Careful what you compost

Agios Athanasios Municipality is to be commended in handing out compost bins to the inhabitants (Cyprus Mail August 8). However if people just pile in leftovers, and I would not recommend bread as was suggested in the article or any cooked food) they will end up with a nasty-smelling yucky mess.

There is an art to compost making whether it is in a bin or a heap. Layers should be made of dry and ‘wet’ materials so as to ensure that there is even decomposition. In amongst the salad leaves and melon skins insert layers of dried material, which could be shredded newspaper or personal papers, (much better than them ending up on a rubbish tip for anyone to see), dried leaves, which decompose quicker if they have been chopped in a leaf shredder, and dead flower heads. Other items for composting could include coffee dregs, used tea bags and even crushed egg shells. If you put in lots of tomatoes or melon seeds then you will find that come the spring you will have lots of freebee seedlings which could be planted out. Dug into your vegetable patch the mature compost will add humus to the soil and produce better crops.

Patricia Jordan
Gardening Writer

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.