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Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: Bjerreby on May 08, 2009, 10:09:16
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Does anyone have experience composting red clover?
Last year I sowed half my garden as a wildlife meadow, with 5 kinds of grasses, fiddleneck, salad burnet, birds foot trefoil, and red clover.
Very soon I was swamped by fiddleneck, but this year, the clover has absolutely taken over the meadow. So this morning I have chopped it all down to about 5", and built a compost heap that is 70% clover, 20% dry seaweed, and 10% mixed kitchen waste with some woody bits and cardboard. I expect with all that nitrogen in the pile I won't need to add a starter...........any ideas?
The compost heap has filled the compost bin right up, 8' by 3' by 4', and I still have about 15 barrowloads of red clover clippings to deal with. I shall have a go at making liquid fertilizer with some, use some as mulch, and dig some into my last 3 veggie beds (which I just dug fo the first time).
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Not tried it myself but should be fine... :-\
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I add clover to my compost heaps, but not in that large a percentage!!
It will break down quickly, it's a pity you don't have some high carbon stuff to add (shredded cardboard / straw / shredded paper)
;)
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I add clover to my compost heaps, but not in that large a percentage!!
It will break down quickly, it's a pity you don't have some high carbon stuff to add (shredded cardboard / straw / shredded paper)
;)
I've mixed in old dry eelgrass. It washed up last autumn, and after our warm, dry April, it is almost like straw.
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Well here we are, 4 days on, and the compost heap has reached 45 degrees C according to my thermometer. The pile has already settled about 6".
So much for a mystical mix of yarrow, nettle, dandelion and honey to get the thing warmed up!
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DAY 10
Well, the heap has shrunk to just 60% of its original height. The maximum temperature was 61 degrees C two days ago, and this morning it was cooling down. I decided to dig in it a bit.
There wasa slight smell of ammonia, and I am told that indicates all oxygen is used up in the pile, so it is time to aerate the thing.
I pulled all the compost out with a fork, and re-piled it again, to get air in. The contents are just slightly moist, and much of it has a white powdery covering, what I understand is a good sign. It looks mostly like half-finished compost!
The only clover I can still recognize is that round the egdes of the heap, and that has now been put in the middle.
The brown corrugated cardboard I put in has completely disappeared along with the kitchen waste, brown paper and the seaweed.
If it continues like this, I shall have finished compost in another month's time....................that will free up the compost box for a hedge clipping pile :)
So much for mumbo-jumbo quick start concoctions of yarrow, dandelion, nettles and honey!
By the way, I made liquid fertilizer from the left-over red clover. I smelled like sewage and it looks like my potatoes loved it!
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Clover is used as a green manure, it's sold in garden centers as such. Sow it in autumn, dig it in in spring. It's excellent for composting.
iPhone.
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DAY 11
Turning the pile worked wonders. It has heated up again, and has visibly shrunk further. It is now just half the original size........in just 11 days. :o
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Hi Pjerreby. Do you have a special compost bin thermometer please. I would love to know if ours is heating up.
Janet
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It is an industrial instrument I bought for my work. Ahlborn mess-und regelungstechnik GmbH. www.ahlborn.com (if they still exist!).
It was expensive because it measures between -70 and +500 degrees C. I think a simple glass thermometer would do the trick.
(http://i41.tinypic.com/23js7xs.jpg)
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Wouldn't that plastic insulation burn long before it reached 500 Centigrade?
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You only put the end of the thermocouple in, not the whole thing :o
I like the hand thermometer, if its warm, its body temp, if its hots and steamy its getting towards 50-60.
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Wouldn't that plastic insulation burn long before it reached 500 Centigrade?
The probe is at the end of the stainless steel rod. It gets poked into a tiny hole in a ship's exhaust pipe to measure the exhaust gas temperature inside. There are other locations it works too, like at the turbochargers. I also find it handy for getting the temperature inside a bundle of cables. :)
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That explains it; the wire wouldn't be exposed to the heat.