To coincide with International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) from May 5-11 Bord na Móna is launching a consumer compost education campaign.
ICAW aims to encourage people to turn vegetable peelings, grass cuttings, hedge clippings and other garden waste into compost. Bord na Móna's campaign is all about telling them what they should - and should not - use their homemade compost for.

The company points out that it is a soil improver and not a growing medium. Homemade compost is therefore not suitable for growing seeds and plants but should be used for digging into the soil to give it a new lease of life.

The campaign features point-of-sale promoting composting but with the emphasis on how to use it. Consumers are told to use it in vegetable patches and flower beds and borders but not to fill tubs and baskets or to plant seeds and cuttings.

For those jobs specialist peat-free or peat-reduced growing media from Bord na Móna's Vital Earth and GroWise ranges are recommended.