Wordless Wednesday - busy in the garden.

Master Composters at Hellens - The Garden Festival

The Garden Festival at Hellens was totally terrific and absolutely excellent! As the website says: 

Our theme for the 2013 Festival is: Abundance - in nature, on the land, in our gardens, allotments, balconies, woods and hedgerows. Once again we will be gathering an interesting mix of speakers, exhibitors and demonstrators - all in the beautiful setting of Hellens Manor. 

We welcome up to 3,000 visitors to the event so it is a great opportunity for the public to find great products and services - as well as having a lovely family day out.

Luckily for me I had an "abundance" of fellow Master Composter volunteers with me on our stall over the weekend, which was a good thing as the place was absolutely heaving with people having fun in the glorious sunshine. On Saturday I had the company of Paul all day and Christine E in the afternoon. It was lovely to see them both, as it is some time since we last met up and in the lulls I was able to catch up with all their news :-)

Here is the stall, set up and ready to go on Saturday morning. We were in a corner, between the Hereford Waldorf School children's activity tent (the white tent, above) and another big marquee full of interesting stalls selling lovely stuff and various "green" themed charities. I must thank the organising team of Gail, Michael and Maggie for putting us there and sorting out the splendid green tent for us :-)

Our main stall table has lots of leaflets on how to make compost; the discount compost bins available; information about Garden Organic; samples of coir based growing medium (peat free alternative); free seeds and pencils to hand out; and examples of what can be composted.

This tray contains grass, herbs, flowers and the (compostable) bags contain straw, crumpled newspaper, egg boxes, wool, cotton waste, paper sheets, toilet roll tubes, hay and shredded paper. This is to show people what can be composted...

and what it turns into! 

Here are some samples dug from my compost bins at 5 am on Sat morning (!) to show people what finished compost should look like. It will have bits in - if you want it to look fine you need to sieve or riddle it.

More display boards, compost bins, a "can o worms" wormery and our seed planting activity table completed our set up.

We spoke to more than 150 people on Sat which was a terrific result :-) At the end of the day we were invited to a Pimms reception on the beautiful terraces, but the reception had to move to another location due to a swarm of honey bees!  Still, it was good to chat to the organisers and the family who own Hellens, as well as other stallholders.

Sadly I didn't get to listen to Brigit Strawbridge talk about bees  :-( (check out her amazing blog  here)  but I did manage to catch up with her later and have a chat :-) If you are reading this it was lovely to see you again Brigit :-) and good luck with your new venture at Bumblebee Farm. 

I got home at 7 pm very hot and tired but a shower and some dinner and a sit in the garden with my cats and hens soon perked me up again. I sorted out new leaflet supplies and my laptop and projector and put them in the car, then went to bed early, ready for another early start on Sunday.

Sunday was another glorious day, a few less people at the Festival but still very busy! I was helped on Sunday by fellow Master Composters Christine J, Janice and Nina which meant there were enough of us so we all got to leave the stall and have a look around the Festival. I bought some lovely organically grown plants from The Cottage Herbery. They are based locally and grow their plants in Fertile Fibre coir based compost, indeed they originally founded Fertile Fibre before handing it on to Matthew at Withington Court. I always enjoy talking to Kim & Rob about plants and they are very knowledgeable :-)

Then after lunch (pork roll from The Squeaky Pig Company  and Noggin Farm  - yum) it was time to get ready for my talk. I got everything set up in the Cider Barn - cool and dark with a stone flagged floor which was a lovely contrast after the now scorching heat outside. I was a little surprised, but very pleased, to see that all the seats were filled plus there were a couple of people standing so that was 25 people in total waiting to listen to "Lets talk Compost!" 

My talk is illustrated with lots of slides with photos from my garden - you would probably recognise many of them from this blog - as well as samples of compost to look at and a "can it be composted" card on each of the seats - I ask people to decide what they think about the item on their card at the start of the talk and then ask them at the end if they have changed their mind - people often do after hearing the talk!

The audience seemed to enjoy what I had to say about composting and growing, which is always a relief! I had a 45 minute slot to complete my talk and answer questions, but then I was asked to carry on and answer more questions. As there was no one else due to use the room, I did so and we carried on for another 15 minutes :-)

Then it was 4 pm and time to pack up the stall and somehow fit it all back into my car ( which I still have not yet unloaded!)

In total over the weekend we spoke to 250 people (maybe more, I wasn't there all the time).  Lots of people who were all wanting to know more about composting - how to get started, how to do it better, what to do with the compost they make. Hopefully they feel more informed, now.

I have had a really excellent weekend of volunteering, with a group of friends, at a fabulous venue with excellent organisation, to promote a subject we are all passionate about.  

Can't really get much better than that, I think :-)

Some photos from the Herefordshire Eco Schools event

Fellow Master Composter Martin, just before the event started. We were joined by Gerry later on and it was good to catch up with them both and have a chat over the lunc break.

My display board, with lots of information on composting and the composting creatures which make it all happen

Me! Waiting to show the children some of the creatures which live in the compost. I have bug viewing pots and samples on the table in front of me. We also did seed planting with the children and played a " what can we compost" game.

Sorry, no photos of school children in action, for obvious reasons!

We had an excellent day and spoke to 130 children and their teachers over the course of the event. All the people who had put on events were thanked and applauded at the end which was a nice touch, and we were supplied throughout the day with unlimited offers of cups of tea, coffee and cake :-)

I do love doing these events :-)

Busy being Compostwoman

Its been a busy week for my alter ego, Compostwoman.

On Wednesday I spent all day at  with 13 Herefordshire Primary Schools at an event to celebrate World Environment Day and Eco Schools, along with representatives from Water, Cycling, Waste minimisation, Healthy Living, Global Perspectives and other good stuff. I, and several other Master Composters , were there as "Others" which covered Green Woodworkers, Recycled crafts, h Energy, Nigel Hand ( again) with assorted wonderful reptiles and us with planting, bug hunts in the compost and the compost food chain.

It was a terrific day and the children seemed to really, really enjoy themselves :-)

I have also been preparing for a very busy weekend - I am at The Garden Festival, Hellens  this weekend, along with a team of Master Composters - yet again I am the organiser for the MC's, so have a lot of preparation and planning to do to make sure our stall is really good and everyone is happy with what they are doing :-)

I am also setting up the stall and taking it down again on Sunday.

And giving a talk on Sunday afternoon.

So my mind is FULL of compost at the moment :-)

But I hope to have time to look around the wonderful stalls there, and especially to go and listen to Brigit Strawbridge talk about Bees :-)

Off to take some of the stall to Hellens - it is a beautiful June summer evening here

Hope you have a lovely week end, whatever you do.

Low Carbon Ledbury event at Ledbury Community Fair.

This weekend Ledbury celebrates The Coronation by recreating the Ox Roast which was held here, in 1953.

The Ox Roast event is happening tomorrow, but today was a town wide celebration of all the good things which happen in our little market town -  the Ledbury Community Day.


I was upstairs in the beautiful medieval Market House doing a h Energy/ Master Gardener stall, fellow Master Composters also had a stall there, as did many other local "green" groups. Lots of other community groups showcased their activities all over Ledbury.

 Nigel Hand from the reptile group was there, with wonderful slow worms, newts and grass snakes.

The Worcester Scrapstore had a stand and did some wonderful activities throughout the event - Compostgirl made an insect out of a plastic bottle top :-)

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Master Composters stand with seed planting activities, composting advice and Love Food Hate Waste information.

Compostgirl went off to do Guides activities in The Walled Garden with Ledbury Guides - very proud to be dressed in her uniform and necker and to be part of the day's events, which were happening all over Ledbury town. (link to map)  :-)

It was great fun; Speaking purely from my own experience -  I spoke to over 40 people on my stall alone; five households signed up to take part in h.Energy Savers and two households signed up to have me mentor them for a year with advice on getting started in vegetable growing - so all in all a very successful event :-)

Judging by the crowds of people and the conversations I had with visitors, the other stalls were equally successful and the whole event went very well.

We finished at 2 pm and packed up; being upstairs in the Market House created some "challenges" getting boxes and display boards up and down the stairs but finally everything was loaded into the car and Compostman drove me home.

And I am now officially exhausted. Compostgirl has gone off for a sleepover with a friend, so I think a sit down and a cup of tea is in order, before I start on the planting and watering routine in the garden.:-)