My composting experiment - Preliminary results are in

Evening all.

I think I've mentioned on here that my compost bin is in fact nothing other than my standard council issue green waste wheelie bin, into which I drilled a few drainage holes and breathing holes about this time last year.

Since doing that, I've spent the last 12 months filling it with used tea bags, veg peelings, grass clippings, old brown paper bags, weeds etc. I reckon I put enough material in to fill it at least 5 times over, but at its peak the content was shrinking faster than I could add it. Well, everything has its limits, and this weekend it officially reached the point where I couldn't close the lid.

I knew of course that the stuff at the top was still fresh, so I decided to relocate the entire contents to another container, an awful plastic cupboard that's been in my garden since shortly after we moved in, which my kind hearted sister thought I might want. So I dug out the compost bin and mixed the results up in the now laid down cupboard.

There was definitely good compost in there, but there was also a lot of stuff at intermediate stages, as was expected.

However I was pleased to see the signs that it was a good healthy heap. The range of creatures living in there was astounding. I've never seen so many beetles, worms, flies, wiggly things, wriggly things or slimey things in one place before.

The only thing I wasn't entirely pleased about was signs that it wasn't draining too well. There were lumps that were just waterlogged mess.

So having emptied the bin and relocated its contents, I took my cordless drill, and went crazy making loads of extra breathing/drainage holes in it. Then I emptied the kitchen compost bin into it, and a spadeful of the previous batch for the bugs and fungi, and off it goes again.

 

Hi Dave,

I've been following advice from the C.A.T. They've done a few trials of putting whole layers of crumpled cardboard between the kitchen waste.

Reason being that the cardboard is carbon rich & the kitchen waste is nitrogen rich and that the mix stops the slimey end result that you often get from just kitchen waste.

They said the cardboard dries the heap out & for that reason they say leave the lid off to let the rain in.

They said it rotted quicker too and they could find no trace of contamination from printing inks in the end result.

Early days for me, only started mine a few months back but i'll let you know how it gets on.

 

I've started a compost bin and am also trying the 50/50 method (50% cardboard/paper and 50% greens/veg scraps) .... I only started a week ago but hope I don't have to wait a year before I can use the compost

 

I generally try to go for the 50/50 layered method, but in practice I find it very difficult, just because I don't always have 50/50 browns and greens.

 

I have the same prob with the greens, so I have been adding lawn clippings (aswell as the veg scraps from the kitchen)

 

Lawn clippings always go in mine, as do all veg peelings. In fact with the exception of meat, my general rule is that if it will rot naturally, it is compost material.

If I've just mowed the grass, I will usually try to mix the kitchen bucket contents into the grass to give it some sort of balance, but inevitably the grass box contains a lot of 'green'.

I did read a while ago that to produce more 'brown' when you have too much 'green', you simply leave the cut grass out to dry for a bit. I've never tried it though.

 

I've decided I must add more paper/cardboard ... when I take the lid off my compost bin, about a billion tiny flies come out ! :(

 

Don't put lawn clippings in if you use Weed and Feed or lawn Weedkiller that contains any persistent chemicals (Verdone Plus does, dunno about the others)

 

a quick question Kristen .... did you every try that Biochar compost?

 

Here's one I prepared earlier ! - how boring can one get? - taking pics of compost. - Been busy riddling this lot out today, and as Geoffrey Smith used to say, - "its almost good enough to eat in a sandwich"



a-a

 

You'll be suprised how many of us like that sort of thing a-a

 

Is there any liquid that needs to be added to a new compost bin?
Just asking as I have brought a tumbler type and put a few grass cuttings and a bits of newspaper in, but just
Seems very dry - should I be adding a bit of water on top just to get the process going or just leave it as it is?

The tumbler type have a big screw on lid so gets very little moisture inside, unlike the open type.