Topic: calling all compost addicts

[aquilegia]

This homemade compost lark is getting really addictive.

About a month ago I harvested a batch of compost - now I've got more that's rotted down beautifully. I sieve it as there are still some unrotted bits that have to go back in. Yesterday I got about halfway through sieveing one bin and filled an old 75l compost bag, which I'd practically emptied of the last batch of homemade compost.

My method is - bung everything (other than weeds, which are composted in the black bag cooking method, and diseased stuff, which goes in the bin). My non-gardening neighbours supply me with their garden waste. I even put chopped up woody prunings in - I figure they will eventually rot down, even if it takes years (I can't bear to through things out!) Mr Aqui adds his special ingredient to keep it moist!

The only trouble is it's also home to a colony of red ants (hence my stopping halfway through yesterday!) Somehow I managed to carry on regardless for a while without getting bitten, but then thought I'd better not push my luck anymore!

So how do you make yours?

[Sarah-b]

Our heap is a complete mess. I'm planning to give it a good stir and maybe move it in the winter. I started with good intentions - and put a couple of barrows of manure down at the bottom - thought it might keep it warm, but it is really full of woodlice - do you know if that's a problem - and I can't get to the sides of it cos it's between 2 piles of junk/old wood.
Anyway, last night I started an exciting new composting activity. When I had 2 earth up the potatoes, I found I hadn't left enough space to do so. Instead, I dug a big hole and used that soil. But then i was left with this hole. My idea now is to throw the kitchen waste into said hole and mix it around with the soil at the bottom. Then next year it will be the site for growing massive pumpkins.

Will it work?
Sarah.

[derbex]

Sarah, should do, I grow my courgettes like that in smaller holes, mainly to break the soil up. You can also do beans.

Aqui, a month is pretty good going :)

When we moved house we inherited a compost area and I have a plastic dalek in there that gets filled up and turned (if I'm feeling keen). When it's broken down some it goes into the smaller wooden bin that I made from the HDRA plans to rot down some more -or to sit until I use it. In the autumn there's also a big heap of hedge prunings and lawn thatch that gets pretty hot and is used as a mulch next year.

Then there's the worms and the leafmold behind the hedge, oh, and the two big bins of horse-poo on the allotment -you can take this too seriously ;D

Jeremy

P.S. Ants are supposed to be a sign that it's too dry, turning it should help get rid of them. Don't worry about woodlice, beetles &c. they're all helping break it down.

[Multiveg]

Aqui - you mean that you don't keep it moist then ? :o

MV has hubby's old potty in the shed  ;D :o ;)

[aquilegia]

MV - I'm giggling away at work here. I just hope no-one asks me what I'm laughing about.

No - I just couldn't do it! I'm very fussy about where I go! Mr Aqui has worried about me insisting that we collect it all in bottles. He has enough complaints about me insisting we collect the water when you're water for it to get hot (you can fill two 4pt milk bottles in that time!)

But then after Jeremy said ants mean compost is too dry, maybe I should!

Sarah - MIL makes her best compost that way. go for it!

[Mrs Ava]

I am a lazy compost maker, but it seems to work okay.  In the garden and at the allotment I have pallet bins and they get filled with everything except diseased bits and marestail.

I 'water' the compost heap at the allotment - thank goodness for the shed!

I don't turn it - ever, I just keep filling it and filling it and after a year, I upturn it and use it.  If it is chunky it is used more like a mulch, and if it is fine, it is used in pots.  On the allotment, once the pumpkins have finished growing in it, I shall upturn it and heap it over the plot where things are not growing.  I already have 5 sacks full of green stuff waiting to start the heap going again, and I noticed the other day the bags were warm to the touch, so I think the compost process has already started.  Just have to get Ava to make my wormery!  AVA!!! OI AVA.....get your act together husband!  :-*

[tim]

Each to his/her own. Like others, everything bar couch etc goes on. No turning, at my age - just patience. Moist but not sogged. This is the right hand bin's (of which we have 5) contents yesterday. Those are barrow loads. = Tim

[ALAN HOWELL]

Same here,no perennial weeds,cover it leave it..turns out great.
nice fork and spade Tim..  :-*.......Alan

[Mrs Ava]

So what is the 'correct' time to bung compost on the garden/allotment?  Anytime....spring....summer....you get my drift.  ;D

[Ceri]

Tim, you have five right hand bins?

[kenkew]

So what is the 'correct' time to bung compost on the garden/allotment?  Anytime....spring....summer....you get my drift.  ;D

I tend to bung it on after I've lifted a crop. While the ground is waiting for me to fill it up again, the compost acts as a feed and a mulch to keep the weeds down. At seasons end I get as much on there as I have.

[tim]

EJ - for me, whenever the bin is full & you've just cleared a space. Make room for the next lot
That was the onion patch.

Ceri - yes - can't use my spade left-handed.= Tim

[Wicker]

EJ we don't turn ours either during the "rotting" period - just keep piling on.  Thing is we don't add any "natural" water either I sometimes give it a wee spray with the hose but very very infrequently and anyway it works fine because we usually leave it for two years.  Mr W has a thing about not putting any weeds in or tattie shaws (these go to the Council recycling centre to make their compost!!)

We do have a fancy "composting" toilet on site but don't use that either - we are close enough to go home!  too much information Megan!

[Mrs Ava]

After reading this thread earlier today, I decided to have a poke around in my home compost bins which haven't been built up since last autumn.  After removing the top layer, about 6 inches or so deep of unrotted stuff, there it was, glimmering away at me, all black and crumbly and sweet smelling!  I have filled 7 sacks to go to the allotment tomorrow to cover where my early peas were and where my winter planted onions will be, and that was only from heap number one!  I checked out heap number 2 and again, removed the top layer to find even softer finer compost - this was the first bin to be filled.  Even though the compost is made, the heap was still warm inside.  lovely jubbly!

[Doris_Pinks]

Tis marvellous stuff and I am addicted to making it! Just emptied one of my garden daeleks, and have put it around my french beans as a mulch, they look very happy! The lottie one is now full, so more pallets required from somewhere. Just wish I could make more of it!

[tim]

And the top layer starts off the new bin.

Wot - no avocado stones -  or mussel shells? = Tim

[Kerry]

very interesting thread.... :)
quite new to this compost making malarkey but have had good harvests of it when emptying bin, and it was great to see a difference in the plants I spread it round. makes it worthwhile :)
have a green 'dalek' bin, from council, placed directly onto the ground.
in it goes all kitchen peelings, plus teabags and coffee grounds.
all green waste from the garden, except hedge clippings(no shredder) and 'nasty' weeds eg. couch grass.
my neighbour adds his lawn mowings every couple of weeks.
i also put in paper and card and give it a mix around. watered regularly, although not with an 'organic activator!!'
think my n.g.o.h. might if I asked nicely though!
usually harvested 2/3 times a year. would like to make more but it is a small garden, and to supplement this I get as much as I want of free horse muck from the stables at the bottom of the road.
it still amazes me that you can just chuck stuff in, pretty much leave it and....hey presto! magic!

[Ceri]

Kerry, you must be better at this bin thing than me - I've just given up on 2 daleks after 2 yrs of trying.  My lottie compost bin out of pallets creates wonderful compost, the 2 daleks I just couldn't get to work - spent ages 'mixing', just couldn't do it.  So now I have two spare if anybody wants them as I've resorted to a chicken wire and pallet job in the garden as well!

[feet of clay]

I start small - little pot with lid in the kitchen for tea bags, tissues, veg bits. Next is a lidded bucket near the back door then three 'daleks' which sit against a south- facing wall.  My ultimate is a thirty foot stretch of wall along which everything that ends up in the barrow gets dumped.  I then chuck the 'lumpy bits' in with the fresh stuff as I work along harvesting what I consider to be my most valuable crop.

[ina]

I love compost, the look, the feel, the smell. I 'turn' mine once or twice a month but not really turning, I just dig a hole in it and from next to it I shovel the top stuff in the hole and the deeper stuff (which is mostly composted) on top, then I do the same with the new hole. Kind of like double digging all the way around.

I noticed very little watering is done by the posters here (except for the human water). The compost container is 1x1meter and every time before I do the 'double digging' in it, I throw two buckets of canal water over the top. The compost is moist but not wet, I can't squeeze water out of it. The heap is hardly ever warm still it composts very well. For once I would like to have a steaming heap but without grass clippings I guess that will never happen.