ALAN POWER: Thanks for downloading this garden cutting
from the National Trust. I'm Alan Power Head gardener at the
Stourhead estate in Wiltshire.
In these shorter programs, I'm focusing on a particular aspect
of our work. And today I'm in our walled garden.
This is Emily Utgren. She's on the garden team at Stourhead and
does a multitude of tasks.
Emily, these are, I'm always quite proud of these compost
heaps because they're really tidy, aren't they?
You know, we can see grass clippings, you know, the soft
green shoots from, from the plants around the garden and it
goes into the compost heap is turned over, goes back into the
garden.
EMILY UTGREN: And we do it in six months, which is phenomenal.
ALAN POWER: It's quite a quick turnaround isn't it?
EMILY UTGREN: It's a really quick turnaround for a compost.
It's certainly not what occurs at home, I can tell you that!
And it's not this neat either. But, what we then have to do is
we have to make sure that the particle size of the stuff we
put in is going to rot down in six months.
ALAN POWER: And how do you, how do you ensure that happens?
EMILY UTGREN: Well, we're lucky because we've got a little
shredder. And that's the best idea because it means we can
even put things like, you know, the apple cut- prunings from the
apple trees annually, put it through the shredder and we can
actually get it to break down well enough in six months.
But we're not talking a seed sowing compost. We're talking,
quite a reasonably coarse compost, which we love here in
the walled garden because it provides almost slow release
nutrients.
But if you get this nice good coarse material with a tiny bit
of leaf still left in, it's also plenty for all of the animals
living within the soil. Like the worms, they've got plenty of
food to drag down and that makes the the soil airy for instance.
So it benefits so many different things to have (lots in your
compost).
ALAN POWER: By shredding and making the particle size smaller
that goes into the compost by adding the grass to it and
having, you know, your very easily accessible organic layer,
you're balancing the carbon release in the compost heap,
you're increasing the temperature because the
breakdown is accelerated, we turn it regularly.
So the compost is turned. So it increases the temperature in
different areas of it and it breaks down really quickly,
doesn't it?
EMILY UTGREN: The grass clippings being the accelerant
and produces good moisture and heat, but it has to be the fresh
because if, if you're raking hay, for instance, all of the
nitrogen is nearly gone already. So you just have to think a
little bit, actively, you know, it's a live thing, you know?
ALAN POWER: I often call it cooking.
EMILY UTGREN: Yeah.
ALAN POWER: How's the compost cooking? Because it's exactly
what you're doing, isn't it? So, where you're standing at the
moment, Emily, you're standing on a compost heap, on one that's
well rotted.
So, it's two thirds of the way down the compost bay. The other
side is full and is green and is working hard to decompose. But I
know for a fact that what you're standing on has had quite an
interesting visitors in the past, hasn't it?
EMILY UTGREN: We've had, we found, Grass Snake eggs, they
find somewhere nice and warm. And if you find them in your
compost, you know, you've actually got the heat, right?
It's not too hot and it's not too cold. So you don't even need
to use a thermometer in them.
ALAN POWER: I brought Matthew, my youngest son out to see it
and I said, Matty come and see this. So he came out, we just
came to the front of the compost heap and I lifted it up and we
just saw the tail end of one of the snakes disappearing and he
got so excited, lifted it up and the eggs were there and the
other parents were still around and then within three or four
weeks it was almost moving, wasn't it?
There was, there was a lot of the Grass Snakes in there. But
it, it's wonderful. You know, it's it's back to that whole
cycle of, you know, looking after wildlife, caring for
wildlife, even the compost heaps do it. You know, the whole thing
is inclusive which is brilliant.
EMILY UTGREN: It has to be a holistic way of looking at it
for sure.
ALAN POWER: Thanks for downloading this garden cutting
from the National Trust. You can make sure that you never miss an
episode by subscribing on your player where you'll also find
this month's full length episode of the National Trust Gardens
podcast. See you next time.
BETTANY HUGHES: I'm Bettany Hughes. I've been visiting
National Trust properties all my life, but in this series of
podcasts, I'm going beyond the delights of teas and topiary to
reveal the surprising European roots of some of the most
splendid sites in England.
You can subscribe to my series by searching for Bettany
Hughes's 10 places, Europe and us on your podcast app.