Top crops thanks to a wee boost

Unconventional gardener Mick Poultney has revealed the secret behind growing compost in a flash – he regularly bypasses the bathroom to spend a penny on the heap.

Mick, the chairman of Cradley Gardening Club, can get his compost ready in one month compared to the average of a year. The 56-year-old former firefighter from Alma Street, Colley Gate, Cradley, puts his success down to the power of his piddle. His compost has already yielded monster marrows and oversized onions – netting him several awards.

Mick, who is married to Linda and has two sons, admitted: "If I need a piddle I'll do it on the compost heap. If I can't reach, then the rhubarb gets it.

"The thing is, your piddle is full of nitrogen, which is a brilliant extra activator for the compost."

Mick's methods may be unconventional – but they certainly yield results.

The compost helped to produce a super-sized 7lb onion earlier this year which was donated to flavour the food at the nearby Chinnar Balti Restaurant in Windmill Hill, Colley Gate.

Mick also grows all manner of fruit and vegetables as well as making his own pickled onions, beetroots and jams using the magic compost, both in his back garden and on an allotment plot he owns.

"I am a down to earth, common sense gardener who works with nature," Mick explained.

"I entered three shows this year and had best exhibit in two of them, in Sedgley and Blackheath. I also won best plot for my allotment in Colley Gate this year," he added.

Converting some members of the public to trying his secret trick has proved more tricky however.

Mick gives a number of talks on his novel methods to gardening clubs across the region – but revealed not everyone has been taken with his innovations.

"I was doing a talk in Halesowen and I told them I piddle on the compost and showed them a slide of me doing it and there were just a couple of laughs. But when I told them the Chinese had been doing it for centuries and even do 'number twos' on their plants there was just a stony silence and I thought I'd better move on."