National Gardening Week THURSDAY

Compost.  A great word!  It can actually mean two things:

1. The process of rotting.  We compost food left over from the canteen in our hot RIDAN composter.  We mix it with sawdust so it can rot down more quickly without getting too smelly!
2. A growing medium.  We use bags of compost for potting up our seedlings and potting on plants.  Compost is different from soil but both are used to grow plants in. 

Compost is made from the process of rotting (point 1 above) – so anything that was previously alive can rot down and create compost (point 2 above).  

We sieve our compost heap once it is well rotted.  It turns a lovely black colour and the sieved compost is fine and crumbly.  We have been adding it to our raised beds both in the polytunnel and outside to add nutrients to the soil.  

We have also used some to pot up seedlings in the past. 

If you are wondering, soil is also a growing medium.  Soil is the thin layer of material covering the earth's surface and is formed from the weathering of rocks. It is made up mainly of mineral particles (tiny bits from the rocks), organic materials (things that used to be alive but have now died and rotted down – like leaves or twigs), air, water and living organisms (bugs, bacteria and mini-beasties) —all of which interact slowly yet constantly.  Soil is talked about according to the type of rock that is it formed from – like clay, sand or chalk.  Our garden has quite “clayey” soil so we need to add composted material to open it up and improve the structure.  The perfect garden soil is called loam – every gardener’s dream.  It feels soft and crumby between your fingers.  I love loam!  Do you?
As you take your exercise today, look down at the soil and think about what rock it might be made from – is it light or dark, hard or soft, crumbly or chunky?  Also look around the ground and spot things that will be starting to rot down – they will be composting into compost!  S3 pupils: try to remember three things that you spot and make a note for next week’s TEAM meeting!