It has been shown that up to 60% of all the weekly mix of garbage bin waste contains organic matter that could be much much much better used in your garden.   More than 8.4 MILLION tonnes of Organic Matter is land-filled each year.   By reducing the volume in your bin each week, you will save (via your local council) up to 60% of the collection costs, 60% of the transport costs and 60% of the disposal costs.   This COULD reduce your rates (or at least, keep them at the same level for now) as the costs of your waste disposal could be reduced by up to 60% just by you using the Compot in your garden.

When you use your Compot, you will be recycling your “waste“ from your kitchen into a wonderful mass of Organic Matter with lots of worms working for you.   Your huge “family “ of worms and Soldier Flies, will transform your waste into material that will feed your plants, hold a lot more water, and provide a lot more nutrients for your garden at no extra cost just by using your Compot.

Organic Matter is a wonderful material as it holds water and nutrients on the surface of the material and lets plant roots extract and use the water and nutrients rather than them being lost when it rains or is watered as then the fertiliser is washed down below the root zone and out of reach of those roots.
I will be introducing a new segment here each month where I will show you some odd and exciting plant facts that you probably didn’t know but hopefully, will find interesting to learn about

Today’s Did You Know…?

Vanilla essence is made from the seed pods of the orchid Vanilla planifolia that is a native of the West Indies, Florida & Central America.   Real vanilla essence (ie: not the yucky stuff made in a laboratory) is made using the seed pods.   But there are no insects in Australian that naturally pollinate these plants so it needs to be done by hand each day which makes it more expensive.
The plant grows to up to 18 m (mine has reached that on my tree) with fleshy, fragrant flowers about 6cm long that open one at a time and last for only one day.   The seed pods are up to 15cm long.
The plant attaches itself to the tree trunk but does not destroy your tree as many other climbers do.   It lives on the nutrients in the bark of the tree and from what drops onto it. A cutting can be tied to a tree trunk (until it has attached itself to the trunk) by using a stocking as it is firm and has some give.   Great for recycling your old stockings.

An elegant looking climber that won’t destroy your tree.

Photo courtesy of:-  Botanica’s Pocket Orchids (2002) Random House, Sydney, New York

I would like to introduce Bob James as an Environmental Consultant & Horticulturist who (with a wide and varied career over his many years of employment) has kindly agreed to write an article for the webpage once a month with a focus on composting but will include much more content to keep you all interested.

So if anyone has any questions they might like answered, please send us an email and Bob will endeavour to answer it in as soon as possible.

I’ve had some great discussions with him recently about how to improve sandy soil and the use of the Compot to aid this process so look for an upcoming post about this topic.  I am sure it applies to lots of gardeners as so many people live by the sea.   In the mean time Bob will have his first article ready for posting end of September.

I wish to welcome him aboard and look forward to many interesting articles appearing based on your questions and suggestions, and of course the Compot and Compottop and anything else we think might be interesting to talk about.

See below for Bob’s qualifications

Happy Compoting  – Vicki