How to compost with Whanganui’s Andrea Coleman

Andrea Coleman's compost is all finished and ready for the garden. Photo / Phil Thomsen

There’s a bit of an art to composting, and it can be a daunting pastime to start. Luckily, Andrea Coleman, aka the “Compost Queen”, knows a thing or two about it. The Country’s Kem Ormond finds out more.

We all love the idea of using our waste food and turning it into compost, so we rush out, buy a compost bin, and end up with something that is a bit smelly and vaguely resembles compost.

So, we then change our mind and decide to buy a worm farm, it gets forgotten about in the garage, and the worms move on...does any of this sound familiar?

Sometimes it feels that making compost is just too difficult; how do you get the heat to the right temperature in the compost pile, so the weed seeds will die, when is the compost ready, what is a starter, and how do I aerate it?

I learnt a lot from a visit to a Whanganui resident, Andrea Coleman, who many call “the compost queen”.

While she says she is no expert, she certainly can produce some good compost.

Coleman has been composting for five years and started with a worm farm in an ice cream container.

Due to her section being small, Coleman has had to look at ways to produce compost efficiently and in a limited space.

Bokashi

Andrea Coleman's bokashi bucket has produced fungus, which is a good thing. Photo / Phil Thomsen

Coleman starts off putting her household scraps into bokashi buckets.

While these can be purchased, she found a business that stocked 10L buckets and made her own.

The top bucket needs to have holes in the bottom and then be placed on top of another bucket that catches the liquid.

So, in go the vegetable scraps and this is then covered with bokashi bran, which she purchases from a local garden centre.

For every colander-sized lot of scraps, she adds 1 tbsp of bokashi bran.

This should produce white fungus, which is the “friendly fungus”.

Once the bucket is full, it should be left for at least two weeks to ferment before you either bury it in the soil or add it to your compost heap as an activator.

Compost

Andrea Coleman uses an auger to aerate her compost. Photo / Phil Thomsen

When it comes to compost, there is only so much green waste you can collect from a small section.

Coleman collects coffee grounds from local cafes as well as horse manure that she adds to her compost.

In autumn, she is often seen with a fadge in the back of her trusty Toyota collecting leaves.

She has produced a great solution to speed up the time it takes for the leaves to break down; she spreads them on the lawn for the mower man to run over them with his lawnmower.

Coleman also saves all her lawn clippings and adds these to her compost, aiding the acceleration of heat in the compost.

Andrea Coleman's trusty compost thermometer. Photo / Phil Thomsen

She has a large thermometer that she plunges into her compost to check on the microbial activity happening.

The desired temperature is above 60C, which is needed to kill most weed seeds.

In Coleman’s 400L compost bin, it usually only stays this hot for about three days before it starts to cool down.

She aerates the compost with what looks like a giant corkscrew, and this helps keep it hot for longer due to the air passing through.

At this stage, the compost could be used as mulch, but by leaving it longer, it will decompose more, leaving beautiful, black, rich compost filled with nutrients and then all that it needs is some sieving and then on to the garden.

Worm farm

Andrea Coleman's worm farm. Photo / Phil Thomsen

In Coleman’s garage is an incredibly happy worm farm.

The worms enjoy a broad range of household food scraps, turning them into castings and worm tea.

I asked Coleman why Bokashi buckets and a worm farm.

She said, “The worms don’t like meat, citrus or onions, and these can go into the bokashi bucket”.

While most people purchase worms for their worm farm, Coleman found her worms by burying some bokashi in the ground inside a piece of netting.

“When I pulled it up a while later, it was full of worms.

“I have no idea if they’re red wrigglers, the kind that people purchase online, but they seem to do the trick,” she said.

Coleman said there were a couple of people who she found inspiring in the garden.

“When it comes to gardening and composting, two influential people have been Phillip Thomsen, who recently published a book, The Practical Kiwi Gardener, and Kate Flood, known as Compostable Kate on Instagram.”