Compost bin advice

[jojosapphire]

Hi
I'm planning a kitchen garden for next year. No pint starting this year as we are having a extention at some point this year so lots of the garden will be wrecked!
So i was thinking it could be an advantage to start a compost bin ready for next years raised beds? What kind do you reccomend (on a tight budget due to extention) wooden / plastic etc. It will probably need to be moved at some point if that makes a difference..

[TimTamTerrier]

I have a Big Pig composter. It's like a barrel on legs and you turn it to make the compost decompose more quickly. Because it's on legs you can move it around if you need to. I don't know if they're still around, we've had ours for at least five years. I also don't know what they cost as it was a present. So, not all that helpful really, sorry.

[shovetheholly]

I have the bog standard plastic dalek. You can buy them cheap from your local council in most areas - think they're usually £20 or so.

[jojosapphire]

Thank you will call the morning as nothing on their website. Not sure I'm ready to invest in a spinning one just yet and wont really need any compost for a year so slow is fine. Im thinking fill it up then when most of its ready use it and then move it to its permanent position... I did have an idea in the night (as you do) that as our council are changing over from green bags (made like tarpaulin) to a freen weelie bin that perhaps i could use one of our green bags as a tempory compost heap... One has a hole in the bottom already, would i need to cover the top to stop rain getting in? Though wil probably need something larger by Autumn as we will have a lot of apple leaves and windfalls that im thonking would be good to compost. We sent off at least 4 bags full as green waste last year!

[ElleDubloo]

The rotating ones are expensive, but I bought mine from ebay from someone local, for £35 (which I think is just under half of the retail price). It's been amazing. Stuff composts really fast and I still haven't managed to fill it up despite composting EVERYTHING (family of 3 using it for 8 months) because stuff just decomposes and shrinks down.

I also have a basic green bin and a black bin, which we inherited in the garden, both of which are half-filled. I'm struggling to find the motivation to find a large stick and turn the contents. I'm sure they're not as well rotted as the rotating bin.

[ImaginaryCat]

Are you all really good at stirring the contents of the stationary bins? I've got 4, and must confess my reason for not stirring the contents..... I don't want to risk hurting the bugs who are kindly mulching it down for me! How pathetic is that? I sound like a total hippy Jain, when actually I'm not even a veggie. I just feel for the slugs, snails, worms and ants who live in there and are chomping through it all.