Welcome

As I am appearing in the local media this week for winning the Innovation Award at the Garden Organic Masters Conference - here is the link to my write up of the day

http://www.the-compostbin.com/2012/07/master-composter-and-master-gardener.html

I am SO pleased and proud to have won this award - and if you are visiting me for the first time as a result of reading about it in the local press - a HUGE welcome from me! I hope you enjoy reading what I have written about, here in The Compost Bin, and that you follow my blog and become a regular reader. :-)

If you have any questions about composting or gardening, please comment on these pages

or contact me compostwoman@the-compostbin.com

and I will do my best to help.

Master Composter and Master Gardener Conference, Garden Organic, Ryton

One of the highlights of my year is always a trip to Ryton to the wonderful Garden Organic HQ. Around 200 of we volunteer Master Composters and Master Gardeners, Seed Guardians, Compost Ambassadors etc etc  gathered on Saturday at Ryton to meet up, network, be thanked for our efforts, be inspired and learn something new.

I got up bright and early to catch my lift with a fellow Master Composter, it took us quite a long time to get to Ryton, but we arrived and registered, got coffee and collected our name badges, lanyards and conference pack. Inside the sturdy (compostable strong paper!) bag were samples of Clipper tea, a small but perfectly formed Green and Black chocolate bar ( well, it was until I ate it, that is!), some organic seeds, a delightful notepad and pencil and some useful catalogues. Much more use to we gardeners, and better environmentally, than a plastic wallet with a plastic pen!

Most importantly there was ( as always) a really excellent programme telling us all the good things which were going to happen during the day.

The event was held in a huge marquee, in the wonderful gardens.I met up with other Master Composters from Herefordshire and Worcestershire - 11 of us went altogether from our scheme.

Pretty impressive walk to get from registration into the marquee!

We were welcomed by Myles Bremner, the Chief Executive of Garden Organic,  who thanked us for "doing what we do"  - it is always nice to be told  your efforts are appreciated, even though we know Garden Organic do appreciate us and look after us very well.

Linking all the speakers for the day, as well as speaking herself, was Dr Margi Lennartsson, Head of Programmes at Garden Organic. She had a key role in developing the Master Composter and Master Gardener programmes and is always worth listening to! She kept everyone "on time" as well - which was impressive.

We then had a fascinating presentation based on research, done by Coventry University, on the impact of the Master Gardener scheme over the first 2 years. This looked at responses from both the volunteer Master Gardeners and the households involved. The research work really showed up just what a huge positive benefit it is to people when they start to garden/grow their own food. The research showed huge (measurable against "official" standards) increases in self esteem, and  increased general "feel good" factor - not surprising, maybe,  but I really hope we see this research given a very high profile in the media, in due course.

Then it was time for coffee and our choice of morning workshop - there were 9 choices and I went to "Waste Not Want Not" which was given by  Rosy Grant. Rosy was involved in setting up the "Food for Life Partnership - a network of schools and communities commited to transforming school food culture. The workshop was very informative and good fun - on how to waste less food, store it wisely and get more value from what we buy to eat . It linked in very well with the "Love Food, Hate Waste" training I did a couple of years ago.

Lunch was delicious vegetarian food, wonderfully presented, the food is always wonderful at Ryton. This year it was provided by ChangeKitchen, which is a social enterprise, registered as a community interest company. It was set up by a well-established Birmingham charity, which works alongside those who are socially excluded or disadvantaged, empowering and supporting people to meet their short and long term goals.




I chatted to a few friends I don't see very often and then, as the weather stayed good over lunch, I had a wander around the grounds.

I love love LOVE this flower meadow  - every time I  go it is wonderful. Want one like it!

Huge plant pot, always makes me smile.

Bulk Composting area and yes I did go in and have a good look around. There is also a new display Garden Composting area with lots of different bins and techniquest on display

This Bee Garden was absolutely "buzzing" with activity and the scent was wonderful.

So colourful!

The allotment garden, I really like the tilt top cold frame.

Such beauty. It was all so interesting - ways to prevent slug damage, how to protect the structure of the soil, companion planting - everything one could possibly want to see, demonstrated in a manner which is doable by "ordinary" gardeners at home.

And not a chemical in sight!

I also went to a lunchtime talk on "Comunity Composting for local food" given by Cath Kibbler of The Community Composting Network (CCN) - this is a two and a half year project funded by the Big Lottery Local Food Programme. CCN are setting up a training and support network with 12-15 training hubs across England with associated trainers who will be delivering a doubly accredited training course to local food growing groups so they too can start community composting.

The talk was thought provoking and interesting and I hope to do a more in depth post about it at a later date - I am a CCN member so went and had a good chat to Cath on the CCN stand later on.


After the lunch break we were treated to a performance of "Compost - the mini musical"  from Anneliese Emmans Dean and York Rotters  - which was absolutely BRILLIANT. So funny and creative! If you can go and see it I recomend doing so. It is also available to purchase as a teaching tool .

When we had all calmed down a bit from the excitement of "Compost - the mini musical" we had an excellent talk from Chris Collins , the "Blue Peter" gardener - only as his talk demonstated he is SO much more than just that one title! He was excellent - amusing and informative with an infectious passion for what he does.

We then had the Awards and Graduation ceremonies. I was lucky enough to be nominated for the Innovation and Social Media Award in the Master Composter catagory and as you already know - I won. Wiggly Wigglers provided my prize - gift vouchers - which I will enjoy spending . I was, and still am, SO pleased about this award - I have been a finalist in all the catagories in past years but never won, before. It was a good day for the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Master Composters in general as another of our group, Jeremy Thomas, won the Master Composter Achievement award.

I also "graduated" as a Master Gardener - which means I met the requirements to talk to lots of people about my passion for growing veg, mentor a certain number of households in their veg growing  and log a threshold number of hours doing so. Not difficult to do and great fun doing it!

After yet more refreshments ( Clipper teas and coffees, very nice!) it was time for the afternoon workshops, again a choice of 10 different workshops were available.

My choice of workshop was held in The Vegetable Kingdom building  and was about "Storing and Preserving your Harvest" . Even though I do a fair bit of preserving it was still really interesting and informative and I learnt some new ideas.  Andrea Jones, who gave the presentation, is a moderator on the Grow Your Own forum and really knew her stuff. We got "hands on" making some pickled courgette which we got to take home - yum!

We went back to the main Marquee for a wash up session ( literally as it was raining, again!) , the raffle (I didn't win) a final look around the various demonstrations stands and farewells. I had an interesting chat to Johannes Paul from Omlet - he was there with their new wormery the Hungry Bin . which looked really interesting. I was also very impressed by The HotBin composting system - it looked like a good product which could deal with all kitchen waste - including cooked food scraps.




So, that was my day at Ryton. I got back home at 7.30 pm, tired and hot but SO inspired by the day.

We didn't get to make "thank you" speeches at the awards -  ( thank goodness ) but I would like to say a few now. Thank you to all the staff at Garden Organic for making it such a wonderful day out and also thank you to all my fellow Master Composters/Gardeners  for being such a terrific group of people to work with!

I also want to thank the individual members of the Garden Organic team who are involved with me on a day to day basis -  and special thanks must go to my Council Waste Management team for all their support -  they manage us on a day to day basis and are wonderful.- thank you all.

And a big thank you to YOU, my readers - it wouldn't be half as interesting on here without you...!

Awarded!

Guess where *I* have been, today?

At Garden Organic HQ,

wonderful, wonderful Ryton.

I WILL provide a full write up, with pictures, tomorrow. I promise! But for now, after a long day away from home I am going to content myself with a short post.

This year’s Volunteer Masters Conference at Garden Organic, Ryton will host the Volunteer Masters Awards Ceremony. There are three categories within each of the Master Composter & Master Gardener schemes, which will recognise those volunteers who have gone beyond the call of duty and made outstanding contributions to the campaigns to promote composting or gardening in the UK. There will also be an individual award, which could encompass both composting and gardening.

 (Garden Organic website)

 I was shortlisted for The Innovation and Social Media Award, for my blog,  Fb  and   Twitter feeds (see links, above and to the right)

This award will recognise innovation and use of social media by either an individual or a group within the Master Composter or Master Gardener schemes. Innovative ideas come in many forms, but the judges will look particularly favourably upon those ideas that have the potential to be replicated across other schemes.

  (Garden Organic website)


And guess who won...

ME!

Thank you all SO much, my lovely followers on the Compostbin blog, Fb, Twitter etc for all your comments and questions. Without your input this blog would all be a lot less interesting I think :-)And so I probably would not have won...

Off to celebrate with the Compostbin family, now :-)

If you like this blog...vote for me!

I am in the Dorset Cereals "Little Blog awards" list again this month, so if you like my blog please consider going here and voting for me?

Please?

Thank you! :-)

Master Composter Conference 2009

One thing I DID enjoy during the 6 weeks in the summer when I was not blogging, due to illness, was going to the 2009 Master Composter Conference at Garden Organic in Ryton. This is always a really good event and full of inspiring speakers. Mixing with several hundred fellow compost enthusiasts is always a treat as well!



I went to a wonderful workshop on insects given by Peter Smithers, co author of a really good book of bug ID. The workshop was wildly oversubscribed and there really were not enough microscopes etc which was a shame but he gave a fascinating talk and was very informative. He also gave a talk to the whole conference about how little is known on the insects etc which actually live in a working compost bin and so we Master Composters are all going to be part of a very large scientific survey to establish what,species are actually in there. Very exciting!

I was yet again nominated for awards, I made it into the final 3 for the Master Composter Achievement Award and also Herefordshire and Worcestershire Master Composters were finalists for the Master Composter Group Award, although I/we didn't actually win... but still, an honour to be nominated!

Alys Fowler gave an interesting talk



and also presented awards and cut the cake, she was very interesting and friendly to chat to as well. Wiggly Wigglers sponsored a wonderful cake, made in the shape of
(you guessed it!) a Can O Worms wormery! It was very tasty and not at all wormy!

Alys cutting the cake...


I was very tired by the time I got back home that evening,as I really was not feeling very well but it was good to go and share my passion for all things composty with a few hundred like minded souls. I also had a lovely wander around the gardens, they were stunning in July!



Wildflower meadow with the Giant Flowerpot in the middle!



Look out for me in the Oct edition of "Grow Your Own" magazine as well ;-)

Awards, and an apology

I have been given an award by Jennie over on her blog



“The authors say that blogs who receive this award are exceedingly charming. This blog invests in proximity in space, time and relationships. These kind bloggers aim to find and be new friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandisement. Our hope is that when ribbons of these awards are cut, even more friendships will be propagated. Please give your kind attention to these writers.”

WOW! I am very flattered! Thank you Jennie!

Anyway, a condition of the award is that I send it on to eight other bloggers.

However, I (ahem) have also been given this award by Hot Belly Mama on her blog


Lemondade Stand Award!


The rules for this one are to nominate 10 blogs that show gratitude or great attitude or both

And THIS award by Greentwinsmummy in A Life full of blessings





I am SO flattered! I really am...and I can't possibly decide on 26 different recipients, who haven't already been given at least 2 of them ( because I was so tardy in sending them on...ooops sorry, I was a bit busy in January!!)

So, I hope no one minds if I don't pick any one to get any of these...I want YOU to award yourself one, if you are reading this! I love all the blogs I have listed and many other blogs which I haven't, so this seems the only fair way to go..

I hope Jennie, Hot Belly Mama and Greentwinsmummy don't mind......

Green meme 1

I’ve been tagged - by kittyboo
and this one seems very interesting to participate in!

The Guidelines:

1. Link to Green Meme Bloggers

2.Link to whoever tagged you

3.Include meme number

4.Include these guidelines in your post

5.Answer questions ( which are quite thought provoking!)

6.Tag 3 other green bloggers.


.....................................................

1. Name two motivations for being green:

I was brought up in a self sufficient manner by my parents, living in the country, growing food, rearing chickens and riding horses. Although I lived in a city as an adult, I always tried to live a more self sufficient life, composting, growing veg, recycling, being a member of various environmental pressure groups etc. I can't imagine being any other way, although I have got much "deeper" green in the last 10 years or so...because....

I now live in a place where we CAN be more self sufficient and I have an 8 year old daughter. I found that being pregnant and then having a child tended to concentrate my mind even more on the issues of what we are doing to our environment which will be passed on to our children as an inheritance for them to deal with.

I got involved with various environmnetal pressure groups in the early 90's, and as a result I also started up my own Environmental Consultancy, advising mainly small community groups on fighting Incinerators, Road Schemes and things of that ilk. I gradually learned more and more and it all sort of grew from there!

2. Name 2 eco-unfriendly items you refuse to give up

My car. It would be very hard to live here and do the work I do ( I am an Environmental Educator and Forest School Leader) without a car, but I AM aware that I really ought to not use one.

Umm...I can't really think of much else? Oh..I know!

Buying books ( mainly from Amazon), rather than going to the library for them. I prefer to own books even though I KNOW I could just borrow them!

3. Are you at peace with, or do you feel guilty about no.2?

Hmm I try not to do "guilt"...I do the best I can under current circumstances and I know I *do* live without a lot of things I might quite like, because I think its not a good idea to have them from a Carbon Footprint POV!

Giving up a car is something we are jointly discussing at the moment, seeing if we could manage here with only one car is on the cards as an experiment.

4. What are you willing to change but feel unable to/stuck with/unsure how to go about it?

I would love to keep pigs and table chickens (for their meat) but am having to consider the feelings of other family members on this matter. *I* have killed meat I have raised, in the past, but they have not and are not so comfortable with the idea (yet)

We want to replace the Oil fired Aga with a wood burning stove system, and also install a solar thermal water heating system....but ill health and bad weather this year has conspired to slow our plans. Hopefully next year will be better.....!

5. Do you know your carbon footprint for your home? If so, is it larger/smaller than your national average?

Yes we do know our footprint and we are at the Govt recommended levels for 2050 - however, we still have a long, long way to go until we’re what we'd consider truly sustainable. We have plans to install Solar thermal water heating, remove our use of oil for heating and generate electricity via PV's and when we have done all that our footprint will be MUCH lower!

6.What’s eco-frustrating and/or eco-fantastic about where you live?

Eco frustrating:

The recycling scheme - We don't get kerbside collection so all our recycling efforts are done by Compostman and I loading up our car when we are going somewhere close by a recycling site!

A lack of like-minded people close by. There are LOADS of like minded people but they mainly require a fair old car trip!

Eco fantastic:

Where do I start? We have enough land to grow most of our own veg, keep chickens, we could rear our own meat. We have a wonderful woodland which provides wood for our heating and is a solace to the soul and an endless source of fun and wonder, watching the wildlife.

We have tremendous providers of good, organic/free range local food and drink and a good network of like minded people around us in nearby towns.

We are involved in educating children at our DD's school in Organic gardening and sustainability issues so are helping the next generation to learn about useful stuff.

#

7. Do you eat local/organic/vegetarian/forage/grow you own?

Yes, we buy organic if at all possible, we largely grow our own veg and fruit but use a local Veg box scheme or a local Organic greengrocer shop to fill in when we run out or didn't grow.

We are not vegetarian - I sometimes think we should be but we like meat too much. We do limit the amount of meat we have and will only buy good quality meat that we know has been farmed in an free range, ( usually Organic) way. We eat a fair bit of cheese and, of course, lots of our own eggs.

We forage a bit, mainly nuts, but we grow enough stuff on our own land!

8. What do you personally find the most challenging in being green?

The constant mental auditing process about everything..... its part of who I am and I have always thought deeply about things... but occasionally I look at something I would really like to have and it's just *not* right..it ticks all the " wrong" boxes from an ethical, environmental, sustainable view point ( lets say its been tested on animals and made in a sweat shop !)

....and I would love, just sometimes to feel like I could say "sod it, I WILL have it" and not have my conscious niggling away at me IYKWIM

I would love to fly to other countries again but that is something we just don't do. So any trips abroad will have to be slow ones!

Also, people are surprised at our lifestyle because we look relatively normal! The expectation is still that "being green" means looking like a hippy! But we don't!

9. Do you have a green confession?

I don't know about a confession, as I don't like to ascribe guilt to things in that way......but in the interests of this meme....

I still buy stuff from Supermarkets....we have 2 brands of Super in my home town and Te$co is one..the other had been bought out by the Co Op and I am pleading with TPTB that it is turned into a Co Op! but at the moment, I have to get some stuff from the evil giant....I get mainly cat meat,loo roll, beer and wine and milk from them ..but I wish I didn't get any thing from there! I do use Waitrose or Sainsbugs in nearby towns if I am there, and I get a bit more stuff from them,( still ethical /fair trade/organic etc...) but we try to buy most of our meat, dairy, milk, flour. pulses, nuts etc from local suppliers, Farmers Market or our local wholefood shop

If I could, I would never set foot in a Supermarket again, but its just not really possible, even here!

10. Do you have the support of family and/or friends?

My husband is incredibly supportive and without him we could not live the life we do. I have some good friends who are like minded and live in a similar manner. I have other good friends who are at least sympathetic, even if they don't live in the same way. I don't have any friends who are unsympathetic!

So..I'd love to read the answers to these questions from ...

GTM

Eco Gites.

Aromatic.

Tagged!

I have been awarded a Tree of Happiness :-)) Thank you Eco Gites!



The rules of this award are:

1. Link to the person who gave the award to you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. List six things that make you happy.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
6. Let the person who awarded you, know when your entry is up.



So... six things that make me happy: They are things for this time of year, if I were to do this in the summer I think I would be putting different things!

1. Working in my polytunnel, during the winter , when it is cold and wet outside and I am warm and dry inside! I love the sound of rain hammering down on the outside when I am inside.

2. Woodlands. I can wander around, sit and look and listen and smell the smells of a woodland for hours and hours.

3. Cats. A cat sitting on my lap, purring away like a steam train, and Compostman sitting next to me , with another cat on HIS lap!

4. A meal of home-produced food, cooked by Compostman (who is an excellent cook!) , with a nice glass ( or several) of good red wine, or beer or home made something. And then a sit on the sofa in front of the woodburner, with a cat or 3 on my lap!

5. My Hens. Their antics make me laugh most days...and sometimes its the only laugh I get....so I treasure their silly clucks and squarks and fights over nothing.....and the chicks especially are SO funny!

6. Doing environmental stuff with children. I LOVE to work with children and see the delight on their faces when they see something they have not seen before, or grow a carrot and pull it out of the ground for the first time!

Now for the blogs. I love reading other people's blogs, so it has been hard to limit it to 6, but here goes!


Hot Belly Mama

The Winds of Change

Being Mrs C

Tea With Willow

The Smallest Smallholding

A Little Slice of Life

I will let you all know you have been tagged by me and if you want to, you can pass it on...but don't worry if you don't want to do it!

A big thank you.......

A BIG thank you to the lovely ( and she is , I have met her in RL!) Wren who has given me not one, but 2 awards! Thank you sweetie!













the rules are :-

1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you
3. Nominate at least seven other blogs
4. Add links to those blogs
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

So I now will think of people whose blogs I like to read and nominate them!


But not just now as I have VERY IMPORTANT THINGS to do outside with the Broody Ark and Sweetiepie....no awards given for guessing what is happening!!!!!

AWARD!

The Compostbins blog has received an award! ! Thank you so much Little Veg Patch, I am very very chuffed to be considered for this award. The rules are that I pass it on to 7 of my favourite blogs. I can't, however , pass it on to Little Veg Patch....

So...

I have decided to award the blogs that I like and read regularly. There is no significance in the order, I just did them alphabetically!


Up the Garden Path A beautiful blog, a family in France working hard, being as self suffcient as possible.

The Patient Gardener Fabulous photos which always make me smile!

Tales from the Forest Another family working towards as self sufficient life as possible!

Musings from a Stonehead someone who is about as self sufficient as it gets...I am inspired by his hard work and achievements!

Mrs Nesbitt's place My friend who makes me smile!

Green lane Allotments for spreading the word about Aminopyralid contamination of manure and helping to get something done about it!

Downshift me Matt and Aj - self sufficiency in Nova Scotia!

The common theme? I like these blogs, they make me smile, give me inspiration and ideas :-)