If you are new to gardening, this is one of the best times of year to take on a plot.

The winter months may seem a dark and dank time to be working outdoors, but it is much easier doing heavy work in the cold and you have plenty of time ahead of you to get the ground ready for the spring. Pretty much the first thing to do in any new garden is to sort out a compost heap.

The heap is both a waste disposal system and a fuel supply and no organic garden should be without one.

Unlike vegetables they don’t need sunlight to flourish so they can go pretty much anywhere in the garden. They can sometimes attract flies and they can pong a bit if the mixture’s not quite right so you might not want one right next to the house but you will need access all the time so don’t have your heap too tucked away.

There is no great magic to the composting process but there are some things to bear in mind if you want to make life easier for yourself.

There are all sorts of compost bins you can buy. Some are very practical and some are very pretty. You can even knock one up yourself from a few old pallets if you’re handy with a hammer. But whatever you choose it needs, more than anything else, to be big enough. A square metre is about the smallest volume that will work well. Bigger is better if you think you can produce enough waste to fill the container.

This is because heat helps the composting process and a bigger heap generates more heat.

A good hot heap will produce usable compost in as little as eight weeks. A cold one may well take eight months.

The compost container needs to have a hole at the bottom to let worms in and to let excess water out, otherwise you may end up with a soggy mess. A lid on top will help to keep heat in the heap, but is not essential.

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