He’ll live in our warehouse and keep himself warm.
And wait patiently there until spring. Poor thing?

We have a little red-bibbed visitor who has taken up vociferous residence in our warehouse. We are greeted each morning by the cheerful chatter of the robin who then proceeds to come and go throughout the day. He keeps an eye on all proceedings and shows a keen interest when we are handling the worms to send out to customers!

I understand that robins are one of the very few birds who stay in the UK through the winter months. Severe weather conditions can take a real toll on robin numbers as a robin can lose up to 10% of its body weight during just one cold winter’s night. Unless they can replenish their reserves, a prolonged cold spell can prove fatal.

We can help our feathered friends and make a real difference to their survival rates by simply having a well stocked bird table. Robins (and other birds) enjoy meaty kitchen scraps, fat, cheese, cake and biscuit crumbs. Dried fruit and peanuts are also enjoyed but need to be crushed or cut.

Should you wish to buy some food for our feathered friends we stock many varieties of bird seed, nuts and fat bells and balls. I have just invested in a bag of High Energy Robin Feed….some of which will be spread on the bird table at home and of course my little warehouse friend must also be rewarded for its cheerful songs each day. Have a look on our website.

I can hardly wait until we are once again visited by our annual visitors the swifts who nest around our warehouse each year. – More later.

Joy

The Tiger worms we supply do still work through the cold weather, but their metabolic rate does slow down – and the cold makes the food waste a bit more difficult for them to get through.

Keeping your Wormery just that little bit warmer makes a difference and a few extra degrees will certainly improve the worms’ efficiency. There are a few things you can do to help with this. One of them is trying to locate the Wormery adjacent to the outer wall of a heated home – it’s surprising the difference in temperature there. Or perhaps bringing the Wormery indoors – if not in your house, how about a garage, outhouse, shed or garage? Another good idea is snugly-fitting some insulation around the outer shell of the Wormery.

An old duvet covered in a large plastic bag or some bubble-wrap or old carpet around the bin will certainly help, but for our unique range of Wormeries we do manufacture a more attractive solution in the form of purpose-made insulating jacket which is designed specifically to fit snugly – to give the worms maximum insulation. You can use it through the winter months year after year to help keep the worms happier and warmer through the cold.

And so you can benefit your pocket as well as the worms we’re currently offering a discount of 12.5% off the cost of our purpose-made jackets throughout November. As an extra special benefit, if you order by 20th November we’ll throw in an air-tight Kitchen Waste Caddy at no cost too!

To place your order today go to www.OriginalOrganics.co.uk/winter or call us now on 01884 841515.

Liam

If like me you have several, ‘hard to buy for’ friends and family members then may I make a few suggestions? My father was surprised and delighted to receive a wormery a couple of years ago. Not only was it an original kind of present, but one that he has enjoyed and benefited from ever since. This year he will get a winter insulation jacket to keep the worms cosy through any snowy conditions Mother Nature throws our way this year.

My mother is a keen gardener and still manages to keep herself and dad in home grown fruit and vegetables most of the year. After this year’s summer in Nottingham she was mentioning once or five times how next year she must treat herself to a water butt to save on the water bill when she has to water the garden. So….. this year a water butt will be winging its way to mum. Don’t let her know or it will ruin the surprise!

My brother is new to gardening, (better late than never), and shall be getting a wooden composter to replace the untidy pile of vegetation that is growing in a corner of his garden.

Have a browse through our website and see what original presents are there for the buying!

Christmas shopping sorted! I can look forward to missing the crowds in town and sit back with a cup of tea and leaf through my seed catalogues in readiness for next year.

Joy

Fascinate, amaze, entertain and educate children in a really fun way by showing them how worms make compost and how compost helps plant growth. The Wiggo Pod comes with a voucher to send off for around 20 worms. Add an Apple Core into the pod and watch as the worms turn the core into compost within a couple of weeks. Then, plant the enclosed special bean into the compost and watch it sprout into a plant with a special message!

I personally think these are wonderful products and at just £14.99 + P&P – including the worm voucher – offer very good value for money. Not that we’re thinking about Christmas already, but what an excellent Christmas idea?

Have a look on our website now!

Liam

Probably the fastest sourcing of a new product ever! Less than a week after seeing these at Cologne’s Garden Trade Show – Spoga Gafa – we put an order in and here they are in stock as of today. They come from a Hampshire-based British company and are manufactured from 100% biodegradable loose-weave Jute in India. I knew we had to list them as soon as I saw them.

You simply collect up the leaves, bag them in the sack, throw the sack into the corner of the garden and wait. The leaves and then the bag itself will turn into nutritious compost for your garden. So easy! The jute weave bag itself lets the elements get to the leaves but keeps them collected allowing them to compost more quickly.

Available as a pack of 1, 3 or 6 – now is the perfect time to buy with autumn just around the corner!

I will certainly be getting a sack or 3 going in my garden this year.

Have a look and order now!

Liam

Tidying the garden after the summer is a job that transforms my garden from a tired, grown out look to a neat ready for winter look. The spent annuals are composted along with the cut off branches and overgrown herbaceous plants that need a trim. The lawn is cut on a higher blade setting and raked to get a much moss out as possible. (Back breaking but worth it).

Of course this activity produces piles of green garden waste. This is where my composters come into their own. As if by magic, the greenery goes in to them and this time next year I can harvest it as beautiful, sweet smelling compost ready to grow seedlings in the following spring. You may like to look at our extensive range of composters.

Personally I have both wooden beehive style composters that I can add extra capacity to by adding an extra module, and also the traditional, (very effective) Classic Rotol composter. Whichever you choose you too can then experience the thrill of harvesting compost that has been made from discarded garden waste.

Let me know how autumn is tackled in your garden.

Joy

Well it seems us westcountry folk haven’t quite managed to escape the snow.  I woke up this morning to a thick layer outside and a phone call from a member of staff starting the journey into the office.  I really thought we were going to get away with it!  I’m going to add some photos to our Facebook Page shortly.

Main roads in our area are accessible, but the snow is still falling.  As things stand, we expect to have our usual courier collections but for the time being all our couriers have suspended the next-day and timed delivery guarantees due to snowfall all over the country.  Even if you’re not affected, the depots and hubs that our couriers use are all experiencing delays and backlogs due to not being able to get out to much of the country for several days.

All staff have just about made it in, so calls and orders are being processed as normal.

If you’re ordering for Christmas, it’s recommended to get your order in as early as possible.  We expect normal service in terms of delivery guarantees to resume next week in most areas but who knows what’s going to happen to the weather between now and Chrimbo!  Remember, with our Wormeries we offer a Worm Voucher free of charge if you request one when you order in the comments section.  This means there is no risk to the worms of the freezing temperatures and the lucky recipient of the Wormery can claim their worms when they’re ready in the new year.

Take care on the roads, here are some tips from the BBC on driving in snow.

Regards,

Liam

While the seed heads and fruits of autumn make it a bountiful season for birds, as we move towards winter the natural supply of food becomes more scarce.  This is unfortunate for birds because the falling temperatures require them to expend more energy keeping themselves warm, so it’s pretty obvious that any help from gardeners will be greatly appreciated.

Winter is a good season for watching birds however, as many bushes and trees have shed their leaves.  Hunger also makes some birds bolder – look out for robins, and for thrushes foraging on your lawn.  So what can you do to attract these useful allies?  Water is hugely important, and you should try and maintain a reliable supply of clean water in a shallow container – try putting the lid of your water butt on upside down; if it fits, top it up straight from the butt each day.

Food is also vital, and quality is a very important factor.  I have on occasion bought cheap, end of line feeds thinking ‘every little helps’, but in fact they generated little interest from the birds.  One batch, bought from a major DIY chain, was infested with meal moth grubs which proceeded to break out of the packaging and eat through most of the dry food in my kitchen cupboards!  I now stick to reliable brands, and try to buy little and often from a good supplier so I can be sure the food is fresh.  Have a look at Original Organics’ new range of Kingfisher bird feed for a little inspiration.

Until next time!
Paul

Due to the really lovely sunshine hitting our Isles at the moment, we’re holding back some worm and wormery deliveries and are accumulating a bit of a backlog.  We do apologise for this.  We don’t often have to hold back orders due to the weather being too good – after all, we are in the UK – but we do so to ensure the worms arrive in as good a condition as possible.

If you’re currently waiting for a Wormery or Worm delivery we would ask and thank you for a little extra patience at the moment.  Rest assured we’ll be working as hard as we can to get them all out and up-to-date just as soon as the weather gets a little cooler.

Thanks!

Liam

We have been advised by Parcel Force that there may be some delays with items sent yesterday for delivery today.  This is due to a technical fault with one of the conveyors at their Coventry hub last night.  We apologise in advance for any inconvenience if any of our deliveries are affected as a result of this.  We have been advised that some of the freight received from our local depot, Exeter, is likely to have been held up.

Delayed items will automatically be forwarded for delivery tomorrow.  If you have any concerns at all, please feel free to give us a call on 01884 841515.

Ta,

Liam

I’ve been doing a bit of spring cleaning recently; clearing out a garage, moving the junk left on my allotment by the last tenant, that sort of thing. It used to be the case that you would take the fruits of such a task to the local tip, where it may or may not be recycled. These days however, I’ve discovered most ‘rubbish’ will be collected free of charge and taken to a new home. The Freecycle website is a wonderful tool in this regard – just post details of anything you no longer require (for example, Offered: 30 old copies of National Geographic) and you will probably have a number of people keen to collect. Even broken furniture will be snapped up by someone with a wood burner. What’s more, I have twice left a pile of faulty electrical items and scrap metal in public view (waiting to be loaded into the car) only to have them eagerly removed by enterprising (if slightly scruffy) chaps in a (more than slightly scruffy) white Transit. The value of scrap is clearly making their daily circuits of residential streets worthwhile. Interestingly, they declined my offer of two rather nice wooden chairs. Either they like to stick to their niche or they know that there is more embodied energy (and thus value) in a broken hi-fi than a hand-crafted chair.

Perhaps a less personal indicator of this ‘zeitgeist’ is that most of the supermarkets have taken the long-overdue step of keeping plastic bags under the counter until you ask for them. Just by repeatedly reminding us of the issue they are clearly having an effect on our habits.

Of course before we Recycle, we should be aiming to Reduce and Reuse (in other words, buy less stuff and try not to throw it away!) but there are very few products that cannot be saved by one of those three ‘R’s. The question is, with many decades of reckless consumerism behind us and a potentially lean time ahead, how soon will we stop filling landfill sites and begin to mine them for their wealth?!

Paul

I’m happy to report that my site is a true haven for wild birds – so much so that the rustic arbour my neighbour built for his grapevine is riddled with woodpecker holes! In fact, across the UK allotments and back gardens make up most of the remaining safe places for breeding birds. Allotments tend to be more cat-free than back gardens, which is why we so often get the benefit of birdsong as we tend our plots.

There are lots of things we can all do to make life a bit easier for our feathered friends, and this year in particular they need all the help they can get. The late, wet and cold start to spring, preceded by a bitter winter, has led to a real shortage of food. Let’s hope the weather picks up quickly!

There are sound practical reasons for helping birds too. They provide an extremely useful form of pest control; eating slugs, snails, asparagus beetles and aphids to name just a few of the critters I’ve spotted this month. What’s more, the waste that birds produce is not to be sniffed at – I use the deposits beneath my bird feeders to enrich the soil, helping to provide bumper crops.

Paul

This is due to the airspace restrictions currently in place preventing freight and passenger planes from flying across much of Europe.

If your’re not in the UK Mainland, or if you’re quite far from us here in Devon and your item is being sent by post there may be some delays while we wait for the ash to blow over and the restrictions on air travel to be relaxed.  Some European parcels that usually travel by road may be delayed slightly too due to the fact the ferries are much busier than usual at the moment.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience but please rest assured we’ll get your orders to you as soon as we can!

Burgon & Ball Patio Potato Planter

It’s that season again.  The days are getting longer and warmer and the garden beckons.  One of my favourite tasks is to begin the sowing of seeds of things to later harvest and eat.  Of these, the ritual of growing potatoes on my patio is one of the most rewarding.

I have chosen the two varieties for this years’ crop, one early, Charlotte and one main crop, King Edwards. They are currently chitting under my bed in readiness for planting.

It is traditional to plant the chitted potatoes on Good Friday. I do not always adhere to this as some years this feels a little too early, but this year may prove a traditional one.

I use containers to grow my potatoes as I only have a small garden.  Patio Potato Planters are just so convenient!

The potatoes are planted in about 8 inches of compost and covered by a further couple of inches of soil, watered and left. I keep an eye on the moisture level as potatoes need moisture to thrive. Once leaves have started to break through the compost add a further couple of inches of compost into the top of the patio planter. This is what my father would call ‘earthing up’. It encourages more and more potatoes to form. Once the top of my potato planter has been reached by earthing up it is then a matter of watering and waiting.

(Tempting though it may be, do not ‘peep’ to see how they are getting on).

The best way to tell that the potatoes are ready is when some of the leaves have started to change from a dark green to yellow. If possible begin harvesting the lowest potatoes first, take what is needed and leave the others to continue growing. Pick and enjoy. If more are harvested than required store in a cool, dark container such as a Potato basket.

Finally two warnings;
1) I always forget just how prolific six seed potatoes of each of the two varieties can be but friends and family always appreciate the excess produce.
2) Potato growing has, for me, become addictive. The ease of successfully growing them, the knowledge of how they were grown and also the education of my children that potatoes do not all come in plastic bags from supermarkets has got to be good enough reason or should that be excuse?

Have a go and good luck!  Do let us know how you get on.

Joy

A few daft suggestions were discounted (killing yourself, killing the heads of the oil companies, killing the heads of the oil companies and then yourself, etc) and a further set were ruled out for being too hard to sell (not having children, returning to prehistoric life). The sensible suggestions included not flying, not owning a car and someone (well, me actually) mentioned the touchy subject of not eating meat.

The fact is, the meat and dairy industry is the world’s single biggest producer of greenhouse gas, apart from nature’s own well-balanced systems. This is down to a number of contributing factors; the gas produced by the animals themselves, the energy-intensive way in which they are raised, the food that has to be grown and transported to feed them, the transport of the animals themselves (live or as meat) and so on. What’s more, modern farming methods are morally very dubious if you look into them, and I’m sure all visitors to this kind of website will be concerned about that.

While I’m all for vegetarianism, I appreciate this might not be easy for everyone. However if we all chose to eat less meat, perhaps being veggie for one or two days a week, then we’d shave a huge chunk off our carbon footprint. What’s more, with meat being one of the most expensive items in our shopping trolleys, the money we’d save could mean we might splash out on better-quality, ethically-produced meat when we did buy it. Better for us, better for the Earth and better for the animals.

I’d love to hear from any readers who have other ideas about how best to be green, and anyone with any thoughts on how our diet affects the environment. Could you cut meat out of your diet?

Paul