When I inherited my new plot this year there were two compost piles, one about 1 x 1m and one about 2 x 1 m. I've subsequently merged them both into the big heap, so I've got somewhere to use this year.
Some of the compost is nicely rotted, but its all mixed in with wood prunings and things that haven't decomposed.
I was thinking of digging out the heap and trying (somehow) to sieve out the good stuff, and leave the rest to rot down this year.
Is there any quick way to do this? It'd take forever with the compost sieves I've seen at garden centres. Another thought was to hire a petrol shredder and sytematically put the whole heap through the shredder, to break up any woody bits.
my hubby has a large piece of fencing that fits over the wheelbarrow, he throws the compost on and rubs his spade over it to seive it :)
Hi Stedic
I am writing about my adventures with a 6 foot high mega compost heap on my blog.
http://tonythegardener.blogspot.com/2011/02/compost-mountain.html
If I had a petrol shredder, I would shred all my compost before I added it to the heap. There is evidence to suggest that this aids in decomposition and you get good friable compost quicker.
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,1469.0.html
Might help!
I found a shopping basket from a well known clothing shop :-X and that works quite well, you can do it pretty quickly by hand if your not too fussy, just throwing out the larger pieces, the bottom half should be composted so scrape the top off first. ::) :-\ :D
A simple way would be to scatter all of the material over the area that you want to improve, then just rake up the sticks and bits of uncomposted material, and fling it back in to the bins with a dung fork.
Oh yes, I had forgotten - I had a wire basket from a veg shop that said I could take it home, and before I brought it back, it was perfect for compost sieving!
My messy heap is full of old cabbage stalks etc, and when most of the compost looks brown and solid, I rake the loose stuff to the side, dig out the good stuff and mulch with it. Then I pull back the rough stuff, and start again with throwing weeds on top of them. Everything turns into fine-ish compost eventually.
I bury my cabbage stalks. They take two years to rot. Apart from that, I just use everything, including the half-rotted bits. I put grass cutting mulch over the top to deter weed seedlings, and it all decays and disappears over a season.
I've been having a good dig through the heaps over the last two days. We've got one 2x2m bin and a 1x1m across the plot. I started by digging out half of the 2x2, then putting a spare fence panel down the middle of it to create two seperate bins. Then i put all the compost into one side of it.
Now I can just dig into the one heap, sieve it using a wire mesh and wheelbarrow. Now I put the good compost into the smaller bin for storage and the woodier bits into the now empty half of the 2x2.
Sooner or later I'll have sifted all the compost for this year and rotated the heap in the process. This should all be done before we need to start filling the bins again in the summer.
Thanks for all your advice
Steve
Gardening on clay, I find moderately undigested compost does at least improve the drainage. Of course, I chuck the really big bad lumps back to start the next compost heap.