During the winter, cardboard egg boxes and toilet roll holders should be mixed in with vegetable scraps for best results
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Don’t bin your Christmas Tree!
Christmas tree branches provide invaluable plant supports in the garden.
Snip the branches as close to the trunk as possible and store
them upright. When the
needles have dropped, you’re left with a range of different sized
supports. The
large branches at the base make ideal pea sticks and will support the
larger flowers at the back of the herbaceous border.
Place the sticks in the ground early in the season, before the
plants need them. The
flowers will cover and
completely conceal the branches. Use
the small and medium-sized branches in a similar way.
The small ones can be used for tiny peas seedlings and will
prevent birds from ripping them out of the ground. The
medium and large branches can also be used as ‘cloches’ for fleece and
enviromesh and you can grow a couple of sweet peas up the tree’s trunk. Don’t throw out all these free gifts – buy some more plants at the garden centre rather than cloches and plant supports. Recycling can save you money as well as being good for the environment |
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Winter prunings
Don’t be tempted to prune your roses at this time of year, even during a milder spell. Frost will still get into the pruned ends and this will lead to die-back. Leave this type of pruning till later in the Winter. We’ll look next month at how all these prunings can be recycled in the garden. Even if you can’t compost a rose branch, you can always recycle it.
Composting problem?
Contact us if you would like us to solve any composting problem. We'll post the answer here.
Mrs S.
from Kelso asks:
“Can I compost potato peelings or will they spread
disease?”
It’s perfectly
safe to compost tattie peelings. Diseases like late blight are spread
by spores on diseased tubers and you’re most unlikely to be eating them!
Posted 6/01/2008
If you would like to see other "Home Composters" click below
January Home Composter
Reusing your Christmas decorations
February Home Composter
Dealing with prickly prunings
March Home Composter -Making
your own potting mixes
April Home Composter -
Harvesting last year's compost
May Home Composter - Dealing
with weeds
June Home Composter - All that grass
July Home Composter - Worms
and wormeries
August Home Composter -Your top
5 queries
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