The Compost Man

What project

are you planning?

Raised beds, cut flowers, herbaceous borders or kitchen gardening… what ever the vision, the first thing to get right is the soil.

No dig, no problem!

“The compost completely transformed my garden. Happy plants, happy gardener!”

About Ezra

Ezra has always had a strong connection with the outdoors and learned pretty much everything he knows about gardening from his mentor, friend and mum, Stephanie; beginning right back in the days when he would be tied to her back as a baby while she worked her garden.

They have worked together for years making and growing gardens as Stephanie Sweet & Son, as well as teaming up to collaborate in each other’s gardens. While working in gardens all around Devon, Dorset and Somerset, Ezra spotted that there was often a need for good quality mulch and compost in larger quantities than available at the nurseries. He began to source different mulches to offer his clients and had the chance to see how the gardens responded year after year. In those days it was shovelled by hand out of the back of the van, often at the weekends with the family in the back, on their way for a walk or surf, the Sweet family referring to these trips as ‘compost adventures!’ In time, Ezra found himself delivering to more customers who kept coming back season after season.

In 2019 he teamed up with his partner Gaby, a photographer, to create a new website, and just in time, as it turned out. In 2020, with people spending much of the spring and summer at home and in the garden, demand for compost grew so much that it became the full time focus. These days compost adventures are fewer but from time to time he’ll have the company of the family or Nelly, the compost dog.

Ezra lives in East Devon with Gaby, their three boys and a growing menagerie of animals, including chickens, ducks, a cat, a spaniel puppy and even a couple of pigs. They spent their whole family life together renting part of a victorian farmhouse where over the last twelve years they made a home, and of course, a garden; a mixture of herbaceous borders and beds, and a wild woodland sanctuary.

When he isn’t delivering compost or in the garden, he’s likely to be surfing, walking and exploring the coast or enjoying a good coffee.

All compost man compost and mulch come from sustainable recycled materials or are a bi product, and are peat free, animal farming free and as often as possible, delivered in recycled bags.

Our mushroom compost is made from recycled straw bedding used for horses. This is the only animal product you will find here!

Compost is produced from garden materials (no food!) according to pas100 standards, There will very occasional be small pieces of plastic or non organic material in the compost/mulch, as a result of the recycling process. We do our best to manage this by selecting the best suppliers possible and in our screening process. We still feel that is the most sustainable and soil friendly approach to composting at scale. Unlike large scale farming, Peat harvesting or importing from over seas, this has best results with the lowest cost to the environment.

After many years of growing in different composts, these few products are the ones we believe in the most. After all, the proof is in the growing, and we have done plenty!