This is not as simple a process as it sounds. According to Laurie; “The greater the variety of organic feedstock that is used in composting the better the compost will be in maintaining the essential micro-biological life in the soil it is added to.”

It took Laurie many years of trial and error to find exactly the right combination of materials needed to create the correct c/n ratio in his compost so conditions in the heap would be right for the micro-biological life to do the rest.

Laurie creates his compost in small batches as this allows him to monitor it carefully and completely control the quality. The compost heap is turned with a front end loader at intervals and goes through a long term, intensive form of composting.

Although composting can be completed in less than the three or more months Laurie takes to produce Kwality Garden Compost, Laurie believes the short period form of composting cannot guarantee the end product will be completely free of disease and be of a high enough quality to be consistently safe and useable.

After considerable trial and error Laurie has elected to “cure” his compost for a period of no less than 13 weeks. At the end of this time the compost is screened. Screening removes fully composted material and returns coarse material for further composting. The fine material is then bagged ready to sell.

Laurie does not include any form of putrescent waste in his compost mix in order to avoid having to deal with leachate and the precise blending of feedstock means there is no problem with the leaching of phenols from ligneous materials.

Wooden stakes or steel star droppers are used, at intervals, to let air into the compost heap and keep a close eye on the temperature within the heap. This allows Laurie to ensure the entire heap is subjected to the heat process during the composting period.