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!


Wednesday, 26 February 2014

A blogging birthday and a giveaway


I have been doing a bit of spring cleaning of this blog today; updating lists; making sure the review page is up to date and generally having a tidy up. One of the things I also did was to re read some of my past posts for the month of February and it was interesting to see what I was up to and thinking about several years ago.

I also realised that it is 7 years ago today that I started this blog :) Predictably my first few posts were about nest boxes, organic gardening and my local farmers market, along with photos of Compost Mansions under snow :)

There was also a post about why I am called Compostwoman, which featured Master Composting, Garden Organic and a lot of stuff about making compost :) Oh what a surprise!

And here I am, 7 years, 1290 posts and a lot of pageviews and visitors later. I am still writing about local food, organic growing, hens, compost, gardening, wildlife, teaching, crafts, food, compost, animals, renovating Compost Mansions, growing veg, daily life - not much has changed over the years (except I have got older and have more gray hairs and Compostgirl is now a teenager!)

Since I started blogging we have started keeping chickens again, we have gained and lost beloved pets and done a lot of work on the house and grounds. In the last 7 years amongst other things I have also trained as a Forest School Leader, an Adult Education Teacher, a Master Gardener, been nominated for a number of awards, become a Love Food Hate Waste cookery demonstrator and a hens@home mentor (phew, after all that training no wonder I feel so tired all the time!) All of this has allowed me to widen what I do in my volunteering roles and Environmental Education business and I hope I have helped lots of adults and children to have fun and be more sustainable in their daily lives.

I also hope I have helped some of you, readers of this blog, in some small way, with gardening, hen keeping or cooking advice or just by sharing my small triumphs and tragedies.  At the very least I hope I have sometimes amused you with my antics :)



So in honour of my blogging birthday and to thank all of you, my lovely readers, I am going to have a giveaway!

Leave me a comment below and next week I will draw out a name and send who ever is drawn a little surprise present - possibly something home made, possibly something I have been sent to review but it will be nice, I promise.

Good luck!

22 comments:

  1. Wow seven years that is a long time! Congratulations. I looked at my posts for this time last year too this morning! I'm feeling slightly behind. I hope yu have a good giveaway!

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  2. I think your blog offers a nice mix of items especially for those (my future DiL and DS), who in the next 5 years or so, hope to be living in a similar fashion.

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  3. I wonder if I will still be blogging in seven years! mmm I'll be 75 then and could be blogging from a nursing home somewhere. ( memo to self - choose a nursing home with Wi-fi)
    There is always something of interests in your posts, so I guess you will be keeping us interested for a few years yet.
    Gill

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    1. I can always talk about thechickens - they are endlessly funny :)

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  4. Congrats on your blog-o-versary!

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  5. Ooooooooh exciting! And congrats on your blogoversary - I may not comment much, but I do enjoy your blog! x

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  6. Congratulations on your blogging birthday!

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  7. Here's to another seven years of enjoyable blog reading!

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  8. Congratulation on sticking with it for 7 years!
    I don't remember anymore on how I stumbled unto your blog,
    I think it was about 2 years ago. Glad I did though, always something interesting :))
    I do a bit of composting and also had worms, but we had a nasty cold spell and that was the end of the worms :(
    Might start with them again, will see. . . .
    Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!!!
    Ingrid N.

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  9. Congratulations x
    karen
    twannywun at hotmail dot com

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  10. That's an awful lot of blog posts. Congratulations on your dedication and perseverance.

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  11. Congratulations on your blogiversary! Here's to the next seven years :)

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  12. Happy blogging birthday!

    I always enjoy reading about what is happening in your corner of the world :)

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  13. Seven years! How the time has flown. So glad you're still blogging. {Hugs}

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  14. Thank you all for your lovely comments :)
    I will do the draw after this weekend, just in case anyone else wants to enter :)

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  15. Seven is a lucky number they say, so here's to good luck for another seven years!
    I only just found you so I'm off for a look around....how many posts did you say? (gulp) I could be here a while....

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  16. Happy blogging birthday xx

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  17. Thank you sunflower and Sarah for the comments - I am going to shut them in a day and draw out a name :)

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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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