New Wormeries page

Afternoon folks,

I just thought I’d post a quick Blog to say that we’ve just changed what is probably the most important page of our website – the Wormery page – hopefully for the better!

The Wormeries page is by far the most visited page of the Original Organics website and is the page which visitors land on from search results and our online ads, so it’s very important that it is effective.  It is our primary chance to show off our excellent products, convey to visitors that we’re good people to do business with – and hopefully convert them into paying customers and Wormery owners!

The old version of the page, whilst quite informative, was very long and didn’t make it easy to compare the available options.  The aim of this exercise was to tidy it up, make the page less cluttered and easier to use – but still provide visitors with the information they’re looking for.

I’ll be monitoring how it compares to the old page very closely over the coming weeks and will undoubtedly be making the odd tweak here and there to make it even easier to use.  But I’m sure you’ll agree it is quite an improvement.

Oh… and here’s how the wormeries page looked nearly 4 years ago!

If you have any comments, as ever, please do let us know!

Liam

Worm welfare!

A short note to say that due to the rare occurrance of a ‘heatwave‘ currently sweeping the nation we have taken the decision to delay the despatch of orders for worms or Wormery Starter / DIY Kits for the moment – probably until Monday when the freak weather is likely to have disappeared.

Much better to be here in the cool than waiting in a hot van for delivery we think.  But we do apologise if it causes you any inconvenience.

Thanks,

Liam

The classiest kitchen compost caddies you ever did see?

As soon as I saw these classy caddies I just fell in love with them!  Apparently, yes it is possible to love a composting product this much…

You’ll see what I mean though (I hope!) :-

New to Original Organics and available now from our website for the rather excellent price of £15.97! Available in Clay (pictured), String and Apple Green.

Let me know what you think.

Liam

£1 to Comic Relief for all orders this weekend

Just a quick note to say that to support this year’s Comic Relief campaign, we’re going to be donating £1 for every order placed this weekend – whatever the order value!

Applies to orders placed via www.OrginalOrganics.co.uk up until Midnight Sunday night.

So, if you’ve been thinking about a Wormery, Bokashi Bucket, Waterbutt, Green Cone, Compost Bin, Raised Bed or anything else from our range for a wee while – if you buy this weekend you’ll also be supporting the Red Nose total!

We’ll be totting up how much we’ve raised, including our own scrape around the office (and raid of the petty cash!) next week.

Cheers,

Liam

Adverse Weather Conditions

Morning everyone,

Due to the adverse weather conditions, combined with our rural location, the majority of us have unfortunately not been able to get into work so far today.  The snow is still coming down, too and we are suffering intermittent power failures.

In addition, at this time we think it very unlikely that our couriers will be able to collect from us today – unless there is a significant improvement in both weather and road conditions.  Because of this, orders may take a day or two longer to arrive than they would under usual circumstances.

We hope to resume normal service on Monday – weather permitting.

Many Thanks for your understanding.

Liam Martin
Director

My Turtle Bag… A little Gem!

Caren shows off our new Turtle Bags!

I would like to share one of my best buys of the year……..a simple string bag or rather a  Turtle Bag! – About 5 months ago I was shopping and had run out of old plastic carrier bags to keep in my handbag, ‘just in case’. I was paying for several items in a local shop when I saw a small display of string bags. I bought one, packed my purchases in it and left.

Innocuous enough you may think but since using this wonderful bag I have been stopped in the street and asked where one could be bought from, a friend has also asked the same question.  On another occasion, I left some heavy shopping in the bag with a friendly shopkeeper to look after to be picked up later, on returning to retrieve said Turtle bag and shopping, she remarked how she could have sold the bag several times over as she had had enquiries by customers who saw it.

Having shown work colleagues ‘the bag’ interest was such that Clive, the boss, has bought in Turtle Bags to sell to our canny customers. We have already had some original ideas as to other uses for these bags, such as, ‘over winter’ storage for home grown onions! – We would welcome more original ideas.

I can only speak from experience, but would urge anyone who shops to buy at least one. My bag now goes everywhere with me as it fits easily into my handbag, it expands to accommodate more shopping than I can comfortably carry for too long and  another, more eco friendly benefit  is that I do not have to buy or use plastic bags anymore.

Oh yes – they are called Turtle bags in honour of the much endangered species their extensive use could help to save. Jellyfish are a significant part of the diet of many Turtles. Unfortunately many hundreds of thousands if not millions of ordinary plastic bags end up in the worlds oceans. Now to a Turtle swimming underwater a floating or submerged plastic bag is simply indistinguishable from a Jellyfish. The difference is, of course, that the plastic bag is indigestible; clogs up the Turtles insides and sadly condemns it to a slow death by starvation.

So buy a bag to make shopping easier, to reduce waste and to save a Turtle.

Joy

Bokashi Composting, but ‘don’t mention the war’

So Liam pops his head round the door and suggests I should write a blog about Bokashi composting. A fairly reasonable and straightforward request you might think – but it took me on a winding journey back through a bit of family and world history to achieve the simple result asked of me.

My Uncle Dennis died 7 years ago and my father 4 years later. Although brothers they were very different people. They did however share a steadfast set of values and moral beliefs summed up in the words, honesty, decency, duty, fairness and integrity. Like many sincere, caring and intelligent people both were what used to be called ‘left of centre’ politically and both served their country and more during the Second World War.

My father was a pilot and navigator with the RAF serving in coastal and bomber commands during the war and moving on to organisational development  and officer training roles from 45 to 58. My uncle served with the British army and their allies in Burma and along with too many thousands of others was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese.

Of every 100 air crew officers who signed up along with my father in 1938 of those in bomber command less than 38 saw VE day. A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I. I believe this experience seriously affected my father’s life thereafter – he had few close friends for the rest of his life and you don’t need a PhD in Psychology to see why.  These remarkably brave men were, of course, engaged in major purposeful aggressive action against the Axis powers.
What then of the C. 30% of prisoners of war (by definition non combatants ) who did not come through the terrible treatment  and appalling conditions of brutality, barbarism, torture and starvation imposed by their captors in the far East not to mention the illness, shortened lives and trauma for the survivors. For Dennis his eyesight was badly damaged, Malaria recurred and the hidden damage was there for all not to see (if you follow) for the rest of his life.

So from very different wartime experiences both brothers, no doubt like thousands upon thousands of others ‘chose’ the quiet, stoical, and perhaps somewhat isolating approach of internalising their experiences and of rarely discussing them even with, or perhaps particularly with close family. It was indeed at rare, unusual yet revealing and enlightening moments when I could share a brief but deep discussion about the war with my father.

All very interesting but ‘what about the Bokashi’ Do I hear my reader cry? OK – bear with me just a little longer if you will…

When Dennis and his comrades were finally liberated in 1945 it was 11 months until he returned home to his wife. Many of the liberated prisoners were so ill, emaciated and weak that it was judged bad for civilian morale for them to return to the UK and be seen in such a ‘pathetic’ state. They needed serious medical attention and some serious rest and recuperation. So it was Blighty by way of a long stay over with our Canadian allies for thousands too ill and no doubt disinclined to complain.

Now, perhaps understandably all this lead to many survivors and their families having less than totally forgiving and friendly thoughts towards  the defeated Japanese Empire. Although anti German feelings were clearly very strong in those soon after the war years – this has dwindled and changed over the decades that followed. Today any vestiges of enmity tend to be confined to the football field. Germany has changed, faced up to its past; its atrocities and the horrendous doings of Hitler and his band of sadistic, psychopathic fascist thugs. Apologise made and repeated; bridges built; talks talked and walks walked and to their utter credit to deny the holocaust in Germany today is a criminal and imprisonable offence.

Possibly for deep historical and cultural reasons well beyond my ken, Japan took a different route. Emperor Hirohito was allowed to remain as titular head of state after the war courtesy of General Mac Arthur and our American friends and there was and some might say still is, an ambivalence about their past. Japanese school history books make less than complete and accurate references to the war and war criminals are still revered by some. Actions and mistakes have perhaps not been squarely faced up to as they have elsewhere.

The saying is that history is written by the victors. Whilst in the obvious sense this is true, it is at the same time grossly over simplistic to the risk of obscuring as much as it enlightens.

Now, I am far from an expert and the deep and historically rooted cultural traditions of the Japanese peoples are no doubt honourable; and the answer to the conundrum of their post war stance may well be hidden from me within the complexity of anthropology. However in over simplistic terms it was this apparent ambivalence and above all else the lack of an open and totally unequivocal apology for war crimes that meant that during my youth, households in our extended family (and I suspect many others) went decade after decade without a Japanese car, microwave, video or other Japanese made electrical or electronic gismo.

Time heals and as the older generations die out (no chrysanthemums in the wreaths) and the newer ones grow up- memories mellow and attitudes change. This is good and right and proper – for we all have to eventually forgive although not for me to forget – that may be for future generations but I hope not, for if we don’t learn from our history we cease to learn anything and if we cease to learn we may just as well cease to be.

So this verbose attempt at relevance, succinctness and attempting to follow Basil Fawlty’s advice of not mentioning the war has manifestly failed but it brings me at last to Bokashi bins and composting, a Japanese invention which I am pleased to embrace and to extol the many virtues and benefits thereof.

Bokashi is a Japanese word meaning fermented organic matter. It is a form of intensive composting using a starter culture of effective Microorganisms (EM). The culture is a bit like making Yogurt or a ginger beer plant in that it grows and can be used and reused over and over.  It is made by inoculating a suitable medium such as wheat or rice bran (but technically any organic matter from sawdust to beer will work) with EM, water and usually some molasses to speed up the process.

Once made this Bokashi mix can be used easily to speed up the fermentation and breakdown of kitchen food waste.   The speeded up fermentation should virtually eliminate any risk of unpleasant smell and the waste is ready for the next stage within a few weeks. The next stage is simply to dig it into the garden or add it to your Wormery or garden Composter. The waste doesn’t so much rot or decompose and the product is rather different in appearance than compost. It retains more of its original shape, appearance and structure and looks as though it has been pickled. Garden soil, your Wormery or composter will soon finish the job.

Bokashi bins are sealed and have a tap to capture the excellent juice which ids a concentrated plant food in itself. Interestingly if you don’t have mains drainage and rely on a septic tank or similar then Bokashi juice will help maintain a healthy environment and improve its performance.

The EM are just natural lactic acid and phototropic bacteria and yeast whish form a microbial community within the food waste to help its rapid processing. All you have to do is intersperse layers off food waste with a sprinkling of the activated bran and nature will do the rest simply and efficiently. Moreover it will deal with cooked waste as well even bits of meat and fish.

Various propriety Bokashi bins and the inoculated bran are widely available on the web and increasingly in the shops and as you might expect we do two versions ourselves. (from just £19.56!)

So it’s a big thank you to the Japanese for devising this remarkable simple, efficient, fascinating and clean form of organic waste recycling.

Thanks for reading.

Clive

The New Original Organics Website is here!

I’m soooo happy to announce that, after a lot of hard work and effort, we have today rolled out our brand spankng new website design!

As well as introducing several new features, we have built the site on a framework that is much easier for us to maintain and add to and we have lots in store for the future.  As the Wormery inventors, it is only right that our website remains the authoritative source for all things Wormery related and in the past we’ve not put as much of our content online as we could have done.

I’ll be posting snippits of some of the new features over the coming days, but in the meantime here are some of the new things you can find :-

Meet the Team – Photographs and information about who is behind Original Organics!

Articles - We’ve added an Articles section to the website which we will be developing over the coming months with more and more information on using Wormeries and Home Composting / recycling in general.

Videos – The first of several videos is now online which, unfortunately, features me rather cheesily demonstrating how easy it is to set up an Original Wormery.  Oh and it’s also a bit squished and not such great quality so we do plan to re-film it shortly!  We’ll also be adding a series more!

Testimonials – We’re really lucky to receive literally hundreds of unsolicited testimonials.

There are various other improvements that are a little more behind the scenes, but we have (hopefully!) improved the product layout to make it easier to use.  We’ve also reintroduced the Request a Callback system and there is now a Blog Newsfeed and Newsletter Signup option on the Homepage.

We really appreciate all comments, good or bad, as they massively help us to improve.  Please feel free to email any feedback to website@originalorganics.co.uk

Cheers,
Liam

New website on the way…

We’ve got some exciting news to share… we’re about to launch a new website!  In fact, the first stages of the rollout are about to start, with Paul and myself still in the office with lots of coffee

We’ll talk more about the website once it’s all moved over smoothly, but in the meantime this is just a quick note to say that over the next 24 hours or so you may notice some intermittancy with the website, or some perculiar irregularities etc…  Don’t be alarmed, it probably will be a bit of a bumpy ride but it’s quite a major change and we’re moving parts of our website to a new super-fast server too.

If you are trying to order or if you’re looking for information and you’re struggling, please do give us a call on 0808 120 9676 or drop us an email and we’ll let you know when it’s all sorted (or give you a callback – whichever you prefer!).

Wish us luck!

Liam