Allotment Stuff > The Basics

Compost for free ( nearly)

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Palustris:
Next time your microwave needs to be replaced, if the old one still works, but has gone rusty inside as they do, keep it in the garage/shed/greenhouse and microwave your home made compost for a weed and pest free mix for seed sowing. Just make sure there is no metal in it.

Tee Gee:
That is exactly how I got the one in my greenhouse.

It was originally used in our kitchen, but the turn table gave up turning (I guess the drive belt may have broken) So we bought a new one and the old one is now used to sterilise my seed/cutting compost!

Paulh:
Nora, that's very much the same as I do. I try to avoid twiggy stuff and now am using more card and shredded paper. It is of variable quality and consistency but it's only used for digging into the plot. so it doesn't have to be great. It stands for about a year and may get turned (if I need to move the Dalek for access). I can live with some remaining dtalks and clumps of grass cuttings: they will be digested in the soil.

I don't add tree leaves in any quantity (unless shredded when I mow the lawn) and used potting compost from pots or growbags goes straight on the plot.

I won't win Composter of the Year but it works for me.

pumkinlover:
I have been making home made compost and recycling it for the last few years. Mainly with success. I've got a tumbler composter on the allotment and am using that to mix the dry stuff which is mainly rabbit bedding, grass and vegetable waste.   Then it goes into daleks with some household liquid fertiliser and borage and comfrey.
But I've been using BF&B and just a guesstimate of how much to use. So I've bought some JI base and going to be a bit more scientific and even actually use the correct quantities!  I've only been using the microwave to sterilise the seed compost or the top layer of the pot. 
Thanks for inspiring me to do this a bit better!

Vinlander:
I'm going to recommend rotting down woodchip - on its own (it encourages specific fungi that work faster than composting) - it takes 1.5 - 2.5 years to turn soft and chocolate brown but when it is, many plants prefer it to soil and put on a huge spurt (immediately after that point they need fertiliser - preferably liquid). I haven't tried everything but examples are volunteer tomatoes (and other thugs) and tuberous peas. Carrots are happy in it but for them I mainly use it as the top layer in builders' bags of rough compost (it raises them above the carrot fly). I suspect shallots would like it - it's noticeable how much they prefer compost to heavy soil; onions not so obviously.

It's also good for restoring the structure of old compost that has gone claggy (that even happens with peat-based - just a lot slower).

I prefer to convert it in 30cm deep trenches - it's quicker than a heap and I don't need to dig them because they are my paths (that topsoil was wasted underfoot until it made my raised beds). I think the treading helps to rot it - I think it makes it stay damper, longer.

At home I do the same thing with prunings (NB. any stick longer than 20cm is begging for a chance to trip you up). They take a little longer to rot but when they go brittle they become little sponges in the soil (micro-Hugelkultur?).

The plant roots really don't mind going round them or through them - they've been coping with bigger stones for billions of years! Just putting prunings in a black binbag will do the same thing but paths are useful.

I may have said this before - on waterlogged areas you're better off filling the paths with prunings - heavy traffic on chip can turn it into wooden quicksand.

Cheers.

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