Captain James Storm has found himself grounded for much of the last year due to the pandemic. With more time on his hands, he has turned his attention to gardening, growing his own fruit and veg and making his own compost. Here we find out why he has become so passionate about gardening and more particularly composting.
Your Instagram page is called @captain.compost. Where did the name come from?
I’m usually an airline pilot who this year has found himself very un-busy. In line with so many people in lockdown, I’ve immersed myself in my garden. A couple of years ago, I discovered Charles Dowding and his brilliant no dig/no till method of growing vegetables. This really highlighted the importance of feeding the soil rather than the plant, and emphasised the need for good quality compost.
Is composting really worth all the effort?
I’ve been making my own compost for many years. It was just something I did to get rid of garden waste. For the last 15 or so I’ve been keeping a worm bin, with varying degrees of success. Vermicompost (compost produced by worms) has far more beneficial microbes than normal compost and it’s a fantastic method of recycling your kitchen scraps. With all this extra time on my hands, I’m really getting stuck in to my worm composting. I’ve just finished building a giant wormery using old disused pallets.
Do you think more of us should be composting?
It would be much better for the environment if we did. The UK alone sent 6.6 million tons of household food waste to landfill in 2018. Apart from meat and dairy, all of this can be composted. It’s worth noting that landfill sites are huge producers of CO2 and, worse, methane.
Composting sounds like a challenge - is it really that hard?
It really isn’t once you get going. I’m very new to it but I’ve started an Instagram account on which I’ll be sharing my successes as well as my failures. I’ll also be passing on any tips that I pick up along the way. If you want to join in the fun and learn more about composting. Please follow me @captain.compost. It should be fun!
