Just used up the last of my whole last years product planting out my tomatoes and courgettes, it doesn't go far :(
Even when my gardening enthusiasm is at rock bottom like in mid winter I'm diligent about trudging through the cold and rain and snow to add stuff to my compost bins, there's something separately fascinating besides gardening interest to the dark art of getting compost right.
There was thread on the BBC gardening forum that had been kept going by fellow obsessives for years. ;D
Glad to hear it all came in useful. Nice to think of your winter trudging working towards productivity on sunny summer days. :)
There isn't really a dark art to it. It just doesn't work in six weeks, unless you have industrial quantities, finely shredded and turn frequently. If you mix green and brown stuff, ie kitchen waste, cut grass and cardboard or paper shredder contents and check that it isn't too dry, it will make reasonable compost in a year. There will always be sticks in it and cabbage stalks don't compost fast either, neither do sweetcorn stalks, but these just go back and start the next bin. There is never enough from kitchen peelings alone. I have 8 daleks on the go all the time and a large pallet bin and it isn't enough either. If you can leave compost for a year in a dalek, the result is definitely good enough to use even without turning, if the mix of green and brown was roughly right. Gent's wee is an excellent activator 'flushed down' with half a watering can.
All i have is sheets of tin in a square ish 6x12x3 foot, went to have a look yesterday to see if i could get any usefull stuff out for the pumpkins and to my amazement it had all rotted down lovely i just scrapped the top layer off and put it back on the bottom, took me about 2-3hrs to move it all out in that heat yesterday, Had some of the oldguys at the plot come over to see what i was doing they were all saying how good it looked put a smile on my face ;
Every thing goes into my bin grass cuttings, hedge trimmings veg peeling, tea bags and coffee grounds my chooks bedding and any waste from the plot i don't turn it and am not fuzzy about it, it does get some gents wee when i get took short at the plot :-X
Steve
8 daleks!!! That would take up half my plot!!!
As my old compost bin "died", I dug out a little of the compost, but left most of it, spread it out, put planks around it, covered it in brown paper and black plastic and I have sowed cukes, courgettes and butternuts in it, Hopefully they will give a great crop.
8 Daleks ?? I can just about keep 2 going. One I fill throughout the summer then transfer it to the other one for the winter which has the previous load of almost done stuff I transfer to a smaller plastic dustbin with holes punched in and use that in the following spring by which time it's much reduced in volume, but perfect I think. So I guess it almost three bins.
I put in cardboard too over the few years I've been making it I've gradually upped the carbon content and my compost is better for it.
One day I'll get round to building proper wooden ones with a shutter boards at the front for easy access etc....one day ::)