Nature

If you want to harvest healthy, organically farmed produce you will need to replenish your soil regularly with compost. 

Jane Griffiths is the Sustainable Waste Manager at Garden Organic, an organic growing charity in the United Kingdom.  She will be running a training course in composting on the Isle of Man this autumn.

“The first step to becoming a Garden Organic Master Composter is to attend a short training course to ensure that you have some basic knowledge.

“The course I am running in the Isle of Man also covers the Manx waste management situation as well as the basics of home composting.

More people are growing their own

“We discuss how we can get people interested and involved in home composting across the Island. Our newly trained Master Composters will then go out and promote home composting in their local communities for 25 hours over the year in the hope that we get more people composting.

“We get a real mix of people attending these training sessions. On previous courses we have had people aged from 20 to 80 years, both male and female.  They are not just keen gardeners, but from all walks of life, often with a passion for the environment and recycling, and many just really enthusiastic about the magical brown substance called compost!

Some areas are further on than others

“At this year's Master Composter conference we had over 150 trained Master Composter from across the country. The UK has always had a great passion for gardening, but as people become more environmentally aware and try growing their own food, we are beginning to see a notable increase in numbers using organic gardening methods over conventional ones.

“Once organic gardening was a niche area but today greener gardening practices are considered mostly mainstream. In research carried out with Garden Organic’s members we found that growing some of your own fruit and vegetables can save you over £320 a year and there is no doubt that this year has seen a surge of interest in 'grow your own' activities.

“The news earlier in the year that there are over 100,000 people on allotment waiting lists supports this idea, as do reports by some estate agents in the UK that more people now request to view properties with their own veg plots.

“Garden Organic's members have always been interested in fruit and veg growing, but even we have noticed a significant increase in traffic to the gardening advice pages of our website, which during the summer had over 42,000 visitors a month.

“We currently work in partnership with 11 county councils to co-ordinate Master Composter schemes, however this is growing all the time, and we're very excited to have the opportunity to cross the water to work with the Isle of Man for the first time.

Master Composters

“Other projects that Garden Organic's Sustainable Waste Management team have also carried out include a number of research projects, such as looking at different types of compost bins and wormeries, exploring alternative waste management ideas such as bokashi, as well as looking at ideal potting mixes.

“People are becoming more and more aware of the importance of organic composting.  One couple even held a compost gardening party for their nine year old son!"