WouldBe
Dislicksick
Get a balaclava, wait until dark then nick it.
anyone built a (wooden) composting bin?
- Thread starter bimble
- Start date
Not that exact thing, but I’ve had something very similar in the past and you’d need to cut stuff like you suggest up into smaller bits to rot down. It did work though. It depends how much space you’ve got.
Yep, a stackable one would be good in my teeny home garden, alex_ . I cart all my stuff to the allotment though, where I can be a bit more casual and untidy, chucking stuff in willy-nilly. I have been making room for a wormery for my.kitchen waste though. Does anyone have any views on gaps in the sides? I have heard an argument for ventilation but I prefer having solid sides because my great struggle, in arid East Anglia, is stopping my heaps from drying out. Without plentiful irrigation, I end up with dry, sere heaps which take forever to rot down...while woody stuff just hangs around for years. I think it all depends on knowing what sort of gardener/composter you are...and how much effort you are going to expend. I have a friend who has half a dozen of those black plastic ones which produce a plentiful supply of lovely fine compost... but he is completely OCD about chopping, turning, aerating and riddling (none of which I do cos I am slapdash and idle). I do get to wee on mine though.
Most of my work compost bins are gapless and I stick flattened out cardboard boxes down the sides of my gappy pallet bays.
bimble
floofy
going to make a start by bodging up something big but flimsy today just to put dry leaves in, Living here (in a forest) means absolutely massive quantities of leaves over the next month/two and i don't want to do what i did last year which was leave them where they fell until they turned into a squidgy sludge.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
My dad's being using bodged compost bins for decades. Free standing with just any old wood nailed together. Last time he made / repaired one he used an off cut of chipboard flooring that I didn't think would last long but that was about 2 years ago.i do love bodging things, bish bosh i now have a rickety frame to chuck leaves in but it is by no means a composting bin.
nogojones
spelling is overrated
Leafmould is a good way of getting rid of large amounts of fallen leaf. A tiny bit of prep and then leave it to do its thing.
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
Quite hard to make something rat proof. A solid floor and impermeable lower layers in the wall of the construction can help, main thing is don’t put any edibles on the heap get them gooped down before you Chuck them with a kitchen composter
And top tip from my auld fella (life time allotmenter and chairman of allotement committees) when you do fork/turn the compost have strong elastic bands on your trouser legs
bimble
floofy
prep what prep
nogojones
spelling is overrated
spray with watering can, chuck in a bin bag and poke the bin bag a couple of times with a fork and forget for a year. Even as a certified lazy, I can stretch to thisprep what prep
Fine, just squish them down and keep them damp
davesgcr
Reading books
We did this last year , to good effect. About 12 black bags worth which was eventually spread around the borders and under the hedges. Great mulch.
I make leafmould and am always astonished at how much it diminishes over a couple of seasons. (to about a 20th of the original volume) . iI takes a bit longer for leaves to fully rot down because of lignification and the slower fungal processes rather than the faster bacterial action in a compost heap. - 2 seasons in an open container but what you get at the end is truly gold. I would never waste this on my borders but I sieve it and mix with loam for the very best seed starter mix...ever. I have only my own sketchy observations for this but have become convinced that leafmould aids the growth of mychorrhizae...which kickstarts germination especially for some intractable seeds such as dalea, rhexia, and callirhoe. It also makes a terrific addition to potting mix used in containers. For me, this is absolutely invaluable since most of my home garden is containerised so I struggle to find a middle way between using clean loamy topsoil...which is not just inert and lifeless. The addition of leafmould is a sort of active life starter and is more reliable than adding those spendy packets of mycchorhizal granules.
Some leaves rot faster than others - beech and oak are slow to rot down but makes the most wonderful leafmould, Sycamore,, ash, willow, poplar otoh, rots down quickly...and I generally just toss them into the general compost pile.
Some leaves rot faster than others - beech and oak are slow to rot down but makes the most wonderful leafmould, Sycamore,, ash, willow, poplar otoh, rots down quickly...and I generally just toss them into the general compost pile.
Pretty sure I've been taught this as a definite scientifically proven thing.
(Incidentally, came across a product on the agroforestry research trust website which is like rootgrow only an edible fungus mix. I was sceptical but people I know, who know whatsisface the ART bloke, reckon he wouldn't be selling it if it didn't really work. Gonna give it a try with my forest garden customer this winter)
bimble
floofy
i bought a little bag of that mycchorhizal stuff, for my Rose (the one as recommended by you campanula) and it is so happy, the rose, has now got one tentacle almost all the way up to an upstairs window, in year one, from a bare little stumpylooking thing, putting out heavy heady scented blooms whilst it was doing it.
Don't even need to untie them, the orange one's usually just looped round a nail when someone hasn't helpfully "fixed" it.
It definitely works as a bodge job even if you end up building a proper set of slatted bays later.
Yep, I have used mycchorhizal granules too, bimble (fuck me, I have had a different spelling every time I write that word)...but if I can get a good result for free, with stuff found on the ground, then I know what I prefer to use.
Yep, iona, I had compost bins exactly so but they eventually all slewed over until I decided enough was enough and I was going to make something which had a bit more stability. But hey, isn't that the most gorgeous thing about gardening - so many ways to go about it and so accessible for pretty much everyone, even just a bean in a jam-jar.
I don't have any 'front'...just a sort of open bay with a central divider. My heaps are around 5-6 foot wide and have a mountainous footprint. I mostly love heaving stuff around with a hayfork (practicing my tossing).
Yep, iona, I had compost bins exactly so but they eventually all slewed over until I decided enough was enough and I was going to make something which had a bit more stability. But hey, isn't that the most gorgeous thing about gardening - so many ways to go about it and so accessible for pretty much everyone, even just a bean in a jam-jar.
I don't have any 'front'...just a sort of open bay with a central divider. My heaps are around 5-6 foot wide and have a mountainous footprint. I mostly love heaving stuff around with a hayfork (practicing my tossing).
Proper lazy method - in one of my work gardens we do a lot of chop n drop (cut stuff down, strew it about the place to mulch/compost where it lands) but anything really nasty like brambles/bindweed/nettles gone to seed, you get a fork and hoy it onto The Heap Of Doom 
Current HOD is about ten foot tall so far.
Current HOD is about ten foot tall so far.trash mulching - me too. Especially cos my soil is basically a bit rubbish, I try to avoid leaving any of it open to the weather. Mind, I am also lazy. My current heaps are taller than I am...and I have barely started the winter clearing/pruning and removal of fallen over stems.
I finally gave up waiting for a killing frost and just set about hacking in my tiny home garden...just so I can actually get to the gate or greenhouse. Brutally chopped off heaps of salvias, dahlias, nicotiana, gaura, cosmos, japanese anemones and almost all the lemon verbena. Got a heap of seedlings up already in the greenhouse (larkspur, heliophilus, centaureas, bupleurum, vaccaria, wallflowers... I start sowing all the hardy perennials and sweet peas around my birthday (this week) so the greenhouse will be filled by the end of next week...which also means ripping out the tomatoes, so I can put all the tenderish plants under glass (although still missing a coupla panes after a football incident this summer).
I have a couple of bags of something called symbio humic booster and a whole lot of zeolite and biochar. I used to be a lot more up for various experiments (such as bubbling oxygenated molasses and shit like that) but have gotten completely lost with what pots have what additions and so on.
Remember rockdust? I definitely remember making some home-made fungal stuff from a Sunseed site...and loads of whiffy potions using comfrey, nettles and such.
I finally gave up waiting for a killing frost and just set about hacking in my tiny home garden...just so I can actually get to the gate or greenhouse. Brutally chopped off heaps of salvias, dahlias, nicotiana, gaura, cosmos, japanese anemones and almost all the lemon verbena. Got a heap of seedlings up already in the greenhouse (larkspur, heliophilus, centaureas, bupleurum, vaccaria, wallflowers... I start sowing all the hardy perennials and sweet peas around my birthday (this week) so the greenhouse will be filled by the end of next week...which also means ripping out the tomatoes, so I can put all the tenderish plants under glass (although still missing a coupla panes after a football incident this summer).
I have a couple of bags of something called symbio humic booster and a whole lot of zeolite and biochar. I used to be a lot more up for various experiments (such as bubbling oxygenated molasses and shit like that) but have gotten completely lost with what pots have what additions and so on.
Remember rockdust? I definitely remember making some home-made fungal stuff from a Sunseed site...and loads of whiffy potions using comfrey, nettles and such.
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StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
I put all sorts of stuff that some purists might say you shouldn't compost ...
Such as thin woody twigs, some thin pruning's, seed heads and weed tap roots, even nettles.
Some ash out of the wood burner and the garden incinerator - that gets the thicker stuff.
The mix is leavened with masses of grass clippings. The last runover also scooped up a fair few leaves ...
When I'm weeding or digging over, any worms I "catch" are added to the heap.
I'm planning another leaf collection later in the year - mainly Ash, Beech and Oak - I try to keep pine needles & cones separate.
The only thing I avoid adding is actively diseased material - that gets burnt in the incinerator, during the middle, very hot stage.
It all rots down.
Such as thin woody twigs, some thin pruning's, seed heads and weed tap roots, even nettles.
Some ash out of the wood burner and the garden incinerator - that gets the thicker stuff.
The mix is leavened with masses of grass clippings. The last runover also scooped up a fair few leaves ...
When I'm weeding or digging over, any worms I "catch" are added to the heap.
I'm planning another leaf collection later in the year - mainly Ash, Beech and Oak - I try to keep pine needles & cones separate.
The only thing I avoid adding is actively diseased material - that gets burnt in the incinerator, during the middle, very hot stage.
It all rots down.
No but you can start them off for stronger plants and earlier flowers next year
I use it as a soil improver for the vegetable gardens, iona. Since not using manure, I have had a really difficult time maintaining soil fertility as my allotment is basically stony sand. Great for the sorts of semi-wild flowers I love but hopeless for high nutrient demands of potatoes, beans and so on. My raised beds more or less consist of the once used soil from the weed-growing, (John Innes 3) with whatever additional humus I can add. Compost is a nice structural addition but does bugger all for nutrients whereas biochar and to a lesser extent, stuff like the zeolite, seems to maintain fertility across several seasons. So, especially for my main crops (tomatoes and potatoes), I dump a top-dressing of once used loam, compost, terra preta and spent mushroom compost (I get from a friend who does actually raise mushrooms on a barley straw substrate) on top of the beds across the whole growing season. I could use spent hops too but I think rats are a bit keen. I don't dig these beds but plant the potatoes quite shallowly with a bulb-planter then increase the depth over the whole season. I can get through a couple of tonnes of compost, as well as additions, just maintaining a deep enough covering to avoid greening. It is all very bouncy, fluffy and friable though.-weeds just slip out with a poke of the hori-hori. (even mallow).
I am not very scientific about any of this, simply making use of whatever comes my way and keeping my fingers crossed...and because I am only using a 2 year rotation (because space), I try to keep adding as much fresh soil every year. I used to use chicken manure pellets and that 6X stuff but really couldn't be doing with the whiffiness of it all. I do have to use additional granular ferts around heavy feeders like blackcurrants. (and dahlias).
I don't love growing vegetables and am losing the fruit battle most years, (because I hate to use nets) so I only have around a quarter of an allotment for annual veggies - the rest being permanent stuff like trees, roses, the remaining fruit bushes and, of course, flowers.
Oh yeah, in spring,I also scrape off the top coupla inches of most of the containers in my home garden, and top them up with more of the JI3 and biochar (or whatever)...and add a bit in when I do the yearly auricula repotting. I think it keeps the pots from becoming compacyted and sour. It looks a lot like the old, unimproved black carr soil of the fens and, I think, actually cured a largish patch of verticillium which plagued one area of my plot. I have monster tree paeonies growing there now.
Lucky you - having reliable sources of useful stuff is a complete bonus.
I am not very scientific about any of this, simply making use of whatever comes my way and keeping my fingers crossed...and because I am only using a 2 year rotation (because space), I try to keep adding as much fresh soil every year. I used to use chicken manure pellets and that 6X stuff but really couldn't be doing with the whiffiness of it all. I do have to use additional granular ferts around heavy feeders like blackcurrants. (and dahlias).
I don't love growing vegetables and am losing the fruit battle most years, (because I hate to use nets) so I only have around a quarter of an allotment for annual veggies - the rest being permanent stuff like trees, roses, the remaining fruit bushes and, of course, flowers.
Oh yeah, in spring,I also scrape off the top coupla inches of most of the containers in my home garden, and top them up with more of the JI3 and biochar (or whatever)...and add a bit in when I do the yearly auricula repotting. I think it keeps the pots from becoming compacyted and sour. It looks a lot like the old, unimproved black carr soil of the fens and, I think, actually cured a largish patch of verticillium which plagued one area of my plot. I have monster tree paeonies growing there now.
Lucky you - having reliable sources of useful stuff is a complete bonus.
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