{"id":145624,"date":"2024-07-05T11:30:58","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T04:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/country-diary-the-compost-bins-are-heating-up-and-teeming-with-life-phil-gates\/"},"modified":"2024-07-05T11:43:27","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T04:43:27","slug":"country-diary-the-compost-bins-are-heating-up-and-teeming-with-life-phil-gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/country-diary-the-compost-bins-are-heating-up-and-teeming-with-life-phil-gates\/","title":{"rendered":"Country diary: The compost bins are heating up and teeming with life | Phil Gates"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nCrook, County Durham: Underneath the weeds and vegetable peelings, there will be woodlice and slugs, springtails and centipedes, working away in the heatFour conical plastic bins, like baleful Daleks, each produce about a cubic metre of compost every year. In go weeds and kitchen vegetable waste; 12 months of organic alchemy later, out comes some high-quality crumbly soil improver. These bins are the hottest biodiversity hotspots in our\u00a0garden.Inside, in air foetid with fungal decay, an ever-changing invertebrate workforce gathers: woodlice and slugs, writhing brandling worms, fruit fly larvae, minute springtails, large-fanged, predatory orange centipedes. During last summer\u2019s drought, a toad took up temporary residence, growing fat on slugs. Sometimes, when I lift the lid, woodmice peer up at me, so I tend to pause for a moment before hurling in another bucket of vegetable peelings, giving them time to dash for safety. There must be several PhD theses to be written about food webs and cycles of life and death in that clammy Stygian darkness. Continue reading…
\n
\nSource : theguardian.com
\nRead more…Country diary: The compost bins are heating up and teeming with life | Phil Gates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crook, County Durham: Underneath the weeds and vegetable peelings, there will be woodlice and slugs,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-property-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75ss1-BSM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":46129,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/hotbeds-of-diversity-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden\/","url_meta":{"origin":145624,"position":0},"title":"Hotbeds of diversity at the bottom of the garden","date":"March 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Flies, worms, slugs, woodlice, centipedes, moulds \u2013 the compost bin throbs with lifeSeveral times each week I take vegetable peelings from the kitchen to the three compost recycling bins at the bottom of the garden. Even in winter, they are hotbeds of biodiversity. Today, as I lift the lid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25673,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/ask-alys-fowler-why-are-woodlice-living-in-my-globe-artichokes\/","url_meta":{"origin":145624,"position":1},"title":"Ask Alys Fowler: why are woodlice living in my globe artichokes?","date":"September 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Our gardens expert has the answerWoodlice have taken up residence in my globe artichokes, leaving them hollow and dried out. I have grown them for many years and this is the first time I have had this problem \u2013 what I can do?Woodlice feed on dead or decaying organic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":107986,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/why-do-slugs-and-snails-eat-pricey-plants-rather-than-weeds-in-my-garden\/","url_meta":{"origin":145624,"position":2},"title":"Why do slugs and snails eat pricey plants rather than weeds in my garden?","date":"June 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\r The long-running series in which readers answer other readers\u2019 questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsWhy don\u2019t slugs and snails eat the weeds in the garden? Why do they go for the more expensive plants? How do they know?David Withey, Malvern, Worcs Continue\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59771,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/misunderstood-molluscs-five-reasons-to-love-slugs\/","url_meta":{"origin":145624,"position":3},"title":"Misunderstood molluscs: five reasons to love slugs","date":"July 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\r The slug has an impressive physiology, engages in acrobatic sex and is a handy scavenger of waste \u2013 TV naturalist Chris Packham is right to stick up for themSlugs are much maligned. Having the temerity to wear their slime on the outside of their bodies, they are about as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":125205,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/the-guardian-view-on-slugs-and-snails-whats-in-a-name-plenty-it-turns-out-editorial\/","url_meta":{"origin":145624,"position":4},"title":"The Guardian view on slugs and snails: what\u2019s in a name? Plenty it turns out | Editorial","date":"March 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\r The way we choose to describe the world often determines how we react to it. A different view of garden gastropods might be better for allSlugs and snails regularly appear on lists of the most irritating garden pests; only last year the Royal Horticultural Society noted they had slid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137064,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/young-country-diary-slugs-worms-and-an-ant-colony-what-a-successful-garden-hunt-julia\/","url_meta":{"origin":145624,"position":5},"title":"Young country diary: Slugs, worms and an ant colony \u2013 what a successful garden hunt! Julia","date":"May 20, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Central London: I went out to see what I could find, and ended up feeling sorry for the earthwormsWe share our garden with snails, slugs and ants. My mum has recorded incredible adventures of following the chomped plants and the trail of slime, feeling their presence. She told me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}