ALAN POWER: Thanks for downloading this garden cutting

from the National Trust. I'm Alan Power Head gardener at the

Stourhead estate in Wiltshire.

In these shorter programs, I'm focusing on a particular aspect

of our work. And today I'm in our walled garden.

This is Emily Utgren. She's on the garden team at Stourhead and

does a multitude of tasks.

Emily, these are, I'm always quite proud of these compost

heaps because they're really tidy, aren't they?

You know, we can see grass clippings, you know, the soft

green shoots from, from the plants around the garden and it

goes into the compost heap is turned over, goes back into the

garden.

EMILY UTGREN: And we do it in six months, which is phenomenal.

ALAN POWER: It's quite a quick turnaround isn't it?

EMILY UTGREN: It's a really quick turnaround for a compost.

It's certainly not what occurs at home, I can tell you that!

And it's not this neat either. But, what we then have to do is

we have to make sure that the particle size of the stuff we

put in is going to rot down in six months.

ALAN POWER: And how do you, how do you ensure that happens?

EMILY UTGREN: Well, we're lucky because we've got a little

shredder. And that's the best idea because it means we can

even put things like, you know, the apple cut- prunings from the

apple trees annually, put it through the shredder and we can

actually get it to break down well enough in six months.

But we're not talking a seed sowing compost. We're talking,

quite a reasonably coarse compost, which we love here in

the walled garden because it provides almost slow release

nutrients.

But if you get this nice good coarse material with a tiny bit

of leaf still left in, it's also plenty for all of the animals

living within the soil. Like the worms, they've got plenty of

food to drag down and that makes the the soil airy for instance.

So it benefits so many different things to have (lots in your

compost).

ALAN POWER: By shredding and making the particle size smaller

that goes into the compost by adding the grass to it and

having, you know, your very easily accessible organic layer,

you're balancing the carbon release in the compost heap,

you're increasing the temperature because the

breakdown is accelerated, we turn it regularly.

So the compost is turned. So it increases the temperature in

different areas of it and it breaks down really quickly,

doesn't it?

EMILY UTGREN: The grass clippings being the accelerant

and produces good moisture and heat, but it has to be the fresh

because if, if you're raking hay, for instance, all of the

nitrogen is nearly gone already. So you just have to think a

little bit, actively, you know, it's a live thing, you know?

ALAN POWER: I often call it cooking.

EMILY UTGREN: Yeah.

ALAN POWER: How's the compost cooking? Because it's exactly

what you're doing, isn't it? So, where you're standing at the

moment, Emily, you're standing on a compost heap, on one that's

well rotted.

So, it's two thirds of the way down the compost bay. The other

side is full and is green and is working hard to decompose. But I

know for a fact that what you're standing on has had quite an

interesting visitors in the past, hasn't it?

EMILY UTGREN: We've had, we found, Grass Snake eggs, they

find somewhere nice and warm. And if you find them in your

compost, you know, you've actually got the heat, right?

It's not too hot and it's not too cold. So you don't even need

to use a thermometer in them.

ALAN POWER: I brought Matthew, my youngest son out to see it

and I said, Matty come and see this. So he came out, we just

came to the front of the compost heap and I lifted it up and we

just saw the tail end of one of the snakes disappearing and he

got so excited, lifted it up and the eggs were there and the

other parents were still around and then within three or four

weeks it was almost moving, wasn't it?

There was, there was a lot of the Grass Snakes in there. But

it, it's wonderful. You know, it's it's back to that whole

cycle of, you know, looking after wildlife, caring for

wildlife, even the compost heaps do it. You know, the whole thing

is inclusive which is brilliant.

EMILY UTGREN: It has to be a holistic way of looking at it

for sure.

ALAN POWER: Thanks for downloading this garden cutting

from the National Trust. You can make sure that you never miss an

episode by subscribing on your player where you'll also find

this month's full length episode of the National Trust Gardens

podcast. See you next time.

BETTANY HUGHES: I'm Bettany Hughes. I've been visiting

National Trust properties all my life, but in this series of

podcasts, I'm going beyond the delights of teas and topiary to

reveal the surprising European roots of some of the most

splendid sites in England.

You can subscribe to my series by searching for Bettany

Hughes's 10 places, Europe and us on your podcast app.