The Singleton Community Garden, located in the Hunter Valley, NSW, celebrates it’s tenth anniversary this year. And from the very start, composting was a key activity integral to sustainably running the garden. Compost bays were the first piece of infrastructure introduced to the space, and they remain the centre of our composting hub today. We showcase various methods of composting to the community in a demonstration area.  Three one cubic metre bays allow us to hot compost our weeds, prunings, veggie bed green waste and lawn clippings, with donated wood chips, mushroom compost, livestock bedding and manure. We can then mature it in a three cubic metre bay.

We soon added a 3m x 3m x 3m static compost pile, for branches, large debris, feed stock gluts, and other troublesome to deal with organic matter, which we harvest once a year.

Next came vermicomposting. One worm bath became two, and they attracted orphaned worm farms which quickly multiplied from council collections and public donations. The worms enjoy wood chips, straw, shredded paper, coffee grounds and occasionally kitchen scraps.

But most of the kitchen scraps donated from members of the garden and the public end up in our tumblers. Our army of tumblers, also rescued from council collections, donations and the tip shop, securely contain organic waste that might otherwise attract dogs or vermin.

Speaking of dogs, they are welcome users of the community garden space, but their waste not so much. So, we compost dog poo in a converted wheelie bin with wood chips.

But the real showstoppers of our composting hub are our Johnson-Su Bioreactors. Six impressive cages full of composted woodchip, straw and mushroom compost, line one fence, our tribute to improving soil and inspiring others.

We’ve held a number of composting workshops over the years and are always looking for the next challenge to broaden our composting capabilities. The Singleton Community Garden is committed to composting our way to healthier, more productive soils.