In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[quote=AllanMason;87573]I'll probably get a not entirely undeserved hammering for stereotyping, [/quote] I hate to have to disagree with you again, Al, but in this part of Italy you will find the reverse is true. This is a predominantly agricultural area and you will be hard pressed to find any house with a bit of an orto (or even a lot of orto) without a compost bin/heap. Bonfires are very rarely seen - in fact, I have been warned that it against the law to light one without permission! (yes, I know - sale, sale, sale...). It would seem true to say that the average gardener here is much more in tune with growing veg and fruit than flowers though, although, the many garden centres around here would lend the lie to the thought. The major difference up here is the poor quality of the lawns that people have - despite many seeming to spend a fortune on grass care products, together with inordinate amounts of their gardening time trying to cultivate an "English" lawn. The weather doesn't help them much though.
Alan, you should take a drive around the Fens and tell me if it looks as you imagine gardens are in England - or smack yourself on the wrist for stereotyping!
:winki:
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Yes round here they rotavate and burn. Oddly I read somewhere that if you were to cultivate organic olives then you HAVE to burn all prunings. Castorama do a reasonably cheap sectional compost bin in green plastic. If all thin olive prunings were put through a smasher-upper would they compost down and would this encourage/discourage the olive fly?
I really would like to get some organic matter in to our soil here. All suggestions gratefully received.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
We have two compost bins made out of pallets, cost nothing. I wonder if that means we get a 20% discount?!.
A
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In Puglia it is compulsory to rotovate your land at least once a year (spring) to avoid bush fires. If you don't, and the fire spread from or via your land, you can be held responsible and fined.
Compost bins needs water regularly to be sure of proper decomposing. And water is a big problem in Puglia. I for one would like to compost and get some soil improvement, but as we don't live there permanently, it may be a problem.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
there are differential collections in most regions of Italy from the sort of lazio/abruzzo line northwards... and in general these are run fairly honestly... in other areas although an entirely different argument you would need if buying the stuff in to check its quality carefully...
many cities and large towns have had this quite some time and they are reaching high percentages on recycling and composting... much of the green waste that will decompose is taken by large centres which will sell it back to the consumer either by the bag or by the truckload...each province will have its own system... and it is something that has been running for quite some time in the UK with a fair bit of success ...so would presume it would work here OK too...
i have always argued against composting here unless you can site it well away from your living area... not so much from the disease aspect ...just the bugs it attracts... and if not managed well it would be a major mosquito breeding ground... even covering with plastic has its dangers as water gets caught in folds and stagnates... in england you get those really small compost flies... which annoy...here...god knows what...
however each to his own... i would think the best way to deal with masses of branches is to burn...the residue is organic and does not have disease... the other way is to just put it through a shredder and rotovate it in... ok you will get some nitrogen loss as it decomposes but you will gain in soil structure...
however to my mind the best way is to use plants...things like clovers are good.. and broad beans are excellent... plant things like this up ... cut them down and rotovate then in once they have dried...you fix nitrogen...the roots go down and benefit the soil structure well below normal rotovating depth and you add good fibre to the top level of soil allowing other helpers...worms and beetles etc to make use of the organic matter and improve your soil..
let the comune look after your green waste and use plants as your soil improver... and if you want a bit more buy it back off the comune..
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[quote=livarandsofie;87626]In Puglia it is compulsory to rotovate your land at least once a year (spring) to avoid bush fires. If you don't, and the fire spread from or via your land, you can be held responsible and fined.
Compost bins needs water regularly to be sure of proper decomposing. And water is a big problem in Puglia. I for one would like to compost and get some soil improvement, but as we don't live there permanently, it may be a problem.[/quote]
I have heard that Pee is good for compost heaps..........and you dont have to remember to put the lid down after..............:laughs:
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
We compost even -- and solve the water problem by using buckets of water from the kitchen sink as grey water to keep the compost wet (easy to put a hose attachment to the U-turn in the drain) -- no real need for a "bin", unless you have a small property and a small amount of vegetable peelings/kitchen waste/etc. We simply pile up all of our cleaning up/rakings/canning & preserving waste/etc., etc. at the far end of the orchard, turn it over every 60-90 days, water it with grey water in the dry months -- and then use the compost in the orto and the orchard by spreading it before tilling. We also use clover/rye/oats/legume mix planted in the autumn (end of Sept to mid-Oct) also in the orto and the orchard, turn them under in February or March, whenever we have a dry-ish week. Not in favor of burning -- love the smell, hate the air pollution -- we use our olive prunings and vine trimmings in the forno for pizza!
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Imagine our surprise when, two years ago we had a free compost bin delivered by the commune - an initative by the mayor as we moved to refuse collection (a new thing in Piedmont back then) - along with containers for seperating recycling.
[quote=sueflauto;87566]Must admit I hardly see any heaps around this area; composting doesn't seem as common as in the UK.[/quote]
I'll probably get a not entirely undeserved hammering for stereotyping, but my impression is that the predominant gardening culture in Italy is about where Britain and the USA were, say, twenty years ago: rotovate (or, if you're a masochist, double-dig) the entire garden every year, toss synthetic fertiliser on the soil to make things grow and spray broad-range insecticides on everything in sight if you ever spot bugs on your plants.
As for composting, well just about every Italian knows the proper thing to with garden waste is burn it a bonfire that produces the maximum possible amount of smoke! If you don't believe this, take a look around next Autumn. Or look around as much as you [I]can[/I] see, anyway. :eerr:
I read somewhere that one of Mussonlini's many efforts to make Italian agriculture "modern" was a law that all garden waste and prunings must be burned in order to control diseases and pests. Some logic in that [I]under some circumstances[/I], but it seems to me it mainly just demonstrates the problems that result when central government tries to micro-manage.
Al