Yesterday afternoon the telephone rang as I was coming in from the garden to retrieve the sprouting seed potatoes. Reluctantly I answered, preparing to hang up on yet another person telling me that my computer has a virus (with one? they can never tell me), but it was, in fact, someone genuine. On explaining that Mr Snail-of-happiness was outside emptying two of the compost bins, I received the response ‘Oh, dear’. Now, compost is one of Mr S-o-h’s favourite things about the garden (along with eating the produce) so I felt obliged to explain to the caller the wonders of compost… in fact I found myself becoming quite evangelical about the subject; ironic since the caller is a priest!

So, I feel moved to announce to the world that I think compost is MAGIC… waste goes in, a lovely growing medium comes out. The joy of knowing that vegetable peelings, teabags (unbleached), cotton rags, willow and paper shreddings, leaves, chicken poo and more all become something really useful for very little effort. I’m low-intervention with my compost and we don’t produce enough to put in to have a really fast, hot compost heap, but I’m prepared to wait and it really is worth it. So, some of those sprouted potatoes are now growing in bags, helped along by stuff that other people just throw out and there’s a lovely layer over the ‘squash bed’, plus two empty bins just waiting to be filled up again.