As part of growing flowers at Young Blooms, we have over the last couple of years begun making our own compost. I think we can blame lockdown with the start of our fascination, one the of the main drivers for us was realising that food waste can’t breakdown in landfill. You would think, because its organic material it will just biodegrade.
Unfortunately its sits and releases gases that we don’t want, so what to do?
The discovery of compost tumblers was the starting place. We put in a combination of food waste, cardboard, newspaper, sawdust, grass cuttings and also duck poo from our friends ducks! 🙂
You might wonder how a tumbler works as opposed to a compost bin so I found this helpful description. “When you rotate the drum of a compost tumbler, the waste ‘tumbles’ around, introducing air pockets to the decomposing matter inside. These air pockets provide oxygen for the microorganisms that help break down food waste and other organics, enabling them to do their job.”
We began to invest in them and started to collect food waste and with a post to a local eco Facebook group beginning us on our way. Being able to watch the process of seeing things that are recognisable as maybe a carrot top and a piece of cardboard turn into something completely different as you can see in the pictures below is utterly fascinating. The fabulous thing is it makes our business nice and circular as that compost goes back into our soil to help grow next years flowers.
You might think that a florist and grower is a wonderful job as you get to decorate amazing venues and use gorgeous flowers. The reality from these photos is a little different. 🙂 However there is huge satisfaction from having space to do this and choosing to make the time to invest in our business.
In our composting addiction we have also found a brilliant social enterprise called The Urban Worm who we were able to use. Every year we go into the some of local primary schools to teach floristry and this time we were able to teach them about composting using their own wormery’s from the urban worm.
This is something that everyone can have a go at, just using a compost bin can get you started. So why not rather than putting your food waste in your kitchen bin, invest and get yourself a compost bin and start on a fun journey.