With so many of us now temporarily working from home and in some cases, spending more time in our homes than we ever have before, many people have chosen to spend time working on their garden. It’s a win-win after all – you get some fresh air and time outside of your house (whilst behaving in accordance with the lockdown restrictions), plus your garden gets a make-over!
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has announced that they’ve seen increased numbers of people seeking gardening advice during lockdown. In particular, views of pages on the charity’s website on how to compost were up nearly 500% compared to 2019.
This statistic makes perfect sense to us, as we’ve sold more compost bins in the first 2 weeks of April 2020 than we ever have before.
This also makes complete sense once you realise that more than a third of English councils have temporarily suspended green waste collections, with people being advised to compost their garden waste at home instead.
So, if you’re working hard in your garden – probably creating more green waste than you ever have before – then now’s the time to start composting. There are, after all, many benefits to home composting.
Here are our top 5 reasons why you might want to consider to start composting (aside from the fact that your bin is overflowing and you’ve got nowhere else to put your garden waste!)
- Compost retains more water. Compost helps to strengthen the soils ability to store more water. Meaning plants need to be watered less frequently.
- Compost reduces soil erosion. Instead of top soil being blown away, compost can restore topsoil and build stable soil structure.
- Compost reduces landfill waste. Composting helps divert materials from going to landfills, which helps to minimise greenhouse gas emissions.
- Compost helps plants. Compost adds nutrients to slowly feed plants.
- Compost feels good. We don’t mean literally (unless you like that sort of thing), we mean that disposing of your own garden waste and food waste yourself – rather than having other people collect it and take it away – feels good. You’re helping the planet, taking responsibility for your own waste and turning it into something useful.
If you don’t currently compost, but you’ve got the space and garden in which to do it, we highly encourage you to give it a go. Even if you don’t care that much about points 1-4 in the above list, point 5 will get you. You will feel good about it once you start. And let’s face it, we would all welcome more reasons to feel good during this ‘strange’ time. Give composting a go and let us know how it makes you feel!
