compost bin and it's refusal to make compost...help please!

We have a standard B&Q compost bin which I've been filling up for the last year (!). It has become a tiny nature reserve for local insect life (always a bonus) but it still just seems to be a pile of rotting vegetables and dead twigs. We haven't put cut grass in (no lawn yet) and I have added some earth to try an weigh it down...but no luck really. Is it too dry to encourage enough worms? Shouldn't bacteria be doing their job better?
Help please...
Flora
x

 

Hi Flora
Just a guess but it sounds like it`s not being aerated enough as the bacteria need oxygen to do their job.

Adding earth really doesn`t sound like a good plan to me, weighting it down will preclude the air which will lead to a nasty slimy heap

Seems you have the right stuff going in though..green stuff and twigs which are the needed carbon element.

 

agree with Hex - turn it over, which will get oxygen into it. Just use a fork or spade, and get it thoroughly mixed up. If you have a piece of old carpet, or even a cardboard box - put it over the top and leave it for a while. BTW, if the twigs are quite big, cut them up a bit.

 

As an addendum - if it seems very dry when you turn it over as advised, then chuck a full watering can over the lot before covering it over.

The cover increases the heat, which helps in the composting process, but you do need to keep turning it.

I have a Henry Doubleday wooden one, and that does not need turning as much as the plastic ones

 

Don't weigh it down with earth too much.This as Hex says starves the bacteria of oxygen. However a little bit of earth mainly introduced on the roots of weeds adds bacteria that help break down the heap. The important thing is to try to keep a balance of green and brown contents which you seem to be doing and keeping the moisture content regulated with a cover.
Keeping a cover on the heap also encourages worms to work at the the top of the heap.

We use a 24 month cycle with our main heaps. We fill one during one year and then turn it over into another one and let it continue rotting for another year.
Despite all advice to turn heaps regularly (which we don't do) the annual inversion seems to work.
If you do decide to mix the heap you should try one of the tools advertised as a garden tiller/cultivator. Supposedly they make cultivation easier. Its a four prong thing with a shaft and a handle that you stick in the soil and twist. We've found them next to useless for their intended purpose, but they are quite good for stirring a heap and much easier on the back than a garden fork.

(Edit)-
Just had another thought. You are using a bin so probably need to introduce more dry material such as cardboard, paper or leaves to the mix. If it's too soggy you've too much green. Ir it's looking dry and not rotting you've too much brown.

[ 20. May 2006, 11:13 PM: Message edited by: Dave W ]

 

Try adding nettle leaves,but not the roots as the leaves act as a natural accelerator, to produce heat, but wear gardening gloves when handling them, so as not to get stung.

Nettles growing on the land is a sign of fertile soil

Kandy

 

At the risk of offending peoples sensibilities, pee in your compost bin. I don't have a composter so I havent tried this myself but apparently according to an article I read, increasing the ammonia in the compost bin mix by peeing in it works as an accelerator. Urine is high in ammonia, but no number 2's please, that just nasty! :D

 

Shame on you BM, some of us have neighbours!! I used garotta when I started, but lawn food, dried blood, or fish blood and bone, will do the job just as well. It's the carbon to nitrogen balance. If it is too high the microbial populations don't get revved up enough, and as the primary decomposers die off not enough secondary ones take their place. Answer: more nitrogen (from whatever available source)to get the ball rolling. As they respire they also release water vapour which allows further colonisation in the drier parts of the heap. Don't get too concerned about the oxygen - the microbes have to be hard at it to use up whats already in there, and it can easily permeate through a small heap.

My experience is that small bins don't get warm enough for thorough decomposition unless the mixture is very finely chopped up or 'soft'.

I'd suggest chucking on some nitrogenous fertilizer and enough water to thoroughly moisten the heap (liquid lawn food - NO WEEDKILLER - would be perfect)- after all there's no lawn clippings to make a stinking claggy mess in there, cover up with a bit of carpet or foliage clippings to keep the heat and moisture in, and watch it go. As the heat reduces, turn it thoroughly and then let it be.

WRT Dave W I agree that the annual turn is sufficient, and I think the heaps have a seasonality; they heat up in the spring and the autumn so it's good to turn them in advance of these seasons. Large scale composters (councils etc) windrow their material and turn it monthly/ fortnightly to encourage thorough aerobic primary decomposition. They can shift it as long as it has got through this stage and looks black-ish. Us gardeners like the secondary process however; when the microbes have finished and the heat has reduced, the worms and other invertebrates get in and about the heap and make it far richer and more compact. It needs time for this to occur. I think this stuff is absolutely the best thing for one's garden!

 

Just p1ssing, sorry passing on what I have read, honest! :D

 

Jazid, regarding your comments above, do you have something against using grass clippings? Given that you don't put too much in at a time of course so as to maintain a reasonable balance and that it is a recyclable material?

 

Banana Man, your off the hook, Alan Tichmarsh said he did it until he was overlooked by a new neighbour! :D

 

I don't care who's looking any more....I reckon good news travels fast :D

 

Just don't leave the seat up!

 

:eek: God forbid!!!

 

Not sure if I'm on or off topic now (!)

No I don't have any objections to grass clippings. I produce approx 8 tonnes a year of compost from just that. Makes great compost eventually and is an essential ingredient of my mixed material bins. What I do think though is that if the compost isn't working then often grass clipppings are involved. If the material goes anaerobic then it turns to a stinking yellowy slimy mat, if the process goes too fast the clippings burn out the middle of the heap. Either way all you have to do is turn the heap and retire for a well earned pint.

One point, the compost from grass clippings will decompose much faster, and with less tannic residue, than the mixed material stuff and will tend to have a more nitrogenous balance so...great for raspberries, not so good for roses.