Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Thursday 9 April 2009

Catch up - 2 trips to Garden Organic, Ryton, in the space of 4 days

I have had more broadband problems recently so am woefully behind with the blog posts, but here is a catch up post of my inspiring and refreshing 2 trips to Garden Organic Ryton a few weeks ago.

I went on a Sunday to attend the Garden Organic Volunteers day, where we get various talks, workshops and an outline of the coming years strategy, a fabulous lunch and a guided tour around the gardens by members of the GO team. In particular I had a wonderful chat with Bob Sherman about Heritage Seed Library seeds, growing vegetables, the work I do at school with the Organic garden and Eco Club, and plants and stuff, over a fabulous lunch.

It was generally a very inspiring sort of day, it was good to meet other members of staff again, to fit faces to voices over the 'phone, to network with other volunteers and spend time with like minded people from all walks of life. Garden Organic views its volunteers as valued members of the team and provide lots of support, information and back up, and I got to choose a shirt to wear from a rather nice selection of organic, fair trade Garden Organic logo'd tops. I chose a polo shirt and I shall wear it when I am gardening at school with the children.

I was then back at Ryton the following Wednesday to attend a Food for Life Partnership training day. It was good fun, I met lots more like minded people who were passionate about wanting to get children growing stuff in school and all in all had another lovely and inspiring time.

So these photos are from the two days, just things which really captured my interest......I could post lots of pictures as EVERYTHING at Ryton is so wonderful, but I won't. It probably is a good thing I do not live any closer, though! I suspect I would be there all the time.....

I do urge you to go and visit Garden Organic's HQ at Ryton, the gardens are full of ideas and tips on gardening organically and really do showcase best practice. I promise you will come away with some new ideas!


The fabulous demonstration composting area! I seem to spend a lot of time in there whenever I visit Ryton ;-)

The huge compost heaps which make the wonderful compost used to grow all the fabulous plants and veggies the award winning cafe use to make the most scrumptious meals!

A wonderful pebble spiral inside the Biodynamic garden


Inside the Paradise Garden greenhouse, this garden is dedicated to the memory of the late Geoff Hamilton.



The practical bits of the FFLP course on Wednesday, sowing seed in the Allotment garden, we dug and composted,weeded and sowed...it was great fun! ( Am I odd for enjoying doing gardening in someone elses garden?)



The small town garden, this originally was put together as the garden for the C4 TV series "All muck and magic" - anyone remember that? I LOVED it!



Returning home both days I was treated to a most amazing sun, setting over Marcle Ridge as I drove home....

2 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness! I would have drooling the whole time! Tomorrow morning, I am posting some photos of our own version of gardening. lol. like how I say "our own version?" I say that because I am new and still learning.

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  2. Thanks for this glimpse of Ryton. I'm hoping we might make it there this year. We've been members for a few years now, but it isn't all that close to us. We could do it in a day, though.

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Hello! Thank you for reading my blog and for commenting. I try to reply as quickly as I can and I really appreciate your interest in my life and doings here in The Compost Bin.

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