Hello!!
I haven't been here for a while so it's a bit of a cheek to pick your brains but here goes..... My mum is 87 and having a bit of bother managing her big compost up the garden, she has seen the Compostflow and wondered if anybody had any experience with it?? It seems pretty expensive to me but if it will make life easier for her I'm all for it unless you know of anything as good or better that's cheaper.
Thanks
Chezzie
What is it Chezzie?
Quote from: Marymary on February 23, 2007, 21:01:35
What is it Chezzie?
It is a compost tumbler they are usually ridiculously expensive & don't work that well unless you get the mix of ingredients & moisture content spot on.
If you need something low maintenance you are probably better off looking at vermicomposting.
Vermicomposting is only really good if you have a very small amount of organic waste. It is definitely not what I would call low-maintainance though, it entails seperating the worms every now and then (some people find it easier to spread them on a plastic sheet outside on a warm day with some wet newspapers in places, the worms make their way underneath them, easier to collect). You also have to make sure the bin is in the right place and may mean moving it at difference times of the year - too cold and the worms'll die, too hot, ditto.
Could her compost bin not just be moved nearer to the house?
Sorry Baccy Man, not trying to rain on your parade, just thinking of an 87 yr-old woman!
I should of expanded on what I meant.
A few people I know have a lazy approach to composting & don't want to put the effort into turning heaps regularly, watering, thinking about the right mix of ingredients etc... So instead they have 2 of the 330 litre daleks that the council & water companies sell for about £10 each they are placed on concrete rather than directly on the ground which discourages the worms from leaving. They add all kitchen & garden waste along with a handful of worms to start the process. After a couple of months there are thousands of worms which will manage their population themselves according to how much food is availiable to them. When the first bin is full they do the same thing with the second by the time the second bin is full the first is ready to be used.
Do 'Help the Aged' have any volunteers in your area?
I don't know if they would help with that sort of thing, but it would be worth asking.
Quote from: Baccy Man on February 24, 2007, 11:18:00
I should of expanded on what I meant.
A few people I know have a lazy approach to composting & don't want to put the effort into turning heaps regularly, watering, thinking about the right mix of ingredients etc... So instead they have 2 of the 330 litre daleks that the council & water companies sell for about £10 each they are placed on concrete rather than directly on the ground which discourages the worms from leaving. They add all kitchen & garden waste along with a handful of worms to start the process. After a couple of months there are thousands of worms which will manage their population themselves according to how much food is availiable to them. When the first bin is full they do the same thing with the second by the time the second bin is full the first is ready to be used.
There is still a fair amount of work to this though, isn't there? Presumably you're talking about getting a specialised bin, ie. a wormery, rather than using the dalek ones the council provide? It needs to have something of a tap at the bottom to drain off the liquid produced by the worms, if the compost bin is open on concrete this could be quite messy. Also, with this method, what happens to the worms in the first bin once it's turned to compost - don't you still have to somehow retrieve the worms to add to the second bin?
Quote from: Rain on February 24, 2007, 15:11:03
There is still a fair amount of work to this though, isn't there? Presumably you're talking about getting a specialised bin, ie. a wormery, rather than using the dalek ones the council provide? It needs to have something of a tap at the bottom to drain off the liquid produced by the worms, if the compost bin is open on concrete this could be quite messy. Also, with this method, what happens to the worms in the first bin once it's turned to compost - don't you still have to somehow retrieve the worms to add to the second bin?
This method just uses daleks not specialist wormeries there is very little liquid run off most is absorbed by the finished part of the compost & what there is washes away when it rains. You only need a handful of worms to start the second bin which can easily be taken from the surface of the material in the first bin. When you spread the compost the worms go out with it they dig it in for you which helps a lot if you are a no-dig gardener but does no harm if you are not. This method of composting requires very little effort & you get good results with it. There is also no need to move the dalek in the winter as you would with a wormery because there is a sufficient depth of material for the worms to move to a warmer part of the heap when they need to. As I said before I know several people who use this method & only one of them seperates the worms when the compost is finished & he only does that because he usually ends up with about 5 kg of worms in the finished compost which he sells on ebay for £25 per kg.
Because you don't get a thermophilic reaction you should avoid perennial weeds & weeds that have gone to seed which would be destroyed in a well maintained hot compost heap as they will survive this process.
Thank you so much for all your help and advice, I don't know much about compost probably because I'm petrified of worms and slugs. Help the Aged have sent a couple of gardeners to do a clean up but they cut through her NTL cable both times so she's reluctant to have them back, she had a gardener before that who turned her beautiful garden into a desert, he killed off everything he touched. My brothers and sisters help when they are down but they live in London and she in Bournemouth. She's more than happy to turn every day and do any maintenance necessary as long as it's not heavy work. She will use it mainly for household waste so standing on concrete just outside the kitchen door would be perfect. I'm a bit muddled now I'm afraid, do you recommend that she buy it or does the council have a similar product?
Thanks
Chezzie
The method I described is very different & considerably cheaper (from £12) to the compostflow tumbler you were talking about.
I don't reccommend the compostflow because you would have to calculate the c/n ratios of all items you put in & get the mix almost exactly right then calculate how much water too add to get the right moisture content. You need to have quite a lot of material in it to get the composting process started which would make it hard work to turn.
If you decide to go with the method I described you would need 2 compost bins which you can buy at reduced prices from either the water company or the council I will give details below. There is no turning involved you just add the waste & some worms to get started, the worms do all the work if you add a shovel full of garden soil when you start it off it will introduce all the necessary bacteria to get it started quicker. When the first bin is full you do the same with the second by the time the second bin is full the compost in the first bin will be ready to use so you empty out the compost & start filling it with waste again.
Bournemouth & West Hampshire Water offer 330 litre compost bins for £6 each including delivery you can download a printable order form from here.
http://www.bwhwater.co.uk/water_butt.pdf (680kb pdf file)
Bournemouth Borough Council is offering subsidised compost bins from £8 each you have to email or phone them for further details.
http://www.bournemouth.gov.uk/Residents/Waste_Recycling/Composting.asp
Brilliant, thank you!! I have read the whole thread to my mum this morning and she said it's very interesting, it was an act of true love talking about worms being kept nice and warmies :o She already has the one Dalek so she tells me so she is now going to buy another and have the first emptied and moved closer to the house between the kitchen and the green-house which will make access easier. She wants me to thank you, she really appreciates all your help. At the moment the compost is under a laurel tree close to a fox hole and a squirrel dray she wonders if this has anything to do with the long winged flies that live under the lid, does anybody else have this problem?
Thanks again.
Chezzie
This is what I want - just don't have the room for it..
http://www.rolypig.com/
Isn't that the same idea as the Compostflow Barnowl?
Similar, I think less complicated, but you do have to give a bit of thought to the balance of materials as with most compost heaps.
I just like them because they look cute ;D
That's as good a reason as any........ says the woman who got married for a bet!!
Baccy Man, thanks for all the info, that's interesting, I hadn't heard of using worms in this way, thought it was just wormeries. Two questions though I wondered if you'd please be able to help with, while putting normal earthworms in a compost would kill them, what happens to dendra worms if they come out of the compost and go into the ground, will they die?
Also, do you know of any cheap suppliers? I've had a browse but all seem very expensive and quite a large amount, I think you said it only needs a handful to get it started?
Many thanks.
Ah, forget the second question.
First question still puzzles me though, if anyone has info on whether compost worms die if they're not in the compost, I'd be very grateful.
Redworms (Eisenia Foetida) will live 2-5 years providing they have access to humus rich soil. In a flower bed or a vegetable garden you are quite regularly adding new organic matter compost/manure/leafmould/mulches which increases the humus content so they will live there quite happily. Some will wander off in search of new food sources during the night if you have a pile of leaves around they will find it within a day or 2. However if you were to dump them on a lawn they would be dead before the day was out as they wouldn't have access to the humus they rely on.
They breed according to how much food is availiable to them if there is a limited quantity of food then they may stop breeding completely until more becomes availiable or some of the older worms have died so there is enough food around to feed their offspring.
The worms in the compost heaps will have more than enough food so they will breed constantly if you started with 100 adult redworms they would each lay 4 cocoons per week, 3 worms will hatch from each cocoon 45 days later creating 1200 baby worms those will be capable of breeding when they are 6 weeks old so you can see why i said you don't need many to get started.
That's amazing Baccy Man, thanks a lot for that info. Had no idea they multiplied so quickly, thought I'd be waiting for a while!
Baccy Man, what wonderful info. Thanks so much.
Your the man Baccy. 8) ;D ;D ;D
I just listened to Home Planet on Radio 4, and they had a very interesting bit on worms and wormeries.
Here's the link for the programme's website, with the "listen again" button for the whole programme.
Thanks for the tip triffid! Couldn't find the link in your post but found the program on the website, so here's the address for anyone else:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/homeplanet_20070227.shtml
Haven't listened to it yet but will do. All the best :)
:-[
Oops! Don't know what happened there (I previewed it an' all, honest, guv), but thanks for tidying up after me, Rain!
Are compost additives really worth it???
My compost this time of year is mostly brown waste with G pig and chook mess (shavings and straw)... would it be worth me adding a compost additive to get it going or with the wee and poo activate itself?
Quote from: OliveOil on February 28, 2007, 20:00:09
Are compost additives really worth it???
No!!!
If it was a new heap I would suggest a shovelfull of garden soil as that would add more of the required bacteria than most of the activators contain if it is an existing heap then the bacteria are already present you just add material to feed them.