New Book Offers Rotten Recipes For Your Garden

Posted on Mon Nov 26 2007

By: Ianto Everett in Environment

A new book from the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales has given composting a Masterchef makeover by revealing the top recipes for producing compost.

CAT is one of the UK’s greenest visitor attractions and is stuffed full of eco-friendly technology, such as a water powered funicular train, a solar powered public telephone kiosk and even waterless toilets. One of the center’s key areas of expertise, however, is composting. Over the space of 20 years the center’s gardeners have transformed an abandoned slate quarry into a thriving organic vegetable garden, and the new book, The Little Book of Compost, shares some of their knowledge.

Eight easy to follow recipes are squeezed into the book, including 'Soil in the Bag', 'Compost tea' and 'The Hot Turnover' – the aim being to get everyone composting, even those with little time and space. As well as guidelines for householders with large gardens, the book also provides some beginners tips on setting up indoor or backyard wormeries or community collection schemes.

The book’s author, Allan Shepherd, said: "I think composting has a slightly tired image so I've spiced it up with a few careful ingredients - humor, fun and food. Making compost is like throwing a big party with a great menu. All you need to do is learn the recipes and get on with it.”

Composting kitchen waste has many environmental benefits. When organic waste decomposes without air in landfill sites, it produces methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. Composting, however, produces a nutrient rich fertilizer without the need for chemicals, helping plants and vegetables grow bigger and stronger, and become more resistant to bugs and disease.

The Little Book of Compost is published this month in the UK but won’t be available in the US until February 2008, but for budding green gardeners there are other books by Allan Shepherd published by CAT, including The Little Book of Slugs, The Little Book of Garden Villains and Curious Incidents in the Garden at Night-time.

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