Winter Composting Tips
Throughout November 2022, we're putting a sale on a wide selection of our composting range and accessories! Planet-saving products at affordable prices to help you along with your EvenGreener journey. View our sale and start saving here.
Winter Composting
Converting your food and organic waste into compost provides a huge range of benefits for your garden and our planet, including regenerating the health of your soil, improving your garden’s conservation of water, diffusing nutrients to enrich your plants, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by diverting waste that would otherwise rot away in landfill.
Whether you’re a veteran gardener or are just starting out on your quest to adopt some more environmentally friendly habits, harvesting compost will forever get you a pat on the back from us here at EvenGreener. To help you through the colder months, we’ve devised a list of tips to make sure you’re getting the best out of your winter compost to keep your garden flourishing all-year round.
Composting in winter can be much more difficult than through the warmth of summer. The temperature at the core of your compost bin or heap will drop, sometimes to the point where the decomposition of your organic materials will stop completely. Similarly, excessive rain can put a spanner in the works too, causing your compost to rot, killing off healthy microorganisms and leaving you with unhealthy produce for your garden and soil. Fear not, here are our EvenGreener winter composting tips to help you and your garden through the colder months.
1. Get the balance right
A healthy pile of compost should be balanced between green and brown ingredients. Green produce, such as vegetable peelings, fruit scraps, grass cuttings, teabags and coffee grounds are all high in nitrogen. Brown produce on the other hand, is high in carbon, and can be found in the form of twigs, straw, hay, crushed eggshells, and cardboard from toilet rolls and cereal boxes.
Roughly, a ratio of 3 or 4 parts brown, to 1 part green is the most suitable mixture for rich, healthy compost. Keeping this ratio steady throughout winter should keep your compost at optimal temperatures, and the brown produce is great for absorbing and storing water to keep your winter compost dry and nutritious enough to remain highly valuable for your garden.
For any beginner gardeners out there, our bestselling Blackwall Compost Converter is on sale during Composting week, lasting until midnight 13th November 2022. It's the perfect addition for your home to create some nutrient-dense compost to invigorate some life into your garden and plants. Quick and simple to install, and so easy to use, kickstart your EvenGreener lifestyle with either the 220 or 330 litre model here.
Get the UK's bestselling compost bin on sale here!
2. Start Hot Composting
Hot composting enables you to transform and recycle your food and organic waste all year-round, via specially designed compost bins that trap and retain the heat given off by the microorganisms whilst they break down waste. At EvenGreener, we stock a wide range of hot composters to ensure we have a size and style suitable for all homes and gardens. Here are just a couple that we offer:
HotBin Composter
Available in a 100 or 200 litre size, with complementary accessories available, our HotBin range makes up the perfect composting solution for families with larger quantities of food and organic waste. Its highly efficient design and structure enables it to churn through a variety of cooked/raw fish and meat (including bones), vegetable peelings, fruit scraps, dairy produce, and much more.
Reaching temperatures of 60°C, the HotBin hot composts your waste all-year round, producing rich, nutritious fertiliser for your garden 32 times quicker than traditional composting! It’s manufactured with cold weather in mind, remaining highly insulated to produce compost in just 30 to 90 days.
HotBin composting range available here!
Green Johanna Compost Bin
Winner of Which? Best Buy for Compost Bins in 2021, the Green Johanna certainly lives up to its expectations. With a large 330 litre capacity, this composter makes light work of breaking down all your food and organic waste into healthy compost for your garden, and comes with a lid, base plate, wooden aerator/stirrer, assembly kit, instructions and composting handbook.
Get your Green Johanna here!
3. Chop your mix
Woody, brown material should be added gradually, in small pieces and chunks throughout the winter to provide a larger surface area within your compost for the microorganisms to work on. This speeds up the decomposition process, and generates more heat in the process. Throwing in big pieces of woody waste can take years to break down, so it’s well worth taking a bit of time and effort to chop it up beforehand.
To help you along the way with your composting journey, we're offering 10% off our Compost Accessories Starter Bundle - perfect for beginner gardeners who are looking for a quick and convenient kickstart to their EvenGreener lifestyle. Buy yours here!
Get 10% off your Compost Accessories Starter Bundle here!
4. Stock up on insulation
It’s important to keep the microbes in your compost active over winter. To do so, move your winter compost bin or pile over to the sunniest spot of your garden to keep the decomposition cycle ticking over. Couple this with adding layers of leaves, cardboard, straw and sawdust to your compost pile to ensure it remains insulated and retains enough heat.
If you’re a lucky owner of our classically designed Green Johanna Compost Bin, we offer an innovative Winter Jacket to pair it with through the colder months too, ensuring your composter remains insulated and productive all-year round. Get hold of yours here!
5. Know which materials to compost in winter
Plants can lose up to 70% of their volume during winter composting, so if you have the quantity available through the winter, it can be wise to use it as a good opportunity to churn through as much leftover green waste as you can.
As mentioned, it’s best to avoid throwing in large chunks of woody material such as twigs, branches, and bark, so be sure to chop it up beforehand to speed up the decomposition process.
It’s also important to not turn your compost pile as often during the winter. Doing so will cause more heat to escape, so it’s best to keep interruption to a minimum and let nature take its course.
However, when the time does come to turn your compost pile, be sure to use our lightweight, easy-to-handle Compost Aerator, which is on sale at just £8.99 until midnight of November 13th 2022!
Get your Compost Aerator here. Perfect for mixing without getting your hands dirty!
6. Add in some worms
Vermicomposting, otherwise known as worm composting, is a fantastic alternative method to follow during the cold winter months. Worms have an amazing ability to transform food waste into nutrient-rich, dark soil amendment, which has similar properties to that of compost. Imagine them as a catalyst to your compost bin or pile.
To help you along the way, our composting worms are included in our sale lasting until midnight of the 13th of November, in 125g and 1kg sizes, so get yours here! They’re ideal for putting in your composter (except hot composters!), or for topping up your wormery with.
1kg Composting Worms on sale until midnight 13th November - get yours here!
Can-O-Worms
The Can-O-Worms system is another innovative wormery included in our collection. Available in 2 and 3 tier capacities, the kits include a voucher for native composting worms, a bag of lime mix to neutralise the acidity of the soil (when citrus items such as citrus fruits and/or onions have been added), a moisture mat, tap and instructions in each. Have a browse of our Can-O-Worm range right here.
7. Keep your compost pile a sufficient size
To get the best out of your winter compost, make sure your compost pile is large and sufficient enough to generate a good retention of heat and air diffusion. When you place alternate layers of material onto your pile, drizzle some water on top too, so the material is moist, but not drenched.
As you layer your compost pile up, adding a handful or two of topsoil between each layer will inject a source of microorganisms and nutrients to boost the health of your winter compost too.
The largest compost bin to feature in our Composting sale running from the 7th to 13th November 2022 is the Thermo-King Series, available in 400, 600 and 900 litre sizes. Manufactured from a specially engineered Thermolen® material, the Thermo-King composters are UV stable, and provide superb heat retention, creating the most desirable environment for your compost to thrive in. Carefully crafted, the Easy-lock assembly system makes setting your composter up an absolute breeze too, so get yours here whilst sale lasts!
Thermo-King 900 Litre! Shop the sale here.
So, there's our 7 EvenGreener winter composting tips to keep your garden thriving through the colder months. Shop the sale now and grab yourself a bargain this EvenGreener November. You can also sign up to the form below and receive our free Beginner's Guide to Composting!