How do you make ericaceous compost?

[Jaxom]

Answer.... Buy a bag of Peat.
I was at the garden centre and turned a bag of ericaceous compost over to read the instructions and there in small print it said, "This product contains 100% peat"
There was me thinking I was being so good not buying peat due to environmental concerns and buying ericaceous compost instead only to find out I was still buying 100% peat.
Jax

[andrewo]

There are now bracken based ericaceous composts coming slowly onto the market, see:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magaz...581065,00.html
http://www.samshrub.co.uk/compost.htm
Normally ericaceous is:
three parts (by volume) moss peat, one part sharp lime-free sand or perlite and chempak. However you could substitute the peat for bark, add sand or perlite, skip the chempak and leave it to compost in a seperate bin.

[nick the grief]

Not all Peat products are bad Jax,
Moorland Gold (Organic catalogue) uses peat thats been "extracted" from the water that goes in to treatment plants - save blocking their filter beds I guess, so if you shop around you can still sleepe relativley easy.

I think you can get an ericaceous that made from composted pine needles as well - not sure

[sewer rat]

Jax
Was in Starbucks in Inverness today and they have a basket by the door where you can pick up foil sealed packs of their used coffee grounds for free - they promote them as good for your garden - spread round your acid loving plants - or just add to your compost - that's what the label says.
Was quite heartened to see a multi national franchise company putting a bit of effort into this idea.
Might be worth adding to your normal compost mix to assist withthe ericaceous element.
Rat

[Jaxom]

Worms love coffee grounds as well so I have to look into going Starbucks and having a look at what they are doing here in Cardiff. Thanks for the tip.
Jax

[nick the grief]

Being synical I suppose it saves them money by not having to pay to get rid of their waste but hey at least they are trying. It's a shame some other companies don't follow suite

[sewer rat]

The same thought crossed my mind but then they are sealing them in foil type bags and have had special sticky labels made up for them so they are still incurring some costs.
Rat

[andrewo]

It's either that or tons of the stuff goes into landfill.

[Jaxom]

If only they could separate landfill into things that rot and thins that do not.
Here in Cardiff we have two wheely bins, One black and one green.
This was wonderful when the council let people put anything vegetative into the green one. Now they say no peelings or fruit and salad. These have to go back in the black bins, which end, on landfill. I have always put my vegetation on my compost heap so my green bin tends to be full of paper [glossy types] and cardboard. Tetra packs that milk comes in goes in the black bin as well, because the council say they cant separate to two parts of the 1ltr containers.
In addition to the two bins we also have Green bags that collect tins and all types of plastic and magazines along with junkmail. The tetra pack can't go in the green bags either. because the council say they can’t separate to two parts.
of the 1ltr containers.
Jax

[sewer rat]

They're really pushing recycling up here just now. We've always had a council amenity site (new speak for tip) which took household rubbish, garden waste, tins, bottles, paper, cardboprad etc all in seperate containers, as well as waste oil, car batteries and fridges/freezers. Now we have brown bins for garden waste to compost (though strangely they refused one of my bins - I have 2- citing "too much soil" as the reason ), blue boxes for paper one week and tins/ bottles the following week.
I still find myself visiting the tip every weekend!!!!
Rat

[nick the grief]

We've had the 2 bin system here for a couple of years but since I got the compost bin fromthe County council ( our local council don't push this) I struggle to fill the green one till about octoberr when all the Chrysanth tops go in.

I can't under stand the fruit & spud peelings as these are fine in my bin, I guess thay don't ad any lime to keep the PH to neutral like we can, but as they compost in huge amounts I would ahve thought the heap would heat up enough to kill any pests & break down most things.

We've got a blue bag for paper (that isn't big enough and a red box for tins, Glass we have to take to the local skip for rescycling.

They never advertise the compost they make either - where does that all go. Mr Don is always saying that they got it from the council, obviously S warwickshire is different to North warwickshire and he gets all my compost at Beryyfeilds

[Lesley Jay]

Our council which is Trafford Borough Council (named and shamed) are pretty hopeless at recycling. Some areas got their green garden waste bins 18 months ago but still after countless calls to the council we haven't got ours and loads of other houses are the same. All they re cycle are tins, glass and paper but it was in the local paper that this material is actually taken to the tip!!

[andrewo]

My council never picked up my paper bin, we now have a glass and plastics bin, which they also never pick up and when they do it goes straight into the back of the usual waste trucks bound for the land fill. The problem is that the government and EU have set targets but we do not have the recycle plants to process, we have mountains of plastic collecting at these plants, their toxins leeching in to the soil. The government however will not put any money into new plants, this, they say, is down to local government. The frightening thing is, think of all that money that has gone that illegal war of there's, it would have been more than enough to sort out the NHS, Education and Waste.

[sewer rat]

We recently installed a new water supply to a small factory unit up here which collects waste plastic for recycling - mainly industrial and agricultural it has to be said. They wash it, shred it and put it into bales. Sounds good so far doesn't it. It's only when you find out that these bales go on the back of a wagon and are driven down to the Midlands for the final reprocessing that this environmentally friendly process falls apart !
Rat

[Lesley Jay]

But at least it is being re cycled and not dumped into land fill sites. Apparently plastic that has contained food stuff cannot be re cycled because of contamination. Wouldn't it be good to go back to paper bags and glass milk bottles.