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!


Tuesday 28 February 2012

Me time

Thank you for the supportive comments - much appreciated!

Today I have made soap, made healing balms, made hand lotion, made pink lip gloss.  Made DD happier (not really sure how, but am grateful for small mercies) . Did the CRB paperwork and document proof stuff, which entailed a drive by me to Hereford to prove that I am, who I say I am. .

Have drunk some wine, posted on a specialist forum for some specialist help.

And coughed. A lot.

Monday 27 February 2012

February flying by.

Well here we are, nearly the end of February and I have not posted once this month. :-(    Not. One. Word. I have not even drafted any posts!

Life has been very stressful here since before Christmas, for reasons I am not going to blog about but which have made life very difficult and upsetting.  This has made it hard to get on with our normal life, as there have been lots of long talks late into the night, and nights spent not sleeping,  and days where meals have been cooked, only for there to be little appetite for them. None of this is good when there is lots of work to do!

Then to add to this, Compostman's back injury has been making itself felt ( not in a good way) and I got ill with a very severe chest infection, which had me in bed for 5 days and very weak for many more days around that - I am still recovering, Compostman is still struggling with back pain and planting/sowing/tree felling/clearing beds/moving plants etc etc has all come to a stop. Which, at this time of year, is NOT GOOD NEWS.

I HAVE sown the first batch of pepper and tomato seeds so have several hundred seeds of the earlier varieties ( 20 different sorts) in the heated propagators - will need to pot them up and sow another batch soon. These include the plants I grow " to order" for various customers - they tell me what varieties they want, I grow them and hand them over in May, ready to plant out.

I HAVE got the spuds chitting, the earliest ones are planted up in their bags in the polytunnel; the rest are stitting, waiting, for the soil ( and me!) to be ready to put them in the ground.

I DID get some garlic and broad beans into the ground finally, just before I got ill.

I HAVE got every thing ready , clean and tidy in the Polytunnel, all the seed order done, all the supplies ready for the 2012 growing season

Compostman DID manage to prune the apple trees and clear up all the debris from the major shrub pruning we have been doing. Huge bonfires raised a bit of cheer in an otherwise quite gloomy time.

BUT - we have lots of trees to fell NOW before they come into leaf, we NEED to get them down, not just for firewood but for land clearance, so we can then get on with the major earth moving project.

And I am not well enough. And Compostman is not up to it. And time is ticking on.

Sorry this sounds a bit gloomy - but it is how I feel. Hope all of you are having a better time of it!
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