grille right at the bottom - possibly not very good for my stone, so I have moved it onto grass.
• Price - how many of us can afford (or want to) spend £138 on a new compost bin, even if it is a whizzy one?
• The hatch - I had trouble fitting it back in place snugly. If you are batch composting and emptying the whole thing it shouldn't be a problem, but if (like most of us) you want to remove some compost and leave the rest to mature, it's hard to get a proper fit and avoid compost jamming the entrance.

* I don't do festive nights out, I have two small children so prefer to get drunk on Stone's Ginger Wine in front of the Come Dine With Me Christmas special.

**Disclosure: As per the Guardian's editorial code I can't accept gifts so this composter will be going back to the people at HotBin to be passed on to another tester when I have finished with it.

Winter salads for free: how I kicked the supermarket salad bag habit

A while back I made a decision that I wasn't going to buy supermarket salad leaves any more. It wasn't one of those big, announce-it-on-Twitter-and-write-a-blogpost-about-it things. More just a gradual realisation that I was fed up of drab lettuce that cost 10p a leaf when there was a world of green stuff to be grown and gathered without recourse to the shops. I already knew that bagged salads cost a packet, to the consumer, to the environment and to the workers who are exploited in their production. Then I read Charles Dowding's How To Grow Winter Vegetables and realised that, with a bit of planning, I could use my potting shed to grow greens year-round to supplement the foraged stuff.

Around six months on, it's so far, so good. I am eating homegrown/foraged salads three or four times a week, rather than letting a sad plastic bag of pricey leaves go limp in my all-too-tiny fridge. The picture above's fairly typical of what I am eating right now: there's some hairy bittercress, which is a weed that's growing in one of my raised beds and providing a fantastic crop of watercress-flavoured leaves; baby chard; 'Red Streaks' mustard leaves, 'Bulls Blood' baby beet leaves and some baby lettuce leaves.

Dowding's method is simple: pick the right varieties (winter lettuce, Chinese leaves and chard all do well over winter), fill any old container (a washing up bowl with holes cut in the bottom or a wooden banana box are good) with well-rotted cow manure, top with a thin layer of compost, then sow your seeds. (It's a bit more complex than that, you need to be aware of timings and sowings now may struggle more than those done in, say October. I'd recommend buying his book, it's a great read that will inspire you to extend your growing season into winter).

I didn't have any manure, so I tweeted @charlesdowding to ask if wormcasts from my wormery would be an acceptable alternative. "Even better!" he tweeted back, and we were off! I've sowed about six trays between September and now, and probably had 5-10 croppings of cut-and-come-again leaves off each. I guess I've been lucky with the mild winter we've had so far, but if the cold sets in my salad trays will be fine swathed in a layer or two of horticultural fleece. The quanitites aren't huge - somewhere between microgreens and cut-and-come-again leaves, but topped up with foraging finds, it's been plenty.

It's amazing quite what's still fresh and green and available for the picking right now in December, both the"weeds" in my garden and in other local green spaces. The aforementioned hairy bittercress is a banker, but I have also discovered that the leaves of the ubiquitous garden weed Oxalis corniculata var. atropurpurea or creeping wood sorrel are just as deliciously lemony as cultivated sorrel (although you have to be a bit careful not to eat tonnes of the stuff as it can (like a lot of things) be bad for you in very large quantities. Then there's dandelions and cat's ear (bitter but good in small quantities, who needs chicory?) and nettles (select only the fresh green tops) and chickweed (good for you) and violet leaves (a bit bland but a great bulking agent).

I was planning to get the seed sprouter out if the foraging got lean or the cultivated salads failed, but so far I haven't had to. Alfalfa's ok, but my own saladings are better. Now I am just waiting for an opportunity to feed all my friends and relatives a big ole plate of weeds at the next family gathering.

 

 

Foraging books, apps and maps – a review

There are lots of foraging books out there, but which one’s the best? Here’s my review some of the major titles.

Food For Free by Richard Mabey (£4.99, Collins Gem)

This is the classic forager’s guide, first published more than 30 years ago and still going strong. Small enough to fit in your pocket, sturdy enough to survive a few dips into muddy puddles, it features hand drawings that are detailed enough to help you make a positive identification of most plants you’ll come across. Mabey’s also honest about how good things taste, and balances practical details with lots of historical information too. If you’re serious about foraging, this is a must-have, and at £4.99  it won’t cost you a fortune.

The Thrifty Forager by Alys Fowler (£16.99, Kyle Books)

This is not a field guide in the vein of Food For Free, but a book you can study at home before heading out on a walk, for inspiration and guidance, then open it again once you’re home to confirm your foraging finds . That said, there’s loads of useful information on identifying plants, including very clear guides to leaf shape and positioning. The strength of this book is that it focuses on things that you’ll find in urban and suburban settings, rather than the wild places of Britain. This makes sense - after all, most of us will want to forage regularly in our home environs. Alys also provides food for thought for would-be foragers in the form of sections where she meets various people and projects with a foraging theme, such as Incredible Edible Todmorden.

*Disclosure: Alys is the Guardian’s gardening columnist and as gardening editor, I edit her copy.

The Forager Handbook by Miles Irving (£30, Ebury Press)

I met Miles Irving at the Hampton Court Flower Show this year and tasted his delicious meadowsweet cordial and yarrow flower shortbread. His book has been out for a couple of years now but I hadn’t come across it before. It’s a weighty hardback tome, most definitely a reference book rather than a field guide. This book is exhaustive, with hundreds of plants listed, and impressive detail about where each plant has – and hasn’t – been found in the UK.

It’s one for the gourmet cook, including recipes featuring foraged ingredients from top chefs. That’s because Miles forages for a living, supplying top restaurants with everything from fat hen to shepherd’s purse. I loved some of the detail here, such as the fact that he supplies the famous London restaurant The Ivy with the tiny flowers of the ivy-leaved toadflax to garnish a signature dish (I tasted one of these the other day – absolutely flavourless to my unrefined tastebuds).

But what lets this book down are the pictures. The small black and white images lose a lot of the detail necessary for a positive identification, so I am left wondering what the difference between wall lettuce and shepherd's purse really is. It’s a great book for the serious forager but you’ll need to cross reference with other books to check that you’ve got the right plant and not a poisonous imposter.

Hedgerow by John Wright: River Cottage Handbook No.7 (£14.99, Bloomsbury)

(Review by Toby Travis, added September 26 2011)

Small enough to fit in a backpack, entertaining enough to read in the bath - Hedgerow by John Wright is a worthy addition to the excellent River Cottage Handbook series. The blurb describes the book as "a thoroughly practical guide to gathering edible plants from hedgerow and wood, meadow and heath".

The plant descriptions are witty, opinionated and informative. The photos, together with the text, have been sufficient for me to safely identify such wild delights as alexanders, garlic mustard, yarrow and wood sorrel. That I burnt my mouth eating lords and ladies leaves instead of sorrel is entirely my own fault as there is a photo in the book highlighting the difference between the two.

There is also a very useful chart showing when particular plants are in season.

I haven't tried any of the dishes from the short recipe section at the back, but chestnut pancakes with birch sap syrup must surely be the holy grail for the dedicated autumn forager.

It's not cheap at £14.99 but, along with Mushrooms and Edible Seashore (Nos 1 and 5 respectively in the same series), this has become my primary source of inspiration before setting out on a foraging expedition.

Put together, the seven handbooks (also including concise and illuminating volumes on bread-baking, cake-baking and preserving), form the foundation for an entire approach to thinking about, acquiring, and preparing food.

Apps and maps

There's a useful collaborative map of where useful and edible plants are available which you can view online at Forager's Friend. This is a superb idea, which also comes as an app for use on the move, but like a lot of projects of this nature, it's partly dependent on where you live as to whether you'll be able to glean much in the way of foraging tips for your local area - there are just two entries for my home town, for instance (although I plan to add lots more!). 

There are also a number of foraging  apps available, none of which I have tried because I own the world's most basic mobile phone. If you have, do add your experienes with these below. Or have you got another favourite foraging guide?  If you have, please feel free to add your thoughts below, or even email me a mini-review to add to this post – jane.perrone@gmail.com. I'll be adding other titles as I read them - to come next, Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons.

Green roof update - six months after planting

As years go, this probably wasn't the best for establishing an extensive green roof - too dry by half, and I know I am anthropomorphising but the crows and pigeons seemed to take a vindictive joy in pulling out my plug plants and spreading them around the garden. Nevertheless, things have changed a lot since I first planted it up back in March. It's useful to look back and remember the bare expanse of soil which is now, well, still a bit patchy but there's a lot more green to be seen.

Yesterday I planted out the sedums I'd been growing from seed (using T&M rock garden mixed), and was pleased to see that some of the sedums and sempervivums I planted earlier in the year have established really well. You can also see in the picture to the right some surplus-to requirements Verbascum 'Silver Lining' that I planted up there in some of the deeper areas as an experiment. I am still expecting it to look rather bare in the winter when all the annual wildflowers die back, but I know they've been self-seeding (with a bit of help from me) so there should be a great new flush of grwoth in the spring.

There are some odd things up there - for instance, loads of amaranth* in red and greeny-yellow which I think must have come from one of the rather panic-bought packs of 'meadow mix' I bought when things were looking much barer. There's also some pink cosmos (ditto) and lots of alyssum. Some grasses are getting established (which as Kate Bradbury has pointed out on her recent post on the Guardian gardening blog, are an important thing to include). I've removed some things - fat hen in abundance, couch grass and a few ragwort-type things, but at the moment until the bareness is completly gone, I am letting things take their course.

One of the strange things about the roof as a "garden" is that it's only really visible from my bedroom window, although I do rather like the little line of plant silhouettes  you get when looking up at the roof from the side passageway - just visible in this shot.

There's a full set of photos on Flickr. I would love to be able to identify everything, so do take a look: for instance, what's this little pink flower, above - anyone? My plants for next year are not very strategic - I think it's going to take at least another year to settle down. I'd like more grasses, in the Briza media vein, but would welcome any other suggestions - preferably stuff I can grow from seed.

*I'd like to harvest the amaranth grains - any advice on the best method would be welcome!

 

Why is it so hard to find a decent bit of trellis?

Sometimes it seems ridiculously hard to find what seems like the simplest of products without having to go down the hugely expensive “bespoke” route - you know, getting a blacksmith to fashion you plant supports from old horsehoes, that kind of thing.

Am I looking in the wrong place? Going to the wrong garden centres?

There’s got to be something wrong here – as gardening editor I get sent press releases and catalogues by the dozen about new products. But could I find a 6ft by 4ft square-latticed, decent quality wooden trellis that wouldn’t cost a fortune to deliver? Nope. Had to settle for a 6ft by 3ft one. What about a non-hideous, non-"nostalgic" hosepipe holder? Eventually, after a plea on Twitter, I found this one from brilliant Dutch firm DeWiltfang. I liked it so much I got two!

And do I really have to schlep to Ikea every time I want a reasonably cheap and modern pot for a houseplant? (or for that matter, a houseplant full stop: they’re definitely out of fashion right now, as I’ve said before).

I have, however, just defeated one of my demons – a wire trellis system that works with fencing featuring concrete posts and doesn’t cost hundreds of pounds – it comes from Rivelin Glen (I love you guys, and I don’t even know you...).

Is it just me, or are you struggling to source something for your garden? Do share ...

Side passageway at sunset: what no Nicotiana scent?

I like this shot because not only do the big leaves of the Nicotiana sylvestris look good under the light, you can also see the silhouette of the plants on the green roof at the end.

This part of the garden has been an object lesson in the benefits of "backdoor gardening" - because these beds are literally outside my back door, I spend lots of time tending them. It's also interesting to compare this picture with one of the same scene from May.

The only minus is that the nicotiana smells of precisely nothing: I even got the other half and his rather more sensitive nostrils to confirm my fears for me.

On the wall you can see the second of my "controversial" mirrors - safe to say this one's just about as unpopular as the other. It breaks up the fence screening, though, doesn't it?

One thing: where's all the delicious night-time nicotiana scent I was promised? Perhaps this little cold snap means the scent isn't wafting as it should. Oh, who cares, they look great and I have a terrible sense of smell anyway.

 

Chicken keeping: dos, don'ts and should Is?

I’ve been researching chicken keeping for over four years now and I still haven’t taken the plunge.

I could easily buy one of those cheap flatpack coops off the web, or splash out on an Eglu if I’m feeling flush. So what’s holding me back? I’m convinced of the benefits of back garden chickens: endless supplies of rich manure to boost my compost heap, the entertainment of watching the birds, teaching my children the responsibility of looking after animals, and of course the fresh eggs.

It’s the downsides I am worried about - greedy chooks trashing my veg patch, the ever-present threat of fox attacks, and the extra drudge of feeding and coop cleaning on top of the domestic demands of looking after two kids under five, for starters. And the myth that I am going to save money keeping hens is quickly dispelled by adding up the setup costs: hundreds of pounds for a decent coop and run, not to mention the cost of feed. (From my years of research one good piece of advice I’ve often received is this: don’t buy one of those cheap flatpacks - mites love setting up home in the felt roof and they’re far too flimsy.)

Then there’s where to put them. There is an obvious spot in my garden, tucked behind the office in a sheltered corner, at the moment just rough grass in the wake of our building project. But that will mean careful design to make it look good. I guess there's the option of putting them on a putative allotment plot, like Ryan, but I don't think I'd be able to get up there enough to keep them fed and watered (Ryan, how do you do it all - haven't you got a horse too?) And I need to be careful in my choice of breed, too – ideally I want something that won’t be able to negotiate the 1m-tall picket fence into the veg patch. Brahmas, or Buff Orpingtons, maybe? Any other suggestions welcome.

I did take a detour for a few months into the world of quail, after noticing that Omlet, who make the Eglu, also do a version for these tiny birds. But there seemed to be so much contradictory advice out there – some said they’re noisy, some reported them to be quiet as mice. Others warned of cannibalism and other nastiness between birds, but some found they all rubbed along nicely. The main attraction was that unlike chickens they weren’t amenable to free ranging, and they were rather more low maintenance. But the very helpful @Chickenstreet on Twitter persuaded me in the end that if I was going to go for poultry keeping, chickens were far more interesting and rewarding.

Chicken keeping has grown hugely in popularity in the last few years, but are some people leaping into this hobby without fully absorbing how grim they’ll feel getting turfed out of bed at 7am on a rainy Sunday to feed and water their charges?  I’d guess a fair number of the secondhand Eglus for sale on eBay are being sold by people for whom the work involved outweighed the fresh eggs.

And me? I still plan to become a hen keeper, but I think I am going to wait until my toddler has realised that bird poo isn’t one of the major food groups.

I'm in love with a roving sailor: Saxifraga stolonifera ‘Maroon Beauty'

Saxifragas were one of those things that I used to get excited about when perusing my copy of DG Hessayon’s The Houseplant Expert as a kid.*

I’d never thought of them for outdoors, aside from my much-loved (and neglected) Saxifraga x urbium 'Variegata', but when I spotted Saxifraga stolonifera ‘Maroon Beauty’ at the Wrest Park garden show earlier in the year I had one of those “it will be mine!” moments that will be familiar to any plant enthusiast.

It’s a low-ground ground cover plant with fleshy, hairy leaves that likes shady conditions, and the fleshy leaves compare favourably to other foliage plants, heucheras say, for interest. My only concern is hardiness. The woman on the stall – I forget which nursery it was – assured me that hers had bounced back from the harsh winter, resprouting readily in the spring but time will tell.

One of its common names is 'Roving Sailor', because they spread by runners (strictly speaking stoloniferous plantlets, I think): mine’s already made four or five new plants (one is visible in the shot above) from its spot in the side passage with no effort from me, and free plants are always good.

It's a good job that this plant is happy in full shade as my saxifrage is about to be completely covered by the rapidly burgeoning leaves of my soon-to-flower Nicotiana sylvestris - pictured here at half its current size in the bit (not big enough to earn the title of 'border') on the other side of the passage, with Garrya elliptica 'James Roof' and some honeysuckle behind.

I put these in a bit late, really, but they were an impulse buy** having read m'colleague Lia Leendertz’s book The Twilight Garden, in the hope that the scent would mitigate against any potential whiffs emanating from our nearby wheelie bins (they're disguised with a rather stylish wheelie bin cover but that doesn't contain smells).

 

*Talking to James Wong at Chelsea this year, we discovered a mutual childhood enthusiasm for this book – I’m glad I wasn’t the only one with a square pastime aged 10. James used a lot of plants you’d see in The Houseplant Expert in his 2011 show garden, such as pileas. I’ve asked my mum to root out some photos of me with my plants as a kid, as if you need some proof. Stand by for some seriously embarrassing images ...

**From an ebay seller called seed-feeder who I’d highly recommend. They don’t have anything for sale as I type but the large plugs I bought were very healthy and well packaged, and I am kicking myself for not buying several things from them this summer.

 

Sowing flowers from seed: successes and failures

My brain is currently a grab-bag of blogposts: of all sorts of bits and pieces. Blogging's had to take a back seat to all sorts of things, not least changing numerous nappies, replacinga broken dishwasher, fridge and DVD player, reading The Tickle Book over and over and OVER to my 1-year-old, and making lots of jam from my Victoria plums.*

Here's the first brain dump. I wrote a while back about how I've been growing a lot of things from seed to save money, so I thought I'd tell you a bit about what worked and what didn't.

The Cerinthe purpurascens seeds from T&M all germinated with ease and produced attractive plants (pictured left) just right in temperament for my rather dry big border, and loved by the bees - the only wrinkle was the packet was a bit measly, although each seed was huge, almost pea-like. Given that this is a good self-seeder I am hoping it will spread copiously, and I'll probably help it along by saving some of the seed myself to sow next spring.

Another banker has been the verbascums, now settling in nicely to the dry border and destined to provide spires of white blooms ('Snow Maiden') next summer. What's so great about growing verbascum from seed is that ALL of them germinate, so you get hundreds of plants - and they're pretty tough even from a young age so any underwatering is quickly forgiven. Next year I'd like to try a pinky-red one from seed, like 'Cherry Helen', but so far I've had no success finding the seed.

Cenolophium denudatum, on the other hand, was a disaster. Got two seedlings from the whole packet, which when planted out promptly got munched by slugs. Clematis hieraclifolia, courtesy of Everett Leeds of the Clematis Society, so far so good - half a dozen plants from a similar number of seeds, all young plants now in situ(pictured above) and I'm hoping for a good show from this unusual herbaceous clematis. (Never heard of it? It is scented and needs no support, apparently. Will keep you posted).

Honesty seeds collected on my travels and scattered liberally about the garden should fill some more gaps, while I am encouraging my Briza media to self-seed for similar budget-busting gullness. One busted flush was the eryngium seeds I tried - possibly too old, I suspect.

*I wrote about how this tree was sulking after pruning two years ago - the commenters were right, I didn't prune in 2010 and this year it's been happy as larry, producing a top harvest of big, juicy plums.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, are you lovely or actually rather horrible?

Mirrors, the experts advise, are great in gardens. They give the illusion of extra space, bounce light around and add depth. I am not a big fan of the ones that make you think you're looking at an open door or window, but I can see how these acrylic sheets would look great behind trellis.

They're going on the Christmas list, but right now, in the wake of the bank account-draining activities wrought by the building of a garden office and buying lots of plants, it's a question of picking up what I can in junk shops and the like for a few pennies (also greener too, I guess).

This was my first effort - a "fisheye lens"-type mirror bought from a charity shop for a fiver. It was already painted this way, which fits with my colour scheme - perfect! Eventually it should be wreathed in honeysuckle and clematis, but for the moment it's hanging from the trellis reflecting the sweet peas on the other side of the patio. I did buy another one - a Rennie Mackintosh-ish mirror with a stained glass frame, also for a fiver - but it was so gorgeous I have hung it inside. Now I am looking for some full-length mirrors for the side passageway as suggested by the Stopwatch Gardener.

There's one fly in the ointment. My other half hates the above mirro with a passion - before we went on holiday he said he was hoping someone would steal it while we were away. What do you think?