Compost

OK .. try to do the right things have a large purpose bought compost container ... put all the right mix of stuff it it, lid kept on. Occasional addition of Garotta, Good mix of peelings, trimmings, coffee grounds, some grass cuttings, leaves, splash of urine etc.

No cooked food scraps or meats.

Output is always disappointing ... seems to be lots of non rotted material even after 3 or 4 years. I do turn it fully annually. For example the eggs shells & tea bags don't seem to rot, and when I put any of the compost on the garden SWMBO complain it looks like fly tipping has taken place.

Thought I had today was, could I shovel the output into my shredder to really mix & break it all up before I use it in the ground ? Not sure how the shredder would take it ... I'm guessing it should chop & mix OK ....

Then form this into a separate stage 2 composting pile ... and restart another new pile.

Reply to
Rick Hughes
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Rick Hughes wibbled on Tuesday 06 April 2010 17:49

Egg shells won't rot (at least not in any meaningful time span for compost). Surprised the tea bags didn't go though... ATM I'm running a compost heap entirely off kitchen peelings and that's looking rich (apart from the rats keep nicking stuff[1]

Last time I ran a heap with a lot of garden waste on it, I seeded it with 4 bags of free red hot horse manure (from the steaming pile rather than the 2 year old pile at the stables). That seemed to help considerably. No chemicals used. Excellent quality output in about 18 months (apart from the melon rinds - they can be reticent to rot).

[1] Need to make a decent rat proof bin, but for now have one of those stand on the ground freebie council things, bit rubbish but better than nothing). On the plus side if the rats like my bin, they might stay out of my roof and shed :)
Reply to
Tim Watts

I know well rotted is what you want to put in ground ... but I could get a few bags of 'steaming' horse menu ... fresh from the horses a*** ... maybe that will kick it off.

Reply to
Rick Hughes

Rick Hughes wibbled on Tuesday 06 April 2010 18:10

Mostly because "red hot" fries the plants...

Certainly won't do any harm and not smelly if your bin has a lid. Loads of bug friendly nutrients, party-raving bugs ready to go to work and lots of heat - just what every compost heap needs :)

Reply to
Tim Watts

Egg shells, being essentially limestone or chalk, never will.

if the tea bags aren't, it makes you wonder what's in them. Dont compost them then.

Should be OK ish. They prefer dry stuff.

You can hurry compost along to be usable in a year, but several is preferable. At one time I used to pile everything in a certain corner of the garden, leaves, weeds, grass cuttings, any organic crap. About 5 years later it was pure black topsoil. Magic.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

last time we used horse manure fresh from the sables, it turned out to be loaded with weedkiller. The sort that kills all your vegetables.

Finally late last year, the chemical company loaded it all into a lorry and took it away. Not much compensation for losing half the vegetable garden last year.

So don't believe all that horse manure about horse manure. Its as 'organic;' as what it was fed on, and if it was fed on hay infested with weed killer, its a whole lot worse than a dose of phosphate from diw chemicals.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

grass clippings are all you need. 3 foot pile of them will set itself on fire from bacterial activity.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Another option is to bung it in a hole in the ground. When full, cover it over and robert's your relative.

NT

Reply to
NT

If it's going to work it needs to get:

1) Hot. This is the first stage of composting, and needs lots of oxygen. 2) Airless. This is the second stage and why proper bins don't have holes in the sides. 3) Wormy. This is the all important third stage, and why if you compost on a concrete base you need to introduce worms. Ideally they start at the bottom and eat their way up, so you take the finished 'product' from the bottom. If you introduce them at the top, and are also adding more fresh, you will cook the worms - this is not good.

I'd shred the fresh stuff. If you shred the semi-rotted, it will: a) contain stones (yes, it will) and wreck your shredder blades. b) stick to everything and not exit the shredder properly. c) drive you mad cleaning the shredder every two minutes. I speak from experience on these three points.

R.

Reply to
TheOldFellow

I dug a trough last Autumn and filled it with alternate layers of soil and veg peelings etc over the winter. Turned it over today and virtually everything has broken down. Interesting that the soil level is now virtually the same as when I started.

Reply to
stuart noble

That's interesting. When I kicked my composter off, it was sitting on soil, so worms had a way in from below. But I also used to throw any worms I found into the top as well. The composter works a dream, and I also seem to have a worm breeding ground under the lid (it's one of the black subsidised ones). Not sure how we have such fertile worms, if they are being cooked.

Reply to
John Whitworth

Can't say I'm a composting expert but when I was a school kid of about 10 or

12, for reasons I simply can't remember, I decided to make a compost heap. I found a couple of old fence panels lying around and using an existing fence as one side I just tied these together with string to make a rough bin about 6 feet square at the back of the garden. I then went bonkers in the field behind the house cutting down nettles with dad's scythe. Lawn clippings and some other stuff went in but that was about it. I didn't turn it, cover it over or mess about with it it any way after that. Within a few months the whole lot had turned into this wonderful friable dark brown loam. When the school started a vegetable growing project I sold the lot to them for 50p a bag. I think that was my first, and probably last, burst of entrepreneurial spirit.

Key ingredients I think are lots of air and lots of heat so the bigger the pile the quicker it rots. Plastic bins with no holes in them keep both the air and the worms out which is bad n'kay. Just cobble something together out of scraps of wood on the bare soil so the wormies can get in. Supposedly if you get it right you can have compost in under 2 months. If you get it wrong you just end up with smelly mulch. No air, no heat and no wormies = smelly mulch. I think that about sums up where you've got to.

Trying to make compost in a sealed plastic bin seems utterly pointless to me which is why I can't understand the local council selling them so feverishly.

With hindsight I think nettles were an ideal choice because they contain lots of nitrogen but most plant material will do if you fill the heap in one go so it can start getting hot.

Round our way we have green wheelie bins for garden waste which most people fill to the brim every two weeks. I'm sure if you just made a large wooden compost heap with plenty of side ventilation i.e. planks a couple of inches apart and asked the neighbours if you could take their wheelie bins before the council do you could fill a huge heap with stuff and get perfect compost out of it a few weeks or at most months later. On a small scale it takes longer and the no heat route can take years. Basically it's just a matter of understanding the process. Heat and air let aerobic microbes start to break down the cellulose of the plant material. Once they've done their bit the wormies eat what's left and poop it out as compost. If the wormies can get in and out as they please they'll stay away while it's too hot, or just nibble away at the edges and come back in when the time's right. If you then leave things a bit longer so there's nothing left to eat the wormies bugger off and what you have left is worm free compost. Then you start another pile.

Reply to
Dave Baker

Is it heaving with worms? That seems to important, in my limited experience.

Reply to
Steve Walker

I disagree - they do work - well. But you just have to spear the contents and move it around a little every now and again to aerate. Fortunately, I broke the end off of a hoe a couple of years back. So that is my convenient spear. I also throw a watering can full of water in there every month or so, to make sure everything is nice and wet.

I guess the main reason for the black composter's popularity is aesthetics and space consideration.

JW

Reply to
John Whitworth

John Whitworth wibbled on Tuesday 06 April 2010 23:06

get a rat - mine does all that for me ;->

Reply to
Tim Watts

I did a wee in it Sunday too. :-)

Reply to
John Whitworth

Far too many local cats in the area for rats.

Can I shove a cat into the compost?

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Yes. A mixed side-benefit is that you get a few useful plants coming up from the food scraps.

NT

Reply to
NT

Pass the stuff through a course riddle before distributing to get rid of the twigs, egg shells etc.

Matt

Reply to
matthelliwell

Thus spake John Whitworth (sexyjw@g_eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_mail.com) unto the assembled multitudes:

I've had reasonably good experiences with the black bins too. They seem to take longer, but I've had good compost out of them. I have an aerating tool, a kind of spear with 2" hinged wings on the end which close up as you drive the tool into the heap, and splay out as you withdraw it, thus creating air channels.

I did used to have a "New Zealand" compost bin: two semi-detached bins, made of wood slats and about a cubic yard capacity each, with one side detachable to aid removal of the compost. That was excellent until the wood itself started to rot and the bins started to fall apart. I think if I were to build another I'd use recycled plastic 'planks' instead of wood.

Reply to
A.Clews

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