Perfect Compost: A Practical Guide

by Simon Akeroyd

Learn how to make and use nourishing compost for your garden with this handy little guidebook from an experienced National Trust head gardener. Learn how to make and use nourishing compost for your garden with this handy little guidebook from an experienced National Trust head gardener. It's packed with useful tips for successful composting, from deciding what to put in your kitchen compost caddy to how to use the final product in your garden. The author discusses the various composting set-ups you can choose, from simple plastic cone-shaped ‘ Dalek’ bins to ingenious hand-rotated barrels and elaborate solar-powered hot composting systems, and gives full instructions to make a professional-looking three-bay compost heap from old pallets. Also covered are unusual and innovative techniques such as keyhole gardening and lasagne planting, and there’ s a guide to wormeries and, for the very adventurous, snaileries. He also reveals the many uses to which compost can be put in your garden, and not just to grow plants in – as a top dressing to keep your lawn looking fresh and green, as mulch for your flower beds, or, in liquid form, as a powerfully nutritious plant feed. And there’ s a handy guide to which bits of kitchen waste you can put into your compost, and which you really shouldn’ t. Finally, if you’ ve always wanted an exceptionally environmentally friendly composting toilet, instructions are here. Beautifully illustrated throughout, this practical guide contains all the advice you'll ever need to get your compost going and use it to help your garden thrive.

Genres: Gardening

96 pages, Hardcover

Published July 9, 2020

About the author

Simon is an author having written over 30 gardening books, and contributes to national gardening magazines and newspapers. He has also featured as a TV presenter and on radio. He was previously Garden Manager for both RHS and National Trust. He was also a BBC producer.

He currently lives in South Devon.

Reviews

[Cameron McEwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise (albeit repetitive) and relevant information for amateur composters. Super helpful when it came to answering all the ‘odds and ends’ questions I had.