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!


Friday 7 February 2014

Drowning in Money

This is a really interesting and thoughtful article by George Monbiot about the issues involved with the whole " blame the lack of dredging"  with respect to the current flooding situation here in the UK.

I agree with the basic argument George puts forward about tree planting absorbing loads of water in the soil , as I know it works from observing what happens here in our wood.

 Go and have a read and then come back and comment on your views?

Drowning in Money

It is still very bad weather here and the South West is really getting a hammering from the rain, wind and waves. My heart goes out to all affected by these dreadful condition. We are soggy here and buffetted by storms but so far no flooding of anything which actually matters.

4 comments:

  1. this is really interesting! that's for posting it. in pittsburgh (lots of hills) we have a lot of trouble with cso and have seen some incredible flooding due to too much construction on the tops of hills.

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  2. Brilliant report, thanks for linking to his article, I followed the links in it and read the original report, fascinating stuff and most definitely the way forward.

    The original flood defences just have to be trees and living things, not more and more concrete and pebbled front gardens all over the country.

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  3. That was very interesting and it makes complete sense that ripping out the trees and hedges is going to have a detrimental effect when it comes to excess water.
    We're lucky. I may moan about the wind and the cols here in Caithness but there's very little chance of flooding where we live. We're at least 150ft above the sea level and the drainage ditches in the area do a fabulous job of draining our land direct to the sea. Add onto that the vegetative growth and the forests all around and I don't ever forsee a problem, but then again we are not as densely populated here either.
    I hope the weather improves for those down soon very soon.

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  4. Read that article a while ago and agree wholeheartedly. One of the roads nearby is very narrow with steep sides, lined with trees. Well, someone thought it would be a good idea to cut all the trees down on the higher side-slope. They've just created a soon-to-be-landslide, especially with all the rain we're having - what was the point of that???

    We live on a hill, but it gets regularly waterlogged here, and again, at some point the former tenants of my property decided to cut down a bunch of trees in order to put in a deck. Now the back garden is slowly shearing off due to there being no roots to hold everything in place - not to mention the decking is in such poor shape as it was neglected for years it's treacherous to walk on, and a haven for rats underneath it. I've just planted some hedging along my garden to try and hold the soil in place, and the decking will come out this year.

    Sometimes, nature has the best plan...but that isn't what sells, is it?

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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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