Compost

[TeeDee]

I now have a small army of Compost daleks - huddled together like a rabid pack of Penguins.

Most of my waste Ingredients is I would say Grass cuttings , Leaves , some small branches , food waste , Horse manure ( purchased -seems a good idea ) and some occasional soil chucked on top to compress it down. So I can stick more in ( not saying that is a good thing )

Oh and the not so occasional small mouse when my cats can be bothered to get off their arses and do some heavily subsided mousing.


So I was wondering about the applied science of composting , a bit of a mental ramble ending up with a question regarding 'best practice' of composting.

If one could have 9 separate composts bins of 1m x 1m x 1m would they fare better or worse than say an combined single compost heap of say 3m x 3m x 1m ? Is there an increased advantage to mass?

Also I've heard of different things added to compost - Coffee grinds and Seaweed spring to mind - both I'm sure I could easily acquire - but are they worth it? what do they bring to the party and what else is it worth adding ??

I have the inners plastic tanks of some IBCs and considered modifying and using those - maybe insert an inner aerated tube ( drainage hose ) down vertically in the centre of the compost mound as a high speed access run for worms and for me to toss foodwaste?

Manure - I mentioned Horse manure because around here its easy to source and cheap and thankfully quite easy to transport. As a child growing up on a small hobby farm of sorts I knew the chicken poop was a 'hot' manure and was very different - so what manures are good to use and in what ratio?


Wood Ash - I occasionally have a burn and end up with wood ash - worth being included?


Worms!!! The next thing!! What worms can or should be used with composting? I've seen some unusual species of worms advertised for sale and they all have aggressive names ( tiger worms , night crawlers ) - can one source worm eggs online? whats the right amount of worms to include in a compost bin and is that different to a wormery?


So what do people here do , for themselves , have seen done and think ' thats a good idea' etc.

 

[Broch]

@British Red is the man to advise I think

Having spent many years trying to follow the "theoretical" best practice of compost making I have now become quite a lot less fussy over it - the difference? not a lot as far as I can see.

So, I have two piles, this year's fresh waste (left open), and last year's composted waste (covered). It goes on the garden after the second year. I do put grass cuttings on it but no more than 50% (ideally). In addition all kitchen non-cooked food waste, coffee grounds, tea bags (not plastic ones), etc go on. The grass cuttings are balanced with wood chip from my logging. After the second year it is dark and friable and smells ... well, of compost!

It would probably benefit from the composted pile being turned over once or twice but, with all the other tasks to do, it doesn't get done.

 

[Pattree]

Compost and wormeries are totally different animals.
Composting is far too hot for worms.

My daughter’s wormery looked like a composting dalek but had a textile filter near the base. Liquid accumulated below the filter and was drawn off via a tap.

Your list of ingredients looks pretty comprehensive. We used to add lime. I can’t remember how much, it was sprinkled as as we built up the layers. Your wood ash would go part way to supplying that.

The advantage of the plastic dalek is that you avoid the faf of turning the heap out side to inside twice a year as we did with wooden boarded bulk compost “bins”.

 

[slowworm]

There's endless advice on composting but a couple of points.

A big pile is likely to heat up and hot compost, possibly killing weed seeds and some diseases. This can take a bit of skill and room.

Plastic bin type composters generally don't get enough material to heat up but slowly compost and can have loads of worms. Normally the worms just find the bins.

I just add anything uncontaminated to my bins, I don't worry too much about grass clippings as ours often contain old and rough grass so are not too green and rich.

Things like manure and seaweed will introduce trace elements and well as more nitrogen. I am very cautious about manure these days as there are persistent weed killers about that can survive the composting process. (See here: https://www.rhs.org.uk/prevention-protection/weedkiller-damage ).

 

[Chris]

My black plastic bin gets grass, organic kitchen waste and that’s about it. Opened it up the other day to find it absolutely crawling with worms.

I plan on turning a shovel or two of horse manure into it at some point.

Earlier in the year I think it was too dry as there was a huge ant nest in there (probably due to lots or coffee grounds), so I added some water and that’s helped the consistency a great deal.

 

[Stew]

I have loads of compost bins on the go at any one time. I think it’s twelve or thirteen at the moment. I have lots because I have plenty of jobs to be doing so don’t bother turning them. Turning will speed things up but I get good success with just leaving it for longer.

I would suggest a separate bin just for leaves and then just add some more browns to your compost - cardboard is an easy one. Egg boxes, Amazon parcels, etc. coffee grounds are better for compost than straight on the flower beds - it’s been shown to inhibit plant growth when not composted but also seems to promote worm activity in the compost.

Just think of a compost bin like your gut - variety with a mix of veg and fibre!

 

[EdS]

Having been involved in composting on an industrial scale....big is best.

It heats up to a higher temp = better weed kill and "sterilisation ", it also holds heat better.

But it does need turning / aerating and to be able to drain.

You also need to build it so it sheds rain

 

[TeeDee]

Having been involved in composting on an industrial scale....big is best.

It heats up to a higher temp = better weed kill and "sterilisation ", it also holds heat better.

But it does need turning / aerating and to be able to drain.

You also need to build it so it sheds rain

So for the sake of simple compost dalek - would it be a good idea to cover the dalek in a bubble wrap / insulative material in the autumn/winter months?

 

[TeeDee]

So , Wormeries. Or Wyrmveries.

I've ordered some little pink wrigglies over t'internet and they will be here in a few days.

Looking at what the golden rules of creating a Wormery is , it seems to consist of :-

1) Don't let worms sit in their own worm juice - a multilayered vessel approach where the worms are living in a mulch and the 'juice' can drip through to a catchment area of sorts.

2) Don't over feed - its not a compost heap its a small ecosystem so limit the amount of scraps offered up to the worms and needs to be kept in balance.

3) Mulch - where the worms live - seem most people tend to favour shredded Cardboard - which kinda of surprised me considering how many chemicals must go into that process of making cardboard.

I've also seen some people use straight up Cow poop ( very gloopy ) as a medium with the mulch spread on top. Not sure what the de facto best mix is.

4) Keep the over all thing dark

5) Once every 3 months separate the worms out and start the process again.


Any thoughts or suggestions of other points or maybe this is over complicating it all.

 

[FerlasDave]

If you want to get fancy, have a look at Bokashi. That’s what we do, but we are small scale for which it works best.

 

[Pattree]

Temperature!
I’m not sure what the range is but summer heat and winter cold can kill then. They have nowhere to burrow out of the way.
Definitely not in direct sunlight.

My daughter was using tiger worms (I think)

 

[demented dale]

I now have a small army of Compost daleks - huddled together like a rabid pack of Penguins.

Most of my waste Ingredients is I would say Grass cuttings , Leaves , some small branches , food waste , Horse manure ( purchased -seems a good idea ) and some occasional soil chucked on top to compress it down. So I can stick more in ( not saying that is a good thing )

Oh and the not so occasional small mouse when my cats can be bothered to get off their arses and do some heavily subsided mousing.


So I was wondering about the applied science of composting , a bit of a mental ramble ending up with a question regarding 'best practice' of composting.

If one could have 9 separate composts bins of 1m x 1m x 1m would they fare better or worse than say an combined single compost heap of say 3m x 3m x 1m ? Is there an increased advantage to mass?

Also I've heard of different things added to compost - Coffee grinds and Seaweed spring to mind - both I'm sure I could easily acquire - but are they worth it? what do they bring to the party and what else is it worth adding ??

I have the inners plastic tanks of some IBCs and considered modifying and using those - maybe insert an inner aerated tube ( drainage hose ) down vertically in the centre of the compost mound as a high speed access run for worms and for me to toss foodwaste?

Manure - I mentioned Horse manure because around here its easy to source and cheap and thankfully quite easy to transport. As a child growing up on a small hobby farm of sorts I knew the chicken poop was a 'hot' manure and was very different - so what manures are good to use and in what ratio?


Wood Ash - I occasionally have a burn and end up with wood ash - worth being included?


Worms!!! The next thing!! What worms can or should be used with composting? I've seen some unusual species of worms advertised for sale and they all have aggressive names ( tiger worms , night crawlers ) - can one source worm eggs online? whats the right amount of worms to include in a compost bin and is that different to a wormery?


So what do people here do , for themselves , have seen done and think ' thats a good idea' etc.

I use a single rabid penguin.. x

 

[British Red]

Having been involved in composting on an industrial scale....big is best.

It heats up to a higher temp = better weed kill and "sterilisation ", it also holds heat better.

But it does need turning / aerating and to be able to drain.

You also need to build it so it sheds rain

Agreed and you need to be adding enough fresh material to get it up to temperature. Most domestic homes just don't create enough compostable material in a short enough time

 

[TeeDee]

Agreed and you need to be adding enough fresh material to get it up to temperature. Most domestic homes just don't create enough compostable material in a short enough time

By fresh - do you mean purely food waste and green cuttings?

 

[British Red]

By fresh - do you mean purely food waste and green cuttings?

No, you need a mix, roughly 50:50 of green & brown material but it needs to be "fed" regularly and topped up. We can easily fill a dalek in a day. It breaks down fast & then we top it up

 

[FerlasDave]

Agreed and you need to be adding enough fresh material to get it up to temperature. Most domestic homes just don't create enough compostable material in a short enough time

Another reason we use Bokashi. It’s perfect for home use, and can be scaled up or down depending on how much waste you produce.

 

[Stew]

Another reason we use Bokashi. It’s perfect for home use, and can be scaled up or down depending on how much waste you produce.

What's your set-up?

 

[FerlasDave]

What's your set-up?

We have two 15L bokashi bins, and just alternate between the two. Once the second one is full the first is fermented well enough to dig into the beds ready to go.

The juice is fantastic for unblocking drains too!

 

[Stew]

We have two 15L bokashi bins, and just alternate between the two. Once the second one is full the first is fermented well enough to dig into the beds ready to go.

The juice is fantastic for unblocking drains too!

I bet it has a fair smell to it!

So does the bin not matter too much but the magic is in the bran?

 

[FerlasDave]

I bet it has a fair smell to it!

So does the bin not matter too much but the magic is in the bran?

It’s not bad at all as long as you keep the lid closed! No flies or bug either which helps. And once it’s fully fermented no smell at all.

The bin is kind of important as it has a gap at the bottom for the juice to collect and a tap to drain it off periodically as well.