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Anne Morris at the Salisbury Allotment Association flower and horticultural show. DB2693P06

COMPOST is gold dust to gardeners, adding nutrients to the soil thus helping to produce strong and healthy plants, and the beauty of this precious resource is that it is absolutely free.

Composting is treated as serious business in my garden and allotment, and the only downside is that I can never produce enough.

The raw materials for composting are present in every garden and allotment, so it makes perfect sense to make your own, especially when you take into account the expense of bagged compost from garden centres. Even annual weeds can go on the pile (though not of the perennial kind such as couch grass).

You don't need to be a scientist to understand the composting process, which is sometimes shrouded in mystery.

If organic matter is left to decay in a heap or one of the specially designed black bins (available through councils at a heavily subsidised rate), it will rot down and become compost.

It is the heat created by the multitude of organisms in the heap that causes the breakdown. When you open your compost bin lid or stick a fork in the middle, you should see hundreds of tiny pink worms - a good sign.

This rotting process is exactly the same as happens naturally, as on the forest floor where animal and plant wastes mix on the soil surface and rot to create leaf mould. A visit to a mature wood gives a perfect example. Scrape back the surface leaf litter and you will find perfectly composted leaf mould, one of the most nutritious composts available for your soil.

Incidentally, a big word of thanks to Salisbury District Council for depositing lorry loads of leaf mould at city allotments last October. It was well worth forking the thick black compost into wheelbarrows and heaving on to the plot. Now, it is spring, and the planting season has begun in earnest, I am reaping the benefits, as the soil has become lovely and friable.

12:30pm Thursday 10th April 2008

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