There is an old adage that says ‘in theory the theory and the practice are the same but in practice we don’t find this to be so’. The same seems to be happening with composting. We gardeners have long been composting and with a few years experience most of us have worked out how to make it work for us. There are a lot of slightly different ways of composting and of getting a better or worse product in more or less time. We gardeners have, by trial and error, found what works, and in most cases it is remarkably similar; a large bin of mixed materials kept warm and moist.